Generation and Detection of True and False Alibi Statements

Abstract

This article reports two experiments focusing on two stages of the alibi process. In Experiment 1, participants generated a true or false alibi for one of two dates (short or long delay). Results showed that participants were most likely to report that they could get alibi corroboration from a motivated alibi witnesses regardless of whether they were being truthful or deceptive. Changes in details to the generated alibi were frequent for both true and false statements. In Experiment 2, individuals were asked to discriminate between true and false statements. The results indicated that participants were no better than chance at detecting lies. As has been seen with in other domains (e.g. eyewitness identification), confidence had no predictive power in distinguishing lies from true statements.

Key words:

• alibi
• alibi generation
• autobiographical memory
• deception detection

Acknowledgements

Thanks are extended to Amy Iberlin, Chelsie Hess, Lisa Wempen, Rosie Aguilar and Zulema Hermasillo for assistance with data collection.

Notes

1. Portions of Experiment 1 were presented as a paper at the 2007 annual American Psychology–Law Society conference in Jacksonville, Florida and as a poster at the 2007 Interrogations & Confessions: A Conference Exploring Research, Practice, and Policy in El Paso, TX. Portions of Experiment 2 were presented as a paper at the 2007 annual American Psychology-Law Society conference in Jacksonville, Florida.

2. The alibi category “at work” could not be compared, as only truthful alibis presented such statements. That is, no false alibi providers said “I was at work.”