Global cue usage in behavioral lie detection

Deception research is replete with findings indicating that lie detection rates barely exceed chance. This same research, however, offers comparatively fewer studies explaining this state of affairs. The present study examined lie detection cues used by participant‐observers who judged the veracity of communicators. After judging veracity, subjects reported specific cues they used as a basis for evaluating others' veracity. Judgmental cues were analyzed and coded according to four a priori content categories. Results indicated that subjects primarily used a communicator's verbal plausibility, nervousness, and nonverbal expectancy violation to guide their veracity judgments. Accuracy was higher for participants judging truthful communicators (M = . 70) than for subjects judging deceptive communicators (M = .54). As past research suggests, communicators attempting to deceive are difficult to detect. A truth bias and the use of global heuristics are discussed as possible explanations for why lie detection failed.

Key concepts:

• Communication
• deception
• lie detection
• heuristics
• nonverbals
• verbals
• information processing