Over the last 20 years, psychologists have been carrying out research studies to determine accuracy of participants in detecting whether a person is lying or not. On average, accuracy in detecting deceit has rarely been above 60%. Most studies have used college students as participants1, with them having no real raison di?? te, in detecting deception. The rationale that people employed in a profession where detecting deception is their daily business, may produce better results, was tested.
However, from three previous studies Kraut and Poe (1980), De Paulo and Pfeifer (1986) and Kohnken (1987), found that occupations such as; customs officials, federal law enforcement officers and police officers, proved no better than college students, when detecting deception. This lack of correlation could be due to the procedures used and that the preservation of clues on video or audiotapes may not be preserved.
Ekman’s study focuses more on the interpretations of facial expressions measured by the Facial Acting Coding System (FACS). In addition, vocal measurement which can distinguish between the truthful and deceitful, there was an actual increase in pitch when subjects lied. When we communicate, 38% of the information is passed in the tone and pitch of the voice, the spoken word, actually only counts for 7%. It is with the remaining 55% where the main interest lies, through the medium of facial expression/body language.
It is with these facts that the Ekman’s laboratory study addresses these variables in the pursuance of investigating Can they be used to detect deception? The study was a within participants correlation study, to determine if different occupational groups through experience could accurately detect deception and what cues were interpretated, to catch out liars. The conditions were that half of the subject’s2 college age women watched a nature film call Variable 1 and the other half watched a gruesome horror film Variable 2.
However, the Var 2 subjects had to employ deception by claiming they too had seen the nature film, when questioned by the participants. Analysis of Variance ANOVA3, Duncan procedure4, Chi Square5 and Spearman’s Rho6 statistical techniques were used to interpret the findings. The ability to detect lying was evaluated in 509 people categorised in 7 different groups. They all had a professional interest in lying, such as members of the US Secret Service to students.
The videotape showed 10 subjects who were either lying or telling the truth when describing their feelings. Only the Secret Service performed better than chance, and they were notably more accurate than all of the other groups. The research states two experimental hypotheses: Hypothesis 1 predicted that accurate observers would report using nonverbal clues more than would the inaccurate observers. Hypothesis 2 predicted a positive correlation between accuracy in detecting deceit and accuracy in recognizing micro-expressions of emotion.