Behavioral Correlates of Statement Credibility: Theories, Paradigms, and Results

Perceptual Distortions in Cross-Cultural Interrogations

Dutch police officers often assess Surinamer citizens more negatively than Dutch citizens. The principle of correspondence offers a possible explanation. According to this principle, a lack of correspondence between White police officers and Surinamer citizens results in a negative assessment of the Surinamer citizens. In this study, the influence of differences in skin color, accent, speech style, and (spoken) fluency on police officers' impression formation was examined. Results revealed a negative influence of Surinamer speech style and fluency on impression formation. However, Black skin color and Surinamer accent resulted in an unexpected positive assessment. It is concluded that the importance of nonverbal behaviors in the formation of negative impressions is substantial.

Heuristic versus systematic processing of information in detecting deception: questioning the truth bias

Research on nonverbal detection of deception has normally been conducted by asking observers to judge the veracity of a number of videotaped communications. These video clips have typically been very short. Observers have a tendency to judge most of these statements as truthful. An experiment was conducted in which 52 participants (44 women, 8 men; M age = 22.2 yr., SD = 2.2) who were taking a psychology and law course were requested to make judgments of credibility at different points of the senders' statements. A strong truth bias was apparent when judgments were made at the beginning of the statements, suggesting that when exposed to brief communications, the observers make heuristic judgments. Over time, a decrease in the truth bias and an increase in overall accuracy were found, suggesting that later judgments were increasingly based on systematic information processing. These results suggest that the truth bias that has been found in previous deception research may be a result of having used very brief and uninformative behavioral samples as stimuli.

Unwarranted Assumptions about Children's Testimonial Accuracy

We examine eight unwarranted assumptions made by expert witnesses, forensic interviewers, and legal scholars about the reliability of children's eyewitness reports. The first four assumptions modify some central beliefs about the nature of suggestive interviews, age-related differences in resistance to suggestion, and thresholds necessary to produce tainted reports. The fifth unwarranted assumption involves the influence of both individual and interviewer factors in determining children's suggestibility. The sixth unwarranted assumption concerns the claim that suggested reports are detectable. The seventh unwarranted assumption concerns new findings about how children deny, disclose, and/or recant their abuse. Finally, we examine unwarranted statements about the value of science to the forensic arena. It is important not only for researchers but also expert witnesses and court-appointed psychologists to be aware of these unwarranted assumptions.

Credibility judgements of detectives: the impact of nonverbal behavior, social skills, and physical characteristics on impression formation

Ninety-one detectives watched videofragments of 20 confederates who had been instructed either to tell the truth or to lie. After each videofragment the detectives indicated whether the confederate was lying. Although the study took place in a police context, and thus had higher ecological validity, the results strongly corresponded with those of previous studies: The accuracy rate was low (49%). Like the students in other deception studies, the detectives used the wrong cues to detect deception, and the actual situation (whether the confederates were telling the truth) did not predict suspiciousness.