Adults' ability to detect deception of stressful and non-stressful stories of children

Abstract

This study examined adults' ability to detect deception of children who provided true and fabricated descriptions of stressful and non-stressful events. Observers viewed video clips of children telling four different stories (true non-stressful, true stressful, false non-stressful, false stressful). The story conditions were presented by either four different children (Study 1), or by the same child (Study 2). Results indicate that overall accuracy of discriminating non-stressful events is greater when viewing stories given by the same child (above chance levels) compared to four different children (at chance levels). However no differences occur for stressful events. The current study supports the need for ecologically valid research examining the content of children's reports.

Keywords:

• child witness testimony
• lie detection