Detecting Deception

Who Lies?

Everybody lies
 “Man was given a tongue with which
to speak and words to hide his
thoughts.”
(Hungarian Proverb)
Number of college students who admitted
lying to a potential sex partner

92%
(Knox et al., 1993)
 Type of Sexual Lies
Most frequent lie both sexes?
Number of previous sex partners

Men
I love you

Women
Sexually gratified
 Extramarital Affairs

American and British married persons

2/3 to ¾
 Obtaining Jobs
Number who “varnish the truth”

1/3

(Underwood, 1993)
 Obtaining Jobs: Types of Lies
 College degrees
 Stretching employment periods to hide
unemployment
Men
Played on college football team

Women
President of sorority
 Advertising
“We’re conceived, born, and deceived.
By the time someone reaches the age of
10, he’s pretty cynical.”

(Jerry Della Femina, advertising executive

quoted in McLoughlin et al., 1987, p. 59)
 Political Lies
 Lies to get elected

 Lies to gain support for policy

 Lies to protect national security

 Stupid lies
 Medical Students
How many cheated on exams?

10%
 Patients
Number of psychiatrically hospitalized
patients who lied about using drugs?

60%

(Blumberg et al., 1971)

 Dodgy Scientists
 Isaac Newton fudged data
 Louis Pasteur used another’s vaccine
 Gregor Mendel fudged data
 Charles Darwin used others’ theories
without credit
 Robert Millikan only used data that
supported his theories
 Cyril Burt fudged data
Question is not do they lie
But
Why?
How much?
How well?
 Sex Offenders:
Con Men or Liars?
 Liars & Con Men
 Liars Specific lie(s)

 Con Man Lies

Persona
Relationship
 Ferdinand Demara
Posed as
 Physician in Royal Canadian Navy

 Removed a bullet within half an inch

of the heart

 Removed a lung
 Ferdinand Demara
Posed as

 Teacher
 Ph.D. in psychology
 College dean
 Assistant warden of a Texas prison
 Joined and deserted from US army & navy
“I am a superior sort of liar. I don’t
tell any truth at all, so then my story
has unity of parts, a structural
integrity, and this sounds more like
the truth than the truth itself.”
(Con man Ferdinand Demara quoted in
Crichton, 1968, p. 92)
Detecting Deception
General Principles
 Good and Bad Lie Detectors

Good Lie Detectors

 More likely to use nonverbal alone or
in relation to speech

 Good at reading micro-expressions

Bad Lie Detectors

 Used speech alone
(Ekman & O’Sullivan, 1991)
 Sex Differences
Women

 Better at reading nonverbal clues

 Better at telling how people are

feeling who are telling the truth

 No better at detecting deception

(DePaulo et al., 1993)
 Good Liars
 Practiced Liars

 Natural Liars

 Psychopaths
 Detection Apprehension
 High Stakes Up
Suspicious Target

 Low Stakes
Gullible Target Down
 Detection Apprehension
Greatest

 Target reputation for being touch to fool

 Target suspicious
 Liar little practice and no record of success
 Stakes high
 Punishment, not just reward, at stake
 Punishment is great
 Target in no way benefits from lie
(Ekman, 2009)
 “A statement should not whisper
deceit; it should shout it.” Avinoam
Sapir

 “A lie catcher should never rely upon

one clue to deceit; there must be
many.” (Ekman, 2009, p. 147)
 Common Error in Detecting
Lying

 Othello error – misinterpreting emotion


What Detects Lying?

Gaze Aversion?

Fidgeting?
 Fidgeting
Viewed as a sign lying
Gaze Aversion

 Sadness
 Nervousness
 Embarrassment
 Guilt
 Disgust
 Gaze Aversion
“Even the guilty liar probably won’t avert his
gaze much, since liars know that everyone
expects to be able to detect deception in
this way. . . Amazingly, people continue to
be misled by liars skillful enough to not
avert their gaze.”
  (Ekman, 1992, p. 141)
“At times there was a great amount of
shame for being deceitful. At times there
was a great amount of pride: well, I pulled
this one off again. You’re a good one.
You’re very capable of doing this. It works
for you. There were times when little old
ladies would pat me on the back and say,
‘You’re one of the best young men that I
ever have known.’ I would think back and
think, ‘If you really knew me you wouldn’t
say that.’”
“To begin with, how I felt about fooling
people is what’s really hard to describe. I
felt ashamed. For lack of a better word to
describe it. Because I knew these people
were trusting me. . . When I would lie to
them, to start with I felt a lot of shame.
But eventually, I had lied so much to, the
shame element was no longer there. It
was just a matter of keeping my tail
covered. Keeping everything covered up.”
 Psychopaths
“There is agreement that neither guilt
about lying nor fear of being caught
will cause a psychopath to make
mistakes when he lies.”
(Ekman, 2009)
Feelings of Psychopaths When Lying
 Excitement
 Relief at being believed

 Contempt

 Pride
20 Years of Research on Lying
• People rarely get above 60%
accuracy

• Some groups worse than chance

(Ekman, 1992)
 Who Can’t Tell
 CIA
 FBI

 ATF

 Police

 DEA

 Forensic psychiatrists

 Custom Officials

 Police

 Judges

 Lawyers

(Ekman, 1991)
 Who Can’t Tell?
 Customs inspectors vs. college students)
(Kraut & Poe, 1980)

 Federal law enforcement officers vs

students
(DePaulo & Pfeifer, 1986)

 Police officers no better than chance

(Kohnken, 1987)
 Who Can’t Tell
Group % Above Chance

 Secret Service 29%

 Psychiatrists 12%

(Ekman, 1991)
Top Lie Detectors
Very few

85% accuracy
(Ekman, 2009)
 Federal law enforcement officers

More Confident Than College Students

No More Accurate

(DePaulo & Pfeifer, 1986)

 Accuracy
What Didn’t Make a Difference

Age
Sex
Years of Job Experience

(Ekman, 1991)
 Accuracy
Polygraphers & Secret Service

Worse as Got Older

(Ekman, 1991)
 Which Signs of Deception
Work?
 Signs the liar doesn’t know to
fake

 Signs the liar can’t fake

What Are You Detecting?
 Deception?

 Emotional leakage?
“There is no sign of deceit itself.”
(Ekman, 2009,p. 80)
 Emotions Involved in Lying
 Fear of being caught

 Guilt about lying

 Guilt about behavior

 Duping delight
 Fear
 Fear of not being believed

 Fear of being caught

Channels of Communication
 Face

 Words

 Voice Characteristics

 Body Language
 Facial Expressions
 Automatic Expressions
 Automatic Expressions
Sadness

 Inner corner of eyebrow raises, not

full brow

 15% voluntarily

(Ekman, 1992)
 Automatic Expressions
Worry, Apprehension, Fear
 Both eyebrows raise and pull
together

 10% voluntarily

(Ekman, 1992)
 Emotions and Their
Eyebrow/Eyelid Fakeability
Hard
Fear, worry, apprehension, terror
Sadness, grief, distress

Easy
Anger, surprise
Most Reliable Facial Muscles
Forehead
 Anger
 Reliable: Narrowing of lips
 Facial Expressions

 Micro-Expressions - 1/25”
Micro Expression Training Tool

http://www.mettonline.com/products.
aspx
 Facial Expressions

 Squelched Expressions
 Facial Expressions
 Asymmetry
 Asymmetry
Voluntary Expressions

 Brow-lowering in anger stronger on left

 Nose-wrinkling in disgust stronger on right

 Stretching of lips back towards ears in fear

are stronger on right
 Facial Expressions
 Timing
Which Emotion is Shortest?

 Surprise 1 second
Duration of Emotion

5 seconds

Likely Phony

10 seconds

Almost Definitely
 Bad Timing
Affect should be on face

Before or at start of words

 Detecting Deception

 More speech hesitations

 More changes in pitch

 More pupil dilation

(DePaulo et al., 1985; Zucker & Driver,

1984)
 Body Language
 Emblems

 Illustrators
 Emblems
 Wave goodbye  Crazy (circle ear)
 Thumbs up  Praying
 Thumbs down  Sleeping
 Come here  Middle finger
 Hitchhiking
 Peace
Channels of Communication
 Face

 Words

 Voice Characteristics

 Body Language
 Detecting Deception: Language
Deception statements contain:

 Negative statements
 Irrelevant information
 Over-generalized statements
 Less personally relevant information
 Voice Characteristics
Upset Pitch Rises

Sad Pitch Drops

Angry Louder/faster
 Nurse Study
Least Accurate
 Face

 Words
 Nurse Study:
Most Accurate

 Body

 Correct 65% of time

 Communication
Body Language 65%
Verbal content 7%
Voice quality 12%
Mixture odors, chemical
changes, etc. 16%
(Walters, 1996)
 Nurse Study
96% accuracy

 Voice Characteristics: Rise in Pitch

 Face: Miserable Smiles

 Detecting Deception
False Smiles

No involvement of eyes or eyebrow

More asymmetrical

Offset not smooth

 Facial Action Coding System
(FACS)
 44 Action Units
30 Contraction of Specific Muscles
E.g.., Frontalis, pars medialis
Inner Corner of Eyebrow Raised
13 Unspecified
E.g.., Jaw Thrust
 7000 Combinations Observed
Comprehensive Coding Systems
for Emotional Recognition

10 Hours of Coding Time Per

Minute of Behavior
(Ekman, 1992)
Computerized Analysis of Facial
Expressions

 96.7% Accurate

(Tian et al.,2000)
Pitt- CMU Au-Coded Face
Expression Database

 N = 210
 69% Female; 31% Male
 81% Euro-Americans
 13% Afro-American
 6% Other
 Age 18 to 50
(Kanade et al., 2000)
 Same Behavior – Different
Listening
Listener Behavior: Hesitation

Suspicious Increased suspicion

Wants to believe Increased trust

(Kraut, 1978)
Can People Learn to Detect Lying?
 Disguised smiling
 Lack of head movement
 Increased rate of fidgeting
 Increased pitch
 Reduced rate of speech
 Pause fillers (“uh,” “er”)
 Less congruent nonverbal behavior from the
various communication channels
(Zuckerman & Driver, 1984)
Role of Training & Experience
True Statements

All groups more accurate with more

experience, particularly with training
and feedback

Feedback less of a difference than

expected