Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

typically believed to be associated with lying, such as

gaze aversion and fidgeting. In fact, they exhibited an

increase in pauses; a decrease in eye blinks; and (for

male suspects) a decrease in finger, hand, and arm

movements. This is more in line with the content com-

plexity and attempted control approaches than with

the emotional approach.

In summary, under certain conditions, there seem

to be a few differences between truth tellers and liars

in their nonverbal behavior. However, it is of great

importance to realize that these differences, albeit sig-

nificant in meta-analyses, are not large. Since the

observed effect sizes are small, the practicalvalue

may be quite low. None of the behaviors discussed

here can be used as a fail-safe decision rule. The avail-

able research thus indicates that there is no nonverbal

indicator of deception that always works—there is no

“Pinocchio’s nose.”

Leif A. Strömwall and Pär Anders Granhag

See alsoDetection of Deception: Reality Monitoring;

Detection of Deception in Adults; Statement Validity

Assessment (SVA)

Further Readings

DePaulo, B. M., Lindsay, J. J., Malone, B. E., Muhlenbruck,

L., Charlton, K., & Cooper, H. (2003). Cues to deception.

Psychological Bulletin, 129,74–118.

Granhag, P. A., & Vrij, A. (2005). Deception detection. In

N. Brewer & K. D. Williams (Eds.),Psychology and law.

An empirical perspective(pp. 43–92). New York: Guilford

Press.

Sporer, S. L., & Schwandt, B. (2006). Paraverbal indicators

of deception: A meta-analytic synthesis. Applied

Cognitive Psychology, 20,421–446.

Vrij, A. (2000). Detecting lies and deceit: The psychology of

lying and the implications for professional practice.

Chichester, UK: Wiley.

Zuckerman, M., DePaulo, B. M., & Rosenthal, R. (1981).

Verbal and nonverbal communication of deception. In

L. Berkowitz (Ed.),Advances in experimental social

psychology (Vol. 14, pp. 1–60). New York: Academic Press.

DETECTION OFDECEPTION:

REALITYMONITORING

People sometimes try to determine whether they have

actually experienced an event they have in mind, or

whether this memory is based on imagination. The

processes by which a person attributes a memory to an

actual experience (external source) or imagination

(internal source) is called reality monitoring (RM).

Although the RM concept is not related to deception,

scholars believe that the concept has this application

and can be used as a lie detection tool. Much of the

RM deception research is concerned with testing the

assumption that RM assessments can be used to dis-

criminate between liars and truth tellers.

The core of RM is that memories based on real

experiences differ in quality from memories based on

fiction. In their seminal work on memory characteris-

tics, Marcia Johnson and Carol Raye argued that mem-

ories of real experiences are obtained through perceptual

processes. They are therefore likely to contain sensory

information: details of smell, taste, or touch, visual

details, and details of sound; contextual information:

spatial details (details about where the event took place

and details about how objects and people were situated

in relation to each other) and temporal details (details

about the time order of events and the duration of

events); and affective information: details about people’s

feelings throughout the event. These memories are usu-

ally clear, sharp, and vivid. In contrast, memories about

imagined events are derived from an internal source

and are therefore likely to contain cognitive operations,

such as thoughts and reasonings (“I must have had my

coat on as it was very cold that night”). They are usu-

ally vaguer and less concrete.

From 1990 onward, scholars have examined whether

RM analyses can be used to discriminate between

truths and lies. The assumption those scholars make is

that truths are recollections of experienced events,

whereas lies are recollections of imagined events.

Obviously not all lies are descriptions of events that a

person did not experience. Many lies are not about

events but are about people’s feelings, opinions, or atti-

tudes. And even when people lie about events (about

their actions and whereabouts), they can sometimes

describe events that they actually have experienced.

For example, a burglar who denies having committed

a burglary last night can claim that he went to the gym

instead. He then can describe an actual visit he had

made to the gym (but on another occasion).

Researchers have examined whether deceptive

statements that are based on events that the liar imag-

ined differ in terms of RM criteria from truthful

statements about experienced events. The typical pro-

cedure is that liars and truth tellers are interviewed,

and these interviews are taped and transcribed.

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