Online Efficacy of Cognitive Credibility Assessment

People sometimes lie by omitting information. The information lie tellers then reportcould be entirely truthful. We examined whether the truthful information that lietellers report in omission lies contains verbal cues indicating that the person is lying.We made a distinction between (i) essential information (events surrounding theomission) and non-essential information (the rest); and (ii) made a distinction betweeninforming or not informing participants about the key event they witnessed. Partici-pants followed a target person. Truth tellers reported all activities truthfully; lie tellersomitted the key event. Participants were or were not informed what this key eventwas. In the analyses we discarded the information truth tellers reported about thekey event lie tellers omitted. Truth tellers reported more external and contextualdetails, more complications and fewer common knowledge details and self-handicapping strategies than lie tellers, but only when discussing essential informa-tion. Being informed had no effect.

(From the journal abstract)

Leal, S., Vrij, A., Deeb, H., & Fisher, R. P. (2024). Verbal cues in omission lies: The effect of informing sources about the essential part of the event. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 38(4), e4232. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.4232

Asking interviewees to imagine talking to a ghostwriter results in more information and veracity cues than an instruction to be detailed (Leal et al., 2019). We examined reasons why the ghostwriter instruction worked: The ghostwriter determines (a) what to report/omit and (b) in which order to report the provided information. Taking away these decisions from the interviewee creates a more lenient output criterion for the interviewee of what to report. Participants discussed a trip they had made (truth tellers) or pretended to have made (lie tellers). Interviews took place under three conditions: control condition, ghostwriter condition where participants were asked to imagine talking to a ghostwriter, and enhanced ghostwriter condition where participants were also told what the benefits are of talking to a ghostwriter. The enhanced ghostwriter condition resulted in more information than the control condition. Most veracity cues emerged in the enhanced ghostwriter condition and fewest cues in the control condition.

(From the journal abstract)

Burkhardt, J., Vrij, A., Leal, S., Deeb, H., & Vernham, Z. (2024). “Tell me about your trip”: Introducing the enhanced ghostwriter lie detection tool. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/mac0000177

We examined the efficacy of a Model Statement to detect opinion lies. A total of93 participants discussed their opinion about the recent strikes on two occasions,1 week apart. In one interview they told the truth and in the other interview theylied. Each interview consisted of two phases. In Phase 1 they discussed their allegedopinion (truth or lie as appropriate). They then either listened to a Model Statement(a detailed account of someone discussing an opinion about a topic unrelated tostrike actions) and expressed their opinion again in Phase 2 (Model Statement pre-sent condition) or they discussed their opinion again without listening to a ModelStatement (Model Statement absent condition). The verbal cues examined were pro-opinion arguments, anti-opinion arguments, plausibility, immediacy, directness, clar-ity, and predictability. The truthful statements sounded more plausible in Phases1 and 2 than the deceptive statements, providing further evidence that plausibility isa strong veracity indicator. The truthful statements included more pro-argumentsand sounded more immediate and direct than the deceptive statements, but only inPhase 2. The Model Statement had no effect. Reasons for the Model Statement null-effect are discussed.

(From the journal abstract)

Mann, S., Vrij, A., & Deeb, H. (2024). Use of the model statement in determining the veracity of opinions. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 38(4), e4227. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.4227