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Research has shown that complications are more common in truth tellers’ statements than in lie tellers’ statements, but there is yet no experiment that examined lie detection accuracy when looking at complications. The current experiment tests this question. A total of 54 participants will be asked to read 10 transcripts (five truthful and five false) and to determine whether the transcripts are true or false. The transcripts will be randomly presented from a set of 59 transcripts generated from a previous study (Deeb et al., 2020) in which participants (senders) were asked to provide a free recall about a memorable event in an interview. In the current experiment, half of the participants (observers) will be asked to look at complications in the transcripts and the other half will not be given these instructions. Participants will determine on a dichotomous scale the veracity of each transcript. They will also be asked to highlight in the transcripts the details (and complications) that they rely on to make their judgments.

The study examines how lie tellers and truth tellers differ in their reports when presented with detailed and non-detailed maps

The current experiment aims to examine the effects of using countermeasures in interpreter-absent and interpreter-present interviews. Participants from Lebanon, Mexico and South Korea are interviewed in their native language by a native interviewer or by an English speaking interviewer through an interpreter (Interpreter factor). Half of the participants are telling the truth, the other half are lying (Veracity factor). Half of the participants read an article about verbal cues to deceit prior to the interview whereas the other half does not (Countermeasures factor). We examine the amount of information (total details) and the number of complications, common knowledge details and self-handicapping strategies provided. We also will code the plausibility of the stories.

The request to sketch and narrate has been shown to be an effective interview strategy for detecting deception in face-to-face interviews. The primary aim of the current study is to test whether the request to sketch and narrate in an interview is effective for detecting deception when interviewing remotely. The secondary aim of the study is to examine whether enabling the video function in the remote interview differs from disabling the video function (akin to a telephone interview). Participants will be asked to lie or tell the truth about a lost item in the past 24 months. They will either verbally report their claim (no sketch condition) or sketch and narrate their claim (sketch condition) while the video option is enable or disabled. We will examine total details and complications (details that make the event more complex than necessary).

Deception research has shown that the Devil’s Advocate Approach to interviewing is an effective tool to detect true and false opinions, and the Verifiability Approach is an effective tool for distinguishing activities of lie tellers and truth tellers. In the current experiment, we replicate Leal et al. (2010) on the Devil’s Advocate Approach and extend the Verifiability Approach to the detection of opinions while manipulating the order of questions of the two approaches. Participants will report in an interview their true or false opinions on a topic. Half of the participants will first be presented with the Devil’s Advocate Approach, so they will be asked for reasons that support their opinion (opinion eliciting question) followed by reasons that oppose their opinion (devil’s advocate question). They will then be presented with the Verifiability Approach in which they are asked to provide sources to verify their opinions. The other half of participants will also be presented with the two approaches but the order will be reversed (Verifiability Approach followed by the Devil’s Advocate Approach).

The current experiment aims to examine the effects of interview modality when suspects describe routes. Specifically, we will compare the effects of using (a) a printed map sketch with narration, (b) a self-generated map sketch with narration, and (c) a verbal statement without a map sketch on the amount and type of details provided in interviews. A total of 210 participants will carry out a mission and will then be instructed to tell the truth or to lie about it to an interviewer. Interviews will be conducted online via Skype. During the interview, participants will provide a verbal statement while sketching on a printed map or while producing a self-generated sketch of the mission or they will provide a verbal statement only.

This online experiment examines when lie-tellers are likely to start lying in intelligence interviews.

Lie tellers’ metacognitive processes and strategies differ from those of truth tellers. In the proposed experiment, we aim to examine how this affects lie tellers’ and truth tellers’ performance in forensic interviews when they are asked to recall an event irrelevant to the event under investigation. We also investigate the effects of sketching while narrating on this recall. The cognitive demands and employed strategies are likely to affect and weaken lie tellers’ recall whereas sketching while narrating is likely to enhance truth tellers’ recall. The experiment will be conducted online via Zoom. A total of 132 participants will watch a video about a secret meeting and will be instructed to lie or tell the truth about it in an interview. However, unbeknown to them, participants will not be asked about that video during the interview. Instead, they will be asked during the interview to watch another video and to recall it (with or without sketching) as a test of their memory. We expect lie tellers to be less accurate, detailed, and attentive and to provide more self-handicapping strategies than truth tellers, particularly in the sketching while narrating condition.

The current experiment aims to examine the effects of the order of combined interview techniques in multiple interviews. Participants are interviewed three times, each interview one week apart. Two-thirds of participants are exposed to the sketch and narrate interview technique in Interview 1 and to the Model Statement interview technique in Interview 2 or vice versa. In the third interview, all participants provide a free recall. The control condition (one-third of participants) provide only a free recall in the three interviews. We examine the amount and type of information provided in the third interview and across the three interviews (unique details).

A topical question that has repeatedly arisen is whether lies through omitting information can be detected. That is, if lie tellers truthfully admit that they completed a mission but deliberately not report some parts of that mission, do the truthful parts they describe differ from what truth tellers describe when they truthfully report the entire mission? Understanding whether omission lies can be detected is an ongoing concern, especially in intelligence settings. In the first two experiments in this area, we found that lie tellers and truth tellers do differ in the truthful parts they report, with lie tellers reporting fewer complications than truth tellers (Leal et al. (2020, 2021). Leal and colleagues used a basic interview protocol in their interviews. In the present experiment we will examine whether two established interview protocols, Cognitive Credibility Assessment (CCA) and the Reality Interview (RI), are efficient in detecting lying through omissions.

Sketching while narrating is an effective interview technique for eliciting information and cues to deceit. The current research will examine the effects of introducing a Model Sketch in interviews. The Model Sketch is adapted from the Model Statement which has been shown to enhance lie detection and information elicitation. We expect profound differences to emerge between truth tellers and lie tellers when they are exposed to the Model Sketch. Participants (N = 162) will complete a mock mission and will then be asked to tell the truth or lie about it in an interview. In the first phase of the interview, participants provide either a free recall (control condition) or sketch and narrate with (Model Sketch-present condition) or without (Model Sketch-absent condition) exposure to a Model Sketch. In the second phase (five minutes after the first phase), all participants provide a free recall.