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The first aim of Study 3 was to investigate which of the verbal cues reported by the accurate participants in Study 1 (notwithstanding that some of these cues were also identified in previous research), reliably discriminated between honest and deceptive appealers. Of the 12 verbal cues suggested by Study 1, four were found to discriminate significantly between honest and deceptive appealers, with a further seven cues having large effect sizes in the expected direction, suggesting that the verbal cues identified by the accurate participants in Study 1 have some utility. Of

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the verbal cues included which were suggested by previous research on high stakes deception, repetition was found to discriminate significantly between honest and deceptive appealers, and filled pauses had a large effect size in the expected direction. As hypothesised, the case by case analyses yielded high accuracy rates, suggesting that combining cues to investigate clusters of behaviour may be a productive approach in discriminating between liars and truth-tellers. Neither subjective observer ratings of cues alone, frequency counts of verbal cues alone, nor a combination of subjective observer ratings and frequency counts of verbal cues, proved to be more effective at discriminating between honest and deceptive appeals, suggesting that all channels of behaviour provide useful information.

7.4. General Discussion

To recap, the first aim of the present two studies was to investigate which of the cues reportedly used by participants accurate at detecting deception in Study 1, could reliably discriminate between honest and deceptive appeals. Overall, 19 individual cues suggested by the participants in Study 1 were found to discriminate between liars and truth-tellers, with a further 23 cues having large but non-significant effect sizes in the expected direction. This suggests that the methodology of investigating cues used by accurate participants may have some utility. Repetition, a cue suggested by previous research on high stakes lies, was also found to discriminate between deceptive and honest appeals.

The importance of assessing verbal behaviour with frequency counts as well as participant ratings became apparent as two cues (positive emotion expressed

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towards the relative, and deletion of first person singular pronouns) which did not achieve inter-rater reliability in Study 2 (and were therefore dropped from further analysis), emerged as significant cues in Study 3. Two cues (focusing on others, and does not make sense) which had large but non-significant effect sizes in Study 2, were found to discriminate significantly between liars and truth-tellers in study 3, and a further two cues (using brutal language/detail, and avoiding using brutal language/detail) were found to have large effect sizes in the expected direction in the verbal frequency counts but not in the subjective observer ratings. It thus seems likely that some verbal cues are more suited to frequency counts than subjective observer ratings.

Of the cues investigated, those relating to emotional authenticity, distancing, and personal reaction emerged as particularly useful. In Study 2, of the ten cues related to emotional authenticity, seven discriminated significantly/marginally significantly between liars and truth-tellers, and a further two had large effect sizes in the expected direction. The salience of this category suggests two important implications: first, observers are able to distinguish between fake and genuine emotion, and second, fake emotion is a good indication of deception in this context. The deceptive appealers’ use of fake emotion is presumably an attempt to appear honest by displaying the appropriate emotion of a concerned or grieving relative, and Ekman (2001) further suggests that liars may falsify a strong display of emotion as a strategy for masking a lie. The observers in Study 2 were able to make accurate overall judgements of fake and genuine emotion (on cues such as ‘fake emotion’, ‘genuinely sad’ and ‘putting on a performance’), which is in line with previous findings that accuracy in judging liars is related to overall judgements of fake emotions (Vrij & Mann, 2001b). However, they were also able to make more

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specific judgements on facial expression (fake facial expression, genuine facial expression, and sad eyes). As previously noted, this has relevance to the findings of ten Brinke and Porter’s (2012) recent study in which the facial expressions of people making honest and deceptive appeals were analysed, frame by frame, using a facial coding system. They found that facial expressions related to disgust, distress, surprise and happiness discriminated between honest and deceptive appealers. The present results further suggest that untrained observers are able to detect differences between fake and genuine facial expressions in real time, and that these differences are useful in detecting deception in this context.

The finding that high vocal pitch was associated with deception is, as noted previously, in line with meta-analytic findings (DePaulo et al., 2003), and with previous research on high stakes lies (Hall, 1986), and is usually explained in terms of factors such as arousal, tension and anxiety (DePaulo et al., 2003; Vrij, 2004). However, it could be argued that anyone making an appeal for help with a missing or murdered relative, whether honest or deceptive, is likely to have elevated levels of tension and anxiety, and thus one might expect honest appealers to also have a high vocal pitch, at least to some degree. It could be that in the context of an honest appeal, sadness becomes the more salient emotional response, and sadness is typified by a low vocal pitch (Murray & Arnott, 1993).

Cues related to distancing were important indicators of deception in the context of appeals, and, as previously discussed, this is in line with the theoretical suggestions of several researchers (Buller & Burgoon, 1996; Ekman, 2001; Zuckerman et al., 1981) that liars will communicate in more evasive and indirect ways than truth-tellers, in an attempt to distance themselves from their own deceptive communication.

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In this context, the emergence of both gaze aversion and credible eye contact as significantly/marginally significantly discriminating variables between liars and truth-tellers, with large effect sizes, is particularly interesting, given that previous research in low stakes deception situations has shown that gaze aversion is not related to deception (DePaulo et al., 2003), or even that liars may increase eye contact in an attempt to appear honest, or monitor how their receiver is responding to their lies (Mann et al., 2012). However, as noted earlier, there are a variety of a priori reasons why we might expect gaze aversion to increase with deception in high stakes contexts; these include reactions to feelings of shame and guilt (DePaulo et al., 2003; Ekman, 2001), emotions that may be particularly relevant in the context of somebody who is lying about killing their own relative. However, particularly in the present context, it is possible that increased gaze aversion may also be used as a form of distancing behaviour. Honest appeals are likely to be a genuine attempt to communicate with the public and ask for help, hence honest appealers are more likely to behave in a way that facilitates this communication; for example, by using direct eye contact. Nevertheless, the motivation of deceptive appealers is clearly not the same, as they do not actually want the public to assist in finding out what happened to their relative. Deceptive appealers may, therefore, produce behaviours that inhibit direct communication, such as, gaze aversion.

Two of the cues that could be construed as related to distancing that discriminated between liars and truth-tellers may have specific relevance to the particular context of making an appeal; these are, focusing on others, and lists, both of which may serve to distance the liar from the subject of their speech (i.e. their relative). The non-significant but large effect sizes for the cues ‘equivocation’, and ‘irrelevant/generic statements’, lend some further support to the theoretical proposal

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that deception may be associated with linguistic constructions that distance the liar from the subject of their speech. Conversely, the cue ‘positive emotion expressed towards the relative’, which was associated with honesty in the specific context of appeals, could be regarded as functioning in the opposite way, so that rather than dissociating the appealer from their relative, it indicates engagement.

It has been suggested by Sapir (1987), as part of his scientific content analysis technique, that the deletion of first person singular pronouns is also indicative of a lack of commitment and responsibility for what is being said. However, findings regarding this cue are mixed; as noted in Chapter 6, some studies have supported this proposal (for example, Newman et al., 2003; Dilmon, 2009), whilst others have not (for example, Porter & Yuille, 1996); also, meta-analytic findings do not offer support for the idea (DePaulo et al., 2003). It may be that the deletion of first person singular pronouns is a cue that only emerges in specific contexts.

Cues related to the personal reaction of the observers produced results which are notable for two reasons. First, even though the cues were entirely subjective, seven of the eight cues related to personal reaction in Study 2 achieved significant inter-rater reliability, suggesting that acceptable levels of consensus may exist even for highly subjective cues. Second, all the cues analysed had large effect sizes in the expected direction, suggesting that personal reactions may be useful in discriminating between liars and truth-tellers.

As noted in Chapter 6, there are several possible explanations for this effect. For example, Hatfield et al.’s (1992) theory of emotional contagion suggests that our tendency to automatically mimic the facial, vocal and postural behaviours of people we are watching results in feedback, which causes us to experience pale reflections

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of the emotions felt by the people we are watching. Moreover, recent research on mirror neurons suggests that we have mirroring mechanisms with which we respond to other people’s experiences (Mukamel, Ekstrom, Kaplan, Iacoboni & Fried, 2010). The present results suggest that this emotional synchronisation effect may occur for genuine emotions but not for faked emotions: observers demonstrated a significant lack of sympathy for deceptive appealers, but not honest appealers. Deceptive appealers were also rated as being significantly more ‘creepy’ than honest appealers. This could be construed as in line with Zuckerman et al.’s (1981) proposal that, because they express negative feelings of guilt or fear, liars may appear and sound more unpleasant than truth-tellers. On similar lines, De Paulo et al.’s (2003) self- presentation theory predicts that due to moral qualms, anxiety and negativity, a lack of personal investment, and attempts at behavioural control, liars will appear less pleasant than truth-tellers. Accordingly, in their meta-analysis they found that all cues assessing pleasantness produced results in the predicted direction. It would seem, therefore, that subjective personal reactions may have some value in discriminating between liars and truth-tellers.

Regarding cues relating to a lack of emotion, it is interesting to note that whilst observers were good at distinguishing fake emotion from genuine emotion, a perceived lack of emotion proved to be less predictive overall. Previous researchers have suggested that a perceived lack of emotion may result from liars’ efforts to control their behaviour and prevent leakage, and this attempt at impression management may result in their behaviour appearing rigid or inhibited (Vrij, 2004). However, in the present research, the cue ‘containing emotion’, which involves controlling behaviour, was related, as expected, to honesty, not to deception. This finding does not sit comfortably with the theory that liars control their behaviour

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more than truth-tellers. It is possible that, in the specific context of making appeals, attempts to control behaviour may be the result of factors other than deception (for example, being uncomfortable on camera, or, in the case of honest appealers, a determination to get their plea for help across). On the whole, it would seem that in the specific context of appeals, fake emotion may be more important in the detection of deception than signs of controlling behaviour and lack of emotion.

Cues relating to plausibility also emerged as useful in discriminating between deceptive and honest appeals. The finding that the cue ‘does not make sense’ discriminated between deceptive and honest appeals is in line with both meta- analytic findings that lies make less sense than truths (DePaulo et al, 2003), and with the more specific finding that in 911 homicide calls, conflicting facts predicted deception (Harpster et al., 2009). Furthermore, a particular behaviour emerged in Study 2 that may have specific relevance to the context of making an appeal. In cases where the relative is missing and no body had been found, honest appealers were rated significantly higher than deceptive appealers on the cue ‘hopeful’, and conversely deceptive appealers were rated significantly higher than honest appealers on the cue ‘lack of hope’. While this cue is clearly context-specific, it may be applicable in other specified contexts; for example, Harpster et al. (2009) found in their analysis of 911 homicide calls, that acceptance of death was significantly related to guilt, and this is very similar to a lack of hope of finding the relative alive in an appeal.

The results of the case by case analyses were also promising, suggesting that, as hypothesised, the more cues to deception that a person exhibits, the more likely he/she is to be lying. In deception research in general, few cues are found which consistently and reliably discriminate between liars and truth-tellers (DePaulo et al,

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2003), presumably because individual liars are unlikely to produce all the behaviours associated with deception and thus significant findings tend to be patchy. However, the examination of cues in combination to investigate clusters of behaviour may be more successful in discriminating between liars and truth-tellers, as this approach allows for individual variations in behaviour, whilst still detecting a cumulative effect. For the assessment of whether an individual case was honest or deceptive, a combination of the subjective observer ratings and frequency counts of verbal cues produced high ‘hit’ rates, with seven of the nine cases yielding ‘hit’ rates above 87%. Interestingly, the two cases (cases 4 and 5) which yielded low ‘hit’ rates in Study 2 (38% and 46% respectively), both yielded ‘hit’ rates of 100% in Study 3. This supports the proposal of a number of previous researchers (for example, O’Sullivan & Ekman, 2004), that it is important to utilise multiple channels when attempting to detect deception.

As hypothesised, the observers’ credibility judgements in Study 2 were accurate well above the level of chance, and the average accuracy of 75% is in line with other studies using real life, high stakes lies as stimulus materials (Mann & Vrij, 2006; Mann et al., 2006; Vrij et al., 2006). This suggests that the use of real life, high stakes stimulus materials may have an effect on observers’ ability to discriminate between honesty and deception. However, the possibility that the observers achieved higher than usual accuracy rates because they were paying attention to cues that may be helpful in discriminating between deceptive and honest appeals, cannot be ruled out. Furthermore, the sample size of observers was clearly too small to draw any firm conclusions regarding accuracy. These issues are addressed more fully in Study 7 of the present thesis.

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It can be noted also that, of the cues found to discriminate significantly between liars and truth-tellers, several were previously uninvestigated cues that may have relevance to the specific context of making an appeal: putting on a performance, lists, a lack of hope, creepy, a lack of sympathy (all associated with deception); and containing emotion, hopeful and positive emotion expressed towards the relative (all related to honesty). Of the non-significant cues that nevertheless had large effect sizes, there were also several that were new and may relate specifically to appeals: pretending to cry, cold, focusing on others, defensive, and using brutal language (all related to deception); and calmness appropriate to speech content, normal, feeling sorry for the appealer, feeling the appealers’ pain, and avoiding brutal language, (all related to honesty).

However, clearly, a limitation of the present studies was the small sample size of appeals. The small sample size allowed the possibility that one or two cases (either deceptive or honest) may have unduly influenced the findings, and also resulted in a lack of power, so that cues with large effect sizes yielded non- significant results. Despite this, 20 cues were found to discriminate significantly between liars and truth-tellers, and a further 23 had large effect sizes in the expected direction, suggesting that in the context of making appeals, discernible patterns of deceptive and honest behaviour may exist. Furthermore, the high accuracy rates yielded in the case by case analyses suggest that combining these cues may be useful for classifying individual cases as deceptive or honest. Consequently, it was decided to repeat the investigation on a different sample of observers and with a larger sample of appeals.

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Chapter 8

Study 4: Subjective Observer Ratings of Cues to Deception