Case Study 1- Analysis Authentic High Stake Liars

Question 1

Who were the researchers of this study and in what year was it held?

Answer 1

Mann
Vrij
Bull

2002

Question 2

Context/ Background

What did early research have?

Answer 2

Had mixed results

Question 3

Context/background

What happened to the design of these studies

Answer 3

The designs did not give same results - Unreliable

Question 4

Context/background

Why was this ?

Answer 4

They were done in a laboratory where participants didn’t really see the importance in telling the truth or lying as there were no consequences .

So how would they know if someone was lying?

Question 5

Aim

Who did they investigate ?

Answer 5

Investigated lying behaviors of SUSPECTS that were in police custody- controlled

Question 6

Aim

Why is it controlled?

Answer 6

It is a high stake situation and real life.
Suspects have something to lose.
Hence if they would lie, they would loose their freedom.
Therefore it leads real lying

Question 7

Methods:

What was the method they used to get the videoclips?

Answer 7

Researchers contacted detectives from Kent police station in the United kindom.

And were asked if they could collect videoclips that would include both truth and lying.

Question 8

Methods:

What did researcher do?

Answer 8

Within these videos they went through forensic evidence or independent witness statements.

Question 9

Methods:

What happened to the videoclips ?

Answer 9

These videos were recorded onto other videotapes.

Became a one hour video with 16 suspects

Question 10

Method:
How many clips were they?
What was the minimum ?
What was the average length?

Answer 10

65 clips were used- 27 truth 38 lies

Each participant hand the minimum of two clips.

Length was raged between 41 to 368 seconds

Question 11

Method:

What were the eight behaviors?

Answer 11

S- self manipulations
I- illustrators
P- pauses
S- speed disturbances

G-gaze aversion
B-blinking
H- hand / finger movements
H- head movements

Question 12

Method:

What was the format, that these eight behaviors were changed in order for lies and truths to be directly compared ?

Answer 12

For:
Gaze aversions
Pauses =
Total length of coded behaviors / total length of time of truthful clips X 60

Hand
Head
Blinks =
Frequency of H H B / total length of time of truthful clips X 60

Total number of speech disturbances / total number of words spoken X 100

Question 13

Participants:
How many suspects were there ?
What were there ages?
What were the crimes of the participants ?

Answer 13

16 suspects 13 males 3 females

Aged 13 up to 65

Crimes were: 
Attempted Rape- 1
Arson- 2 
Theft- 4
Murder- 4

Question 14

Procedures :

What was done?

Answer 14

Two independent observers were brought into code video footage.

• They do not know what the study was about.
• nor if it was truth or lies
• Coded 8 behaviors

Question 15

Procedures:

What did the observers do ?

Answer 15

Observer 1- coded all clips

Observer 2- coded randomly 36 clips out of 16 suspects.

Question 16

Procedure:

Why do they decide to follow this procedure?

Answer 16

1. Inter-rated reliability.
   - Is the check of the amount of agreements between observers
   - example : Observer 1- sees if data is reliable
   Observer 2- rechecks the data that observer 1 checked to see if it was done correctly.
2. Dealing with sensitive nature
   - the less people that know about these clips the better. As by showing we may be disrespecting the suspects rights.

Question 17

Results:

What type of data?

Answer 17

These were quantative data.

Displayed on a tally chart.

Question 18

Results:

What was found and concluded?

Answer 18

Lying was accompanied by a decrease in blinking in 81% of suspects.
E.g. truths 23.56. Lie- 4.94

Lying was accompanied by an increase in pauses in 81% of suspects.
E.g. Truth 3.73 and lie 4.94

Yet, there were individual differences.
As in other behaviors there were no other significant differences between when they lied and told the truth.

Question 19

Conclusion

Answer 19

Most reliable indicators of lying in a high stake situation were a decrease in blinking and an increase in pauses.

These findings go against what was found before, being fidgeting and avoiding contact

Question 20

Advantages of this authentic high take liars study.

Answer 20

Validity -
video tapes consist of genuine police interviews.
Study is measuring authentic high stake liars

Double blind design

• suspects did not know behavior was being analyzed.
• Two observers did not know what they were looking for.

Ecological validity -
- Participants did not know they were being observed in terms of lying or telling the truth, therefore will display more NATURAL and REAL behavior

Minimal bias from researchers

• all behaviors were counted
• data was statistic and factual- scientific
• inter reliability confirms this.

Question 21

Disadvantages of authentic high stake liars?

Answer 21

Difficult to repeat
- Observation techniques were used from police interviews. Therefore police could change the sense of the video clip if asked for more clips.

Ethics
-Suspects did not give concent to the study.