Evaluating Truthfulness and Detecting Deception
Rationale: The authors of this article are David Matsumoto, Hyi Sung Hwang, Lisa Skinner, and Mark Frank. In this article, the authors talk about deception and eye behavior. Contrary to popular belief about eye behavior being connected to deception, their research states that there isn’t a connection. 23 out of 24 peer-reviewed studies published in scientific journals reporting experiments on eye behavior as an indicator of lying have rejected this hypothesis. No scientific evidence exists to suggest that eye behavior or gaze aversion can gauge truthfulness reliably.
Patients and Methods: The subjects that were used in this study were people that were motivated to act against a person or group with a different ideology, placed in a situation where they choose whether to commit a crime or not. They are then interviewed by a retired law enforcement officer, offering them the opportunity to tell the truth or to lie. The authors monitor the participants with sensors that record and analyze their facial behaviors, gestures, body movements, voice and speech characteristics, pupil dilation and gaze direction. It is not the presence or absence of behaviors that indicate lying, but rather how the nonverbal cues change over time.
Results: This study did not give exact results, but it stating some of the findings. The findings from this study indicated that no one indicator of lying exists. If there was a specific indicator, everyone could tell when everyone is lying. They came to the conclusion that if this was so, no one could be polite, society would not function, and most groups and relationships would fall into chaos.
Discussion: We thought that it was weird that if everyone could tell when everyone is lying, groups and relationships would be ruined. We discussed that friendship and relationships should be honest anyways, so why would there be a need to lie?
Reflection: Relying on false clues, or signs, about lying can have dire consequences. It can lead to inaccurate reads that witnesses, suspects, or informants are lying when they are not or that they are telling the truth when there is more to the story. Reliance on false clues leads to misplaced confidence about the strengths and weaknesses of cases and can lead an investigator down dead-end paths. Even more, a false read can have deadly consequences.
Application: We found this study interesting because we are faced with liars every day of our life. If we are getting fooled by the lies, next time we can look for specific actions and eye movements to help determine if they are really telling the truth or if they are actually lying.
Patients and Methods: The subjects that were used in this study were people that were motivated to act against a person or group with a different ideology, placed in a situation where they choose whether to commit a crime or not. They are then interviewed by a retired law enforcement officer, offering them the opportunity to tell the truth or to lie. The authors monitor the participants with sensors that record and analyze their facial behaviors, gestures, body movements, voice and speech characteristics, pupil dilation and gaze direction. It is not the presence or absence of behaviors that indicate lying, but rather how the nonverbal cues change over time.
Results: This study did not give exact results, but it stating some of the findings. The findings from this study indicated that no one indicator of lying exists. If there was a specific indicator, everyone could tell when everyone is lying. They came to the conclusion that if this was so, no one could be polite, society would not function, and most groups and relationships would fall into chaos.
Discussion: We thought that it was weird that if everyone could tell when everyone is lying, groups and relationships would be ruined. We discussed that friendship and relationships should be honest anyways, so why would there be a need to lie?
Reflection: Relying on false clues, or signs, about lying can have dire consequences. It can lead to inaccurate reads that witnesses, suspects, or informants are lying when they are not or that they are telling the truth when there is more to the story. Reliance on false clues leads to misplaced confidence about the strengths and weaknesses of cases and can lead an investigator down dead-end paths. Even more, a false read can have deadly consequences.
Application: We found this study interesting because we are faced with liars every day of our life. If we are getting fooled by the lies, next time we can look for specific actions and eye movements to help determine if they are really telling the truth or if they are actually lying.