RM experts check for the presence of RM criteria in
these transcripts. To date, a standardized set of RM
deception criteria has not been developed. Different
researchers use different criteria and sometimes use
different definitions for the same criterion.
Most researchers include the following criteria in
their RM veracity assessment tool:
Clarity and vividnessof the statement: This crite-
rion is present if the report is clear, sharp, and vivid
instead of dim and vague.
Perceptual information:This criterion refers to the
presence of sensory information in a statement, such
as sounds (“He really shouted at me”), smells (“It had
a smell of rotten fish”), tastes (“The chips were very
salty”), physical sensations (“It really hurt”), and
visual details (“I saw the nurse entering the ward”).
Spatial information:This criterion refers to infor-
mation about locations (“It was in a park”) or the spa-
tial arrangement of people and/or objects (“The man
was sitting to the left of his wife”).
Temporal information: This criterion refers to
information about when the event happened (“It was
early in the morning”) or explicitly describes a
sequence of events (“When he heard all that noise, the
visitor became nervous and left”)
Cognitive operations: This criterion refers to
descriptions of inferences made by the participant
at the time of the event (“It appeared to me that she
didn’t know the layout of the building”) or infer-
ences/opinions made when describing the event (“She
looked smart”).All criteria are thought to be more present in truth-
ful than in deceptive accounts, except the cognitive
operations criterion, which is thought to be present
more in deceptive than in truthful accounts. Research
has shown general support for these assumptions,
although the support for some criteria, such as tempo-
ral and spatial details, is stronger than the support for
other criteria, such as cognitive operations. Moreover,
truths and lies can be detected above the level of
chance with the RM tool, with average truth and lies
accuracy scores being just below 70%.
There are restrictions in using an RM veracity
assessment tool. For example, the tool cannot be used
with young children. In some circumstances, children
do not differentiate between fact and fantasy as clearly
as adults do, for several reasons, including the fact that
children have a richer imagination than adults. Children
may therefore be better than adults at imaginingthemselves performing acts. It is probably also difficult
to use the RM tool when people talk about events that
had happened a long time ago. Over time, cognitive
operations may develop in memories of experienced
events because they facilitate the remembering of
events. Someone who drove fast in a foreign country
may try to remember this by remembering the actual
speed the speedometer indicated; alternatively, the per-
son could remember this by logical reasoning and by
deducing that he or she must have driven fast because
he or she was driving on the motorway. Imagined mem-
ories, on the other hand, can become more vivid and
concrete over time if people try to visualize what might
have happened.Aldert VrijSee alsoEyewitness Memory; False Memories; Repressed
and Recovered Memories; Statement Validity Assessment
(SVA)Further Readings
DePaulo, B. M., Lindsay, J. L., Malone, B. E., Muhlenbruck,
L., Charlton, K., & Cooper, H. (2003). Cues to deception.
Psychological Bulletin, 129,74–118.
Johnson, M. K., & Raye, C. L. (1981). Reality monitoring.
Psychological Review, 88,67–85.
Lindsay, D. S. (2002). Children’s source monitoring. In
H. L. Westcott, G. M. Davies, & R. H. C. Bull (Eds.),
Children’s testimony: A handbook of psychological
research and forensic practice(pp. 83–98). Chichester,
UK: Wiley.
Masip, J., Sporer, S., Garrido, E., & Herrero, C. (2005). The
detection of deception with the reality monitoring
approach: A review of the empirical evidence.
Psychology, Crime, & Law, 11,99–122.
Vrij, A. (2000). Detecting lies and deceit: The psychology of
lying and its implications for professional practice.
Chichester, UK: Wiley.DETECTION OFDECEPTION:
USE OFEVIDENCE IN
The paradigmatic finding from research on deception
detection is that people are poor at discriminating
between liars and truth tellers. This entry shows, how-
ever, that deception detection performance can be sig-
nificantly improved if the investigator is allowed to204 ———Detection of Deception: Use of Evidence inD-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:41 PM Page 204