Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

was found that innocent and guilty suspects did not

differ in terms of cognitive demand (which is a nega-

tive finding).

In sum, if interviewers learn to strategically use

potentially incriminating information, they will enhance

their ability to detect deception and truth. In essence,

the SUE technique works because it draws on the psy-

chology of guilt and innocence and, particularly, the

striking heterogeneity in guilty and innocent suspects’

strategies. The SUE technique is not a confronta-

tional interrogation technique; it instead belongs to the

information-gathering techniques. However, the key

factor is not the amount of information gathered as such

but to draw on the differences in information that inno-

cent suspects volunteer and guilty suspects avoid and

escape from providing.

Pär Anders Granhag and Leif A. Strömwall

See alsoDetection of Deception: Cognitive Load; Detection

of Deception in Adults; Interrogation of Suspects

Further Readings

Hartwig, M, Granhag, P. A., Strömwall, L. A., & Kronkvist,

O. (2006). Strategic use of evidence during police

interviews: When training to detect deception works. Law

and Human Behavior, 30,603–619.

Hartwig, M., Granhag, P. A., Strömwall, L. A., & Vrij, A.

(2005). Detecting deception via strategic disclosure of

evidence. Law and Human Behavior, 29,469–484.

Kassin, S. M. (2005). On the psychology of confessions:

Does innocence put innocent at risk? The American

Psychologist, 60,215–228.

DETECTION OFDECEPTION BY

DETECTION“WIZARDS”

Wizards of deception detection are rare individuals

who achieve scores of 80% or higher on at least two of

three videotaped lie detection tests. Most people’s

accuracy on these tests is about 50%, as would be

expected by chance alone. Of more than 15,000 people

tested, only 47 have been so classified. Although these

individuals are termed “wizards,” their accuracy is not

due to magic but to a particular kind of social-emotional

cognition coupled with a strong motivation to discern

the truthfulness of others.

Although the exact distribution of the ability to

detect deception is not known, increasing evidence

suggests that it is distributed mesokurtically (nor-

mally), like many psychological and physical vari-

ables. Among a hundred randomly selected people,

most will be average in height. Only a very few will

be exceptionally short or exceptionally tall. So, too,

with lie detection. Most people are average in lie

detection ability, but a very few (i.e., truth wizards)

will be highly accurate.

Much of the research on lie detection has focused

on identifying behaviors that differentiate between

honest and deceptive behaviors. Implied but not stated

in such research is the belief (or hope) that such behav-

iors can be used to detect automatically whether some-

one is lying or not. Certainly, there is evidence that

some behaviors are more or less likely to occur in

deception than in honesty. To date, however, no single

behavior has been identified that always or usually

occurs when someone is lying. Although some people

have “tells”—behaviors they exhibit when they are

lying, such tells vary from person to person, and not

everyone has them. Another complication is that verbal

and nonverbal behaviors related to deception do not

occur in isolation. They are part of an expressive sys-

tem that communicates a variety of information, such

as emotions, thoughts, feelings, habits, social class,

health, age, and many other aspects of individuality.

The behaviors of liars and truth tellers must be evalu-

ated in terms of their appropriateness for the individ-

ual, the situation, the statement being made, the

relationship with the person discussing the veracity of

the information, the stakes in the situation, and the

rewards or punishments involved. Consistency among

behaviors and the authenticity of any given behavior

must also be evaluated. Thus, the task of detecting

deception shares many characteristics with other judg-

ments under uncertainty, including those involved in

social cognition and social-emotional intelligence.

Most truth wizards are exceptionally sensitive to

verbal and nonverbal clues to emotion and cognition.

They notice facial expressions, including micro

expressions, which most people do not. They are sen-

sitive to nuances of language. They are aware of vocal

clues—pitch, resonance, and respiration. They do not

use just one of these cue domains but several of them.

Average lie detectors attend to a more limited array of

behaviors. Expert lie detectors are also more sensitive

to baselines—whether the baseline is the person’s

usual behavior or the person’s personality, social

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