Criminal Justice and

Behavior http://cjb.sagepub.com/

LIE Detection by Inducing Cognitive Load: Eye Movements and Other Cues to the
False Answers of "Witnesses" to Crimes
Jeffrey J. Walczyk, Diana A. Griffith, Rachel Yates, Shelley R. Visconte, Byron Simoneaux and Laura
L. Harris
Criminal Justice and Behavior published online 28 March 2012
DOI: 10.1177/0093854812437014

The online version of this article can be found at:

http://cjb.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/03/26/0093854812437014
A more recent version of this article was published on - Jun 8, 2012

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

Additional services and information for Criminal Justice and Behavior can be found at:

Email Alerts: http://cjb.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

Subscriptions: http://cjb.sagepub.com/subscriptions

Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

Version of Record - Jun 8, 2012

>> OnlineFirst Version of Record - Mar 28, 2012

What is This?
Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012
437014 CJBXXX10.1177/0093854812437014WAL
CZYK et al. / COGNITIVE DETECTION OF DECEPTION IN WITNESSESCRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR
2012

LIE DETECTION BY INDUCING COGNITIVE

LOAD
Eye Movements and Other Cues to the False Answers
of “Witnesses” to Crimes
JEFFREY J. WALCZYK
DIANA A. GRIFFITH
RACHEL YATES
SHELLEY R. VISCONTE
BYRON SIMONEAUX
LAURA L. HARRIS
Louisiana Tech University

Research on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony has expanded dramatically in recent years. Most of it concerns the issue
of mistaken identification, not the problem of uncovering deceptive accounts of witnesses, which is the focus of this research.
In the literature, a technique for lie detection has been proposed that induces cognitive load on liars by averting their rehearsal
of deception: Time Restricted Integrity-Confirmation. The current authors tested it by instructing “witnesses” of actual crime
videos to lie or tell the truth to related questions. Each of 145 adults was randomly assigned to a truth telling, an unrehearsed
lying, or a rehearsed lying condition. The cognitive cues were response time, answer consistency, eye movements, and pupil
dilation. Eye data were gathered with an infrared eye tracker. Truth tellers had the quickest response times and the fewest
inconsistencies. Moreover, they generally had more eye movements, suggesting low cognitive loads. Discriminant analyses
classified rehearsed liars, unrehearsed liars, and truth tellers up to 69% accurately, with few false positives. Further refine-
ment is warranted.

Keywords:  lie detection; rehearsal; cognition and deception; eyewitness testimony

E yewitness testimony is often the evidence most persuasive to juries despite its unreli-
ability (Bond & DePaulo, 2006; Loftus, 2007). In some cases, such testimony was
crucial for conviction, even when there was compelling exculpatory evidence (Loftus,
1979). Advances in DNA testing applied to postconviction cases have led to the release of
more than 240 inmates wrongfully convicted partly by mistaken eyewitness testimony
(Garrett, 2010). Most validity concerns over eyewitness testimony involve mistaken iden-
tification (Loftus, 2007; Wells & Olson, 2003), not the deceptive testimony of witnesses.
More research is needed on detecting it. The present study is relevant to eventually reduc-
ing false confessions, false alibis, and perjured testimony of witnesses through cognitive lie
detection.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This material is based on work funded by National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant
648375. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the
authors, not NSF. The authors thank Alexandra Bellone, Melissa Bordelon, Victoria Gault, and Coleen
Maidlow for their assistance with data collection and coding. Correspondence may be addressed to Jeffrey J.
Walczyk, Psychology & Behavioral Sciences, P.O. Box 10048, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA 71272;
e-mail: Walczyk@latech.edu.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, Vol. XX, No. XX, Month 2011, XX-XX.
DOI: 10.1177/0093854812437014
© 2012 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

2   Criminal Justice and Behavior

LIES DURING QUESTIONING, PERJURED TESTIMONY, AND THEIR DETECTION

A pernicious source of invalid testimony is witnesses giving deceptive accounts to inves-

tigators or perjuring themselves on the stand. If witnesses know the accused, they some-
times feel compelled to provide a false alibi or identification to shield him or her or to
protect themselves from reprisal from a disgruntled suspect (Lykken, 1998). Researchers
have identified a number of signs of deceptive testimony. Porter and Yuille (1996)
instructed participants to lie about their involvement in a mock crime and had some create
false alibis. Investigators observed that accounts of those in the false alibi condition had
fewer details, less coherence, and were less likely to admit they had forgotten a detail of an
event. Overconfidence when recounting details of events can thus signal deception.
Researchers have also compared the police with lay people in their ability to detect
deception. Garrido, Masip, and Herrero (2004) contrasted 121 officers with 146 college
students in the accuracy of judging deceptive and truthful videotaped statements. The accu-
racy of the officers was at chance level, whereas that of laypeople was slightly higher.
Police officers reported higher confidence in their lie detection abilities, though Garrido
et al. argued that officers’ overconfidence potentially hinders their learning of actual cues
to deceit. These findings, replicated by others (Hartwig, Granhag, Stromwall, & Vrij, 2004;
Vrij, 1993), run contrary to the stereotype of the public that police officers are superlative
lie detectors (Lykken, 1998). However, in a review of studies of the accuracy of police
officers, O’Sullivan, Frank, and Hurley (2009) found that police could detect deception
significantly beyond chance when the lies being witnessed involve high stakes for the liar,
such as when a perpetrator discloses a false alibi (see also Bond & DePaulo, 2006). Cues
to deception multiply as motivated liars monitor and try to control their behavior to appear
truthful (DePaulo et al., 2003).
Jurors often do no better as lie detectors. Landström, Granhag, and Hartwig (2005)
examined various cues to deception available to 122 mock jurors who evaluated the testi-
mony of 12 witnesses, half of whom lied when testifying about a staged accident that took
place 3 weeks prior. Jurors were asked to judge the truthfulness of witnesses, justify their
judgments, and rate witnesses on various behavioral dimensions. Analyses showed that
observers’ perceptions of truthfulness were influenced by the plausibility of statements,
how much detail they contained, and how confidently witnesses relayed them. Additionally,
the appearance of witnesses affected judgments, including how hard witnesses had to think,
how at ease they were, their eloquence in speech, and their pleasantness. Jurors performed
poorly at detecting deception. In fact, how hard the witness had to think (e.g., the time
needed to respond) was the only cue they used that correlated with deception, which is also
a basic cue of the cognitive lie detector tested in this research.
In conclusion, lies during questioning and deceptive testimony in courtrooms are serious
threats to procedural justice (Garrett, 2010). Moreover, deceptive and perjured testimony
(e.g., false alibis) can slip past investigators and jurors because of their weak abilities as lie
detectors. Regarding the latter, there has been much recent criticism of the validity of the
polygraph, the most common method of lie detection, and calls for alternatives technolo-
gies (DePaulo et al., 2003; Lykken, 1998; National Research Council [NRC], 2003). This
research advances the development of a cognitive-based alternative to the polygraph with
potential to uncover deceptive testimony.

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

 Walczyk et al. / COGNITIVE DETECTION OF DECEPTION IN WITNESSES   3

LIE DETECTION BY INDUCING COGNITIVE LOAD: AVERTING REHEARSAL

Walczyk et al. (2005) introduced a novel approach to lie detection intended to maximize
cognitive load on liars and minimize it on truth tellers by averting the rehearsal of deceptive
answers: Time Restricted Integrity-Confirmation (TRI-Con). In essence, it surprises exam-
inees with questions by following these guidelines during lie detection examinations: (a)
Examinees are prompted about the focus of the questions to follow (e.g., “The next 15
questions concern your relationship with the suspect prior to the crime”). By preactivating
relevant nodes of episodic memory, prompting reduces examinees’ need for explicit mem-
ory searching to answer truthfully and so should make cognitive cues to deception less
confounded. (b) The specific questions are not made known to examinees until the exami-
nation itself to discourage the rehearsal of lies. (c) Questions should be answerable in one
or two words (e.g., “Did you see the shooting?”), thereby making determination of the time
needed to fully answer a question clearer compared to questions evoking narratives (e.g.,
“What happened during the crime?”). (d) Examinees are instructed to answer quickly to
limit their opportunity to prepare lies. (e) Interrelated questions are asked to increase liars’
cognitive load and provoke contradictions, found to be higher in liars (DePaulo et al.,
2003), especially without rehearsal (Vrij et al., 2009). We now add another guideline to
enhance cognitive load on liars. (f) When feasible, examinees should be instructed to main-
tain eye contact with the examiner (Vrij, Mann, Leal, & Fisher, 2010).
Requiring sustained eye contact should make gaze aversion and eye movements more
obvious. Glenberg, Schroeder, and Robertson (1998) asked participants moderately diffi-
cult general informational questions requiring memory searching and showed that averting
gaze away from environmental distraction facilitated the allocation of cognitive resources
to internal processing that enhanced performance. Doherty-Sneddon and Phelps (2005) and
Doherty-Sneddon, Bruce, Bonner, Longbotham, and Doyle (2002) replicated these results
with children. If lying is more cognitively demanding than truth telling, we propose that a
corollary of Glenberg et al.’s position is that less eye movement should be evident during
deception. Clearly, eye movements can increase visual stimulation that might be distracting
to someone who is focusing attention inwardly to generate a lie. This study is the first to
test this possibility.

LIE DETECTION BY INDUCING COGNITIVE LOAD: DUAL TASKING

Following TRI-Con’s introduction, researchers have proposed other ways that lie detec-
tion procedures might induce cognitive load selectively on liars. Vrij, Fisher, Mann, and
Leal (2008) labeled two load-related approaches. The mere cognitive load approach is
based on the hypothesis that lying is inherently more cognitively demanding of limited
attention and working memory than truth telling (Sporer & Schwandt, 2007; Zuckerman,
DePaulo, & Rosenthal, 1981). Empirical support for this hypothesis is weak (DePaulo
et al., 2003; Walczyk et al., 2005). Vrij et al. named another the increase cognitive load
approach, which concerns methods for inducing cognitive load on liars. These authors
discussed what we now call dual tasking (performing two tasks concurrently). This is a
well-known experimental paradigm for determining the architecture of the mind (Pashler,
1994). As an example of a concurrent task in lie detection, Vrij et al. suggested that exam-
inees could answer an investigator’s questions while also engaging in a computerized

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

4   Criminal Justice and Behavior

driving simulation. If deception is more cognitively demanding than truthfulness, the

simulation should interfere more with liars than truth tellers and enhance cognitive cues. In
a milder form of what investigators argue is dual tasking, Vrij et al. (2010) found that liars
instructed to maintain eye contact during an interview about money taken from a wallet
showed more cues (fewer auditory and temporal details in a narrative, slower speech) than
liars not so instructed. Because making eye contact is a natural part of conversing, we are
not sure that requiring it rises to the level of dual tasking. However, we added it to TRI-Con
because it may increase cognitive load more on liars. Though the dual tasking approach is
promising, theoretical consideration should be given to what concurrent tasks will interfere
more with lying than truth telling and why (see Pashler, 1994).
To summarize, averting-rehearsal approaches induce cognitive load selectively on liars
by blindsiding examinees with questions and by having them answer quickly. Dual tasking
induces load by imposing split attention interference such that liars are more adversely
affected. Though theoretically distinct, the two approaches are practically compatible and
can be integrated by investigators.

REHEARSAL: AN ATTENUATOR OF COGNITIVE LOAD

Studies have examined the effects of planning a lie on its detection. In their meta-anal-
ysis of the accuracy of judgments of deception, Bond and DePaulo (2006) noted that lies
were easier to detect if baseline behaviors of individuals were available to observers and
the lies were unrehearsed. Likewise, Littlepage and Pineault (1985) found that observers
were less accurate at detecting planned deceptions than spontaneous ones. Littlepage, Tang,
and Pineault (1986) investigated why and found that planning allowed liars to control
effectively nonverbal cues to deception. O’Hair, Cody, and McLaughlin (1981) observed
that planned lies were briefer, took less time, and involved fewer illustrators. Although such
results are interesting, they do not advance understanding of the effects of rehearsal on
indices of cognitive load. Research on the cognition of deception has largely ignored the
effects of rehearsal on cognitive cues. In two recent meta-analyses of verbal and nonverbal
cues, Sporer and Schwandt (2006, 2007) sought to include rehearsal as a moderator but
were unable to locate sufficient studies that manipulated it. Still, to ensure its validity, any
cognitive-load-inducing lie detector must consider rehearsal to be a likely countermeasure.
Walczyk, Mahoney, Doverspike, and Griffith-Ross (2009) found that rehearsal decreased
lying response times and inconsistencies compared to unrehearsed lying. More research is
needed, however, on the effects of rehearsal on these and other cognitive cues.

CURRENT STUDY

In their influential meta-analysis of cues to deception, DePaulo et al. (2003) concluded

that there are no unequivocal signs of deception and recommended lie detection via con-
verging cues. Walczyk et al. (2005, 2009) helped validate TRI-Con but only with response
time and answer inconsistency, not using multiple cognitive cues or in a forensically rele-
vant context of “eye witnessed” crimes, limitations that are overcome in this research.
Specifically, we showed 145 participants two videos of actual crimes and then instructed
them to play the role of witnesses and answer crime-related questions either (a) truthfully
or with (b) rehearsed or (c) unrehearsed lies. They also answered 18 general questions

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

 Walczyk et al. / COGNITIVE DETECTION OF DECEPTION IN WITNESSES   5

truthfully to provide ground-truth behavioral baselines. The four cues evaluated were
response time, the inconsistency of answers to interrelated questions, eye movements, and
pupil dilation. These cues were selected systematically, each accessing a distinct aspect of
cognitive load. Response time and pupil dilation are direct measures of the extent of pro-
cessing (Solso, 2001). Answer consistency is the output of processing (DePaulo et al.,
2003). Reducing eye movements is hypothesized to reflect attempts to lower cognitive
load. This is the first study to assess eye movements as a cognitive cue as individuals
answer questions.
Two types of questions were asked: those requiring yes or no responses and open-ended
questions evoking short responses besides yes or no. Because yes–no and open-ended ques-
tions differ in the syntactic constraints that each puts on permissible responses, Walczyk et
al. (2005) urged analyzing the cues of each separately, which we do. Moreover, Walters
(1996) argued that the accuracy of deception detection increases if truth telling baseline
rates are established for each behavioral cue against which suspected deceptive responding
can be compared. In effect, this controls for individual differences in baseline rates, which
confound strictly between-subjects comparisons. The polygraph, too, involves within-
subject comparison by establishing physiological base rates (Lykken, 1998). Similarly,
Walczyk et al. (2005) proposed controlling for such individual differences by subtracting
truthful base rates from base rates of questions suspected of deception, a suggestion we
follow. Finally, participants adopted the roles of “witnesses” to two different crime videos
to see if the pattern of cues observed with one could be replicated with the second. Four
hypotheses and their theoretical and empirical rationales follow.

H1: Unrehearsed liars will have longer response times than truth tellers, who will have
longer response times than rehearsed liars. Studies show that unrehearsed lying takes
longer than truth telling (DePaulo et al., 2003; Seymour, Seifert, Shafto, & Mosmann,
2000). Moreover, rehearsal can decrease the time required to lie (O’Hair et al., 1981;
Walczyk et al., 2009). The ample rehearsal of this study should lower response times
below that of truth tellers.
H2: Total inconsistencies across interrelated questions will be greatest for unrehearsed
liars, followed by rehearsed liars, and then truth tellers. Liars are often more incon-
sistent than truth tellers, likely due to not having generated sufficiently coherent and
detailed narratives before lying (Porter & Yuille, 1996; Vrij et al., 2009). We expected
rehearsal to reduce inconsistency below that of unrehearsed lying (Walczyk et al.,
2009).
H3: Truth tellers will move their eyes the most, followed by rehearsed liars; unrehearsed
liars will move their eyes the least. Unrehearsed liars should move their eyes little as
they focus on internal processes. Recall also that the instruction to maintain eye con-
tact increased the cognitive load of lying and cues to deception. Vrij et al. (2010)
videotaped participants and later coded tapes for the eye contact made during inter-
views, whereas we precisely measured eye movements with an infrared eye tracker
while participants answered.
H4: Unrehearsed liars will have more pupil dilation than rehearsed liars, followed by
truth tellers. Studies demonstrate more pupil dilation in liars than truth tellers, likely

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

6   Criminal Justice and Behavior

due to a greater cognitive load accompanying deception (Bradley & Janisse, 1979;
Dionisio, Granholm, Hillix, & Perrine, 2001; Heilveil, 1976; Lubow & Fein, 1996;
Webb, Honts, Kircher, Bernhardt, & Cook, 2009). Although studies have not consid-
ered the effects of rehearsal on the pupil dilation of deceptive answers, it was expected
to be lower than that of unrehearsed liars.

METHOD

PARTICIPANTS

Recruited from psychology classes at a southern university, 145 adults received extra
credit. The racial composition was 105 White (72.4%), 31 Black (21.4%), 5 Asian (3.5%),
and 4 Latino (2.8%). The gender breakdown was 82 females (56.6%) and 63 males
(43.4%). The mean age was 22.23 years (SD = 5.92). All were American citizens and native
English speakers.

RESEARCH DESIGN

A multilevel, completely randomized, between-subjects design was used. The independ-

ent variable (IV), lie condition, involved the video-related questions and had three levels:
truth telling, unrehearsed lying, and rehearsed lying. The dependent variables were these
cognitive cues: response time, answer consistency, eye movements, and pupil dilation.

GENERAL PROCEDURE

Participants were tested individually, each session lasting about 30 min. Two experi-
menters were required: a greeter and an examiner. The greeter first obtained informed
consent, then handed a hardcopy of general instructions to participants and read them aloud
as they followed along. Participants were informed that they would “witness” two surveil-
lance videos of actual crimes and were instructed to watch and listen carefully because they
would only be shown each video once and would be questioned after each. Consistent with
TRI-Con, they were told to answer “all questions as quickly as possible while constantly
maintaining eye contact with me” as well as to answer in a clear, loud voice.
All participants were directed to answer truthfully the 18 general questions asked first.
The instructions then diverged depending on the lie condition to which a participant was
randomly assigned. (a) Truth tellers were instructed to adopt the role of a witness who
wants the perpetrators brought to justice and to answer all questions about the videos
“truthfully to the best of your recollection.” (b) Unrehearsed liars were asked to assume
that the perpetrators were friends of theirs whom they did not want to see have criminal
records for a lapse of judgment, in effect, covering for them. They were instructed to
answer all video-related questions deceptively and to be sure that all answers were logically
consistent and plausible. However, they had no prior exposure to the questions, consistent
with TRI-Con. (c) Rehearsed liars had the exact same instructions as unrehearsed liars but,
after viewing each video, were also given a copy of questions and 5 min for preparing lies.
Afterward, participants were interviewed with these questions. Pilot testing on 11 college
students before the experiment, who were otherwise uninvolved, confirmed that 5 min was

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

 Walczyk et al. / COGNITIVE DETECTION OF DECEPTION IN WITNESSES   7

adequate time for all to prepare deceptive answers for each video question set. Such
rehearsal is ecologically valid in that allowing examinees to “preview” questions is a com-
mon practice with the polygraph (Lykken, 1998).
After receiving their instructions, all participants were ushered by the greeter into the
eye tracking lab. During all three question sets of the eye tracking interview, the greeter sat
directly in front of participants, making direct eye contact throughout and reminding par-
ticipants to do so as needed, which rarely was necessary. The 18 general questions were
asked first as eye data were collected. After that, participants were moved to a computer in
the same room and were shown the first of two crime videos. Video order was counterbal-
anced over participants. Rehearsed liars were given the opportunity to prepare lies after-
ward. Next, participants were “interviewed” about the video just seen as the cognitive cues
were assessed. Then this procedure was repeated for the second video. Even though neither
the greeter nor the examiner was blind to the experimental conditions of participants, given
that the eye tracking interview task was largely automated, there were minimal opportuni-
ties for either to bias the results. Finally, the postexperiment questionnaire was adminis-
tered, followed by a debriefing.

MATERIALS

Crime videos. The local police department provided digital copies of two surveillance
training videos (with audio) of actual thefts, which were shown on a Dell desktop computer
in full-screen mode (13.5 × 11 in.).

Video 1. This video is 106 s in length and features a young, White male working as a
janitor. He enters an office to empty the garbage. While alone, he sees cash in an open purse
on the floor and steals it. Shortly after, the office’s occupant, an elderly White female who
does not detect the pilferage, enters the office and exchanges pleasantries with the perpetra-
tor, who then nonchalantly leaves. The video features a 3-s close-up of the perpetrator’s
face.

Video 2. Lasting 75 s, this crime is set in a convenience store. Two individuals are visible
throughout: a salesclerk behind the counter, who is distracted while on the Internet rather
than “minding the store,” and a customer (perpetrator). Both are young, White males. The
perpetrator is clearly visible. Only the head of the salesclerk is visible but shows clearly his
race and dark hair. The two talk throughout mostly about their cars. When the salesclerk is
distracted, the perpetrator pilfers a box of some nondescript product from the lower shelf
of a counter and conceals it under a coat draped on his left shoulder. Next, he calmly leaves
the store.

Categories of questions (i. e., question set). Three categories of questions were written—
general, Video 1, and Video 2—each a mixture of yes–no and open-ended questions. All 37
appear in the appendix. Per TRI-Con guidelines, most were answerable with a word or two.
The appendix specifies which question pairs were written to be logically interrelated. The
18 general questions probed personal information and general knowledge to provide
ground truth behavioral baseline data (Walters, 1996). The boldfaced questions tested facts
that could be verified to ensure compliance with instructions to answer truthfully. The 19

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

8   Criminal Justice and Behavior

interview questions (10 Video 1, 9 Video 2) addressed what happened in the videos, includ-
ing characteristics of the perpetrators and the nature of the theft. They are of the kind often
asked by detectives (Inbau, Reid, Buckley, & Jayne, 2001).

Postexperiment questionnaire. A postexperimenter questionnaire was prepared that

listed the 10 Video 1 questions and 9 Video 2 questions to assess whether the truth had been
encoded by participants. The instructions directed participants to answer them all truthfully.

AUDACITY DIGITAL RECORDING SOFTWARE

Audacity version 1.3.8 (http://audacity.sourceforge.net), an open source digital record-

ing and editing software, was used to record the instructions that preceded each set of ques-
tions (prompting the focus of the questions to follow) and each question as its own digital
file. A young woman read the instructions and questions in a clear, authoritative voice. A
JAVA program presented the instructions for a set of questions, followed by the appropriate
questions in their order of appearance in the appendix.

THE EYE TRACKING SYSTEM AND INTERVIEW TASK

The Eye Tracking Laboratory (ETL) 400 Infrared eye tracking system (manufactured by
ISCAN Inc., 21 Cabot Road, Woburn, MA 01801; website: http://iscaninc.com) assessed
pupil dilation and eye movements. A computer ran the JAVA program that controlled the
procedure. The time needed to answer was measured to the millisecond by a voice key. Any
noise following a question, usually the answer, caused the voice key to trip and an audible
beep. Answers were also digitally recorded. When an irrelevant noise caused the voice key
to trip prematurely, response times were determined using the recordings.
Participants’ chins were positioned on a chinrest. The greeter sat 4 feet in front of them.
Before testing, the ETL 400 was calibrated using four numbered corners on a rectangle 29
in. wide and 23 in. tall on the wall behind the greeter. The eye tracker imposed a virtual
coordinate system of pixels corresponding to where participants were looking. The origin
was in the upper, left-hand corner (horizontal = 0, vertical = 0). The bottom right had
maximum coordinates (horizontal = 511, vertical = 511). The greeter sat such that her eyes
were about in the middle of the rectangle. Throughout the ETL 400 took 60 “snapshots” of
the right eye per second. In each, the pupil dilation and point of regard (i.e., virtual coordi-
nates where the fovea was centered at any instant) were measured. Pupil dilation and eye
movements of Tables 3 through 6 are expressed in pixels. For each test question, the eye
data analyzed started with the beginning of a question and ended when the voice key
tripped, that is, for the full question–answer event. The mean pupil dilation for this interval
was used. Also, the ETL 400 is designed to analyze eye movements into vertical and hori-
zontal components, which is why vertical and horizontal eye data were analyzed separately.
ISCAN recommended using the standard deviation of the vertical points of regard and the
standard deviation of the horizontal points of regard for each question–answer event to
assess eye movement, which we did. Smaller mean standard deviations in Tables 3, 4, and
6 indicate more stationary eyes. Readers interested in obtaining more details about this or
any other aspect of the procedure can contact the lead author.

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

 Walczyk et al. / COGNITIVE DETECTION OF DECEPTION IN WITNESSES   9

TRANSCRIBING AUDIO RECORDINGS AND CODING FOR INCONSISTENCIES

A graduate assistant (GA) transcribed audio recordings for all utterances following each
question. Rarely were answers inaudible. Transcriptions were later coded for the number
of inconsistencies within a question set. An inconsistency occurred when the second
answer of an interrelated pair was implausible if the answer to the first question was
assumed true. For example, in Video 1, inconsistencies occurred when Question 22 (see the
appendix) was answered “yes” but the answer to Questions 23 began with “He . . .” For
Video 2, a common inconsistency was answering Question 29 with “a violent crime” and
later answering Question 33 with “he hid the stolen item with his jacket.”
To assess interrater reliability, copies of 47 transcriptions, randomly selected from the
145, were independently coded for inconsistencies by the GA and by another GA otherwise
unaffiliated with this project. Pearson correlations between inconsistency totals of the two
raters for the general, Video 1, and Video 2 questions were .92, .67, and .78, respectively,
all significant and large enough to justify having the first GA code the remaining transcripts
(Anastasi & Urbina, 1997). Her inconsistency totals are used in the analyses.

SUMMARIZING DATA FOR EACH CATEGORY OF QUESTION

For each question–answer event, there was a mean for response time and pupil dilation,
as well as a vertical eye movement standard deviation and a horizontal eye movement
standard deviation. These data were summarized for hypothesis testing as follows. Within
each question category, the mean pupil dilation for yes–no questions was determined, as
well as for open-ended questions. Also, within each question category, the mean horizontal
and vertical eye movement standard deviations were determined by question type. Since
response times often were positively skewed, the median response time within each ques-
tion category and question type was used to control for outliers (Solso, 2001).

CHECKING TRANSCRIPTIONS FOR COMPLIANCE

The transcribed answers were checked for participant compliance with instructions to
answer general questions truthfully, which was possible with the boldfaced factual general
questions of the appendix. No one answered more than two of them incorrectly, and few
inconsistencies occurred. Compliance was good. Regarding the postexperimenter question-
naire data, the mean number of questions correctly answered for Video 1 for all 145 was
9.81 (SD =.44, 98% correct). For Video 2, mean accuracy was 7.48 (SD =.65, 83% correct),
results showing that participants generally had encoded truths. Finally, comparing the post-
experiment surveys with the transcriptions, it was clear that participants assigned to truth
telling generally answered Video 1 and 2 questions truthfully or with an “I don’t know.”
Liars, rehearsed and unrehearsed, overall answered <10% of the Video 1 and 2 questions
truthfully. The eye and response time data of questions answered truthfully or inaudibly
were treated as missing.

DATA ANALYSIS

H1, H3, and H4 were tested with a 2 × 3 mixed ANOVA for Video 1 and Video 2. The
within-subjects factor was question type (yes–no, open-ended). The between-subjects factor

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

10   Criminal Justice and Behavior

was lie condition (truth telling, unrehearsed lying, rehearsed lying). To avoid overwhelming
readers with statistics, main effects for question type and Question Type × Lie Condition
interactions are only reported when significant. Moreover, the F statistics of simple main
effects used to understand interactions are not reported. H2 was tested with a one-way
ANOVA. For a significant main effect or simple main effect for lie condition, the
Studentized-Newman-Keuls (S-N-K) procedure determined which means were significantly
different. ANOVAs on the cues for general questions were conducted to ensure equality of
the conditions that random assignment produces. Only if significant lie condition effects
occurred are these results reported.

RESULTS

Four hypotheses were tested, one for each cognitive cue evaluated. H1, regarding longer
response times with lying, was well supported, as was H2, predicting more inconsistencies
with deception. H3 asserts greater eye movement with truth telling and was partially con-
firmed. H4, predicting greater pupil dilation with deception, was not supported.

H1: RESPONSE TIME

Descriptive statistics for response times are provided in Table 1. In all tables, condition
Ns are boldfaced. There were no missing data with this cue. In the case of Video 1, question
type made a difference, F(1, 142) = 260.89, p = .001, ή = .648, (yes–no M = 574, open-
ended M = 1,007), with open-ended questions taking longer. Lie condition was significant,
F(2, 142) = 32.42, p = .001, ή = .313. The Question Type × Lie Condition interaction was
also significant, F(2, 142) = 14.34, p = .001, ή = .168. In the case of yes–no questions, truth
tellers and rehearsed liars were significantly faster than unrehearsed liars. For open-ended
questions, rehearsed liars answered the fastest, followed by truth tellers. Unrehearsed liars
answered the slowest. For Video 2, open-ended questions took longer than yes–no ques-
tions, F(1, 142) = 97.24, p = .001, ή = .406 (yes–no M = 629, open-ended M = 878). Lie
condition made a difference, F(2, 142) = 22.74, p = .001, ή = .243. The interaction was
significant, F(2, 142) = 23.11, p = .001, ή = .246. For yes–no questions, rehearsed liars and
truth tellers were significantly faster than unrehearsed liars. In the case of open-ended ques-
tions, all three conditions were significantly different, with rehearsed liars the fastest and
unrehearsed liars the slowest. A constant pattern of results occurred across videos that sup-
ports H1, especially with open-ended questions.
Consistent with Walters (1996) and Walczyk and colleagues (Walczyk et al. 2005;
Walczyk et al., 2009), truthful base rate means were used to adjust means of cues of ques-
tions suspected of deception. Specifically, adjusted Video 1 response times were computed
by subtracting the yes–no and open-ended means of general questions from the correspond-
ing means of the Video 1 questions. These adjustments also occurred for Video 2 response
times. For adjusted means, see Table 1. For adjusted Video 1 means, a main effect was
found for question type, F(1, 142) = 79.60, p = .001, ή = .359 (yes–no M = 20, open-ended
M = 306), and for lie condition, F(2, 142) = 36.49, p = .001, ή = .339. Because of a sig-
nificant interaction, F(2, 142) = 9.18, p = .001, ή = .115, simple main effects were exam-
ined. For yes–no questions, unrehearsed liars took significantly longer than the other two
conditions. For open-ended questions, all three condition means differed significantly, with
Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012
 Walczyk et al. / COGNITIVE DETECTION OF DECEPTION IN WITNESSES   11

TABLE 1:  Statistics for Response Times (in milliseconds) by Lie Condition, Question Type, and Question
Category

Lie Condition  

  Truth Telling Unrehearsed Lying Rehearsed Lying  

Means
Significantly
Questions M SD M SD M SD Different

Yes–no questions  
General 545 171 575 157 544 174 None
Video 1 498 214 758 366 475 237 1-2,2-3
Video 2 583 202 751 279 558 262 1-2,2-3
Adj. Video 1 –47 165 183 323 –69 229 1-2,2-3
Adj. Video 2 37 197 176 242 14 232 1-2,2-3
N 48 47 50  
Mean no. 1 2 3  
Open-ended questions  
General 676 211 748 270 683 218 None
Video 1 1,028 340 1,304 372 708 332 1-2,1-3,2-3
Video 2 936 314 1,148 515 567 270 1-2,1-3,2-3
Adj. Video 1 352 304 556 430 25 276 1-2,1-3,2-3
Adj. Video 2 260 285 399 600 –115 231 1-3,2-3
N 48 47 50  
Mean no. 1 2 3  

unrehearsed liars taking the most time, rehearsed liars the least. These results parallel those
of the unadjusted scores. Adjusted Video 2 means showed a main effect for question type,
F(1, 142) = 12.02, p = .001, ή = .078 (yes–no M = 74, open-ended M = 176); another for
lie condition, F(2, 142) = 19.36, p = .001, ή =. 214; and an interaction, F(2, 142) = 15.11,
p = .001, ή = .176. For yes–no questions, unrehearsed liars took longer than truth tellers
and rehearsed liars. Rehearsed liars were faster than truth tellers and unrehearsed liars with
open-ended questions.
The pattern is that open-ended questions took longer to answer. Moreover, unrehearsed lying
took the longest for Videos 1 and 2. For open-ended questions, rehearsal often reduced response
times below those of truth tellers. Finally, adjusting for individual differences by subtracting
yes–no or open-ended means produced a pattern of differences similar to those of the unad-
justed means while controlling for individual differences in base rates. H1 was supported.

H2: INCONSISTENCIES

Table 2 reports statistics for total inconsistencies by question set. Ns are occasionally
reduced due to at least one answer of an interrelated pair being inaudible such that total
inconsistency within a set could not be determined. Although infrequent, inconsistencies
occurred enough to discriminate among conditions for the videos. A significant main effect
for lie condition occurred for Video 1, F(2, 140) = 8.33, p = .001. Truth tellers had fewer
inconsistencies than the other two conditions. A significant lie condition main effect was
also observed for Video 2, F(2, 138) = 10.67, p = .001. Once again, truth tellers had fewer
inconsistencies than the other conditions. H2 was partially supported.
Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012
12   Criminal Justice and Behavior

TABLE 2: Total Inconsistency

Lie Condition  

  Truth Telling Unrehearsed Lying Rehearsed Lying  

Means Significantly
Questions M SD M SD M SD Different

General 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.20 None

Video 1 0.04 0.20 0.61 0.93 0.48 0.75 1-2,1-3
N 47 46 50  
Video 2 0.14 0.49 0.80 0.78 0.69 0.91 1-2,1-3
N 47 45 49  

H3: EYE MOVEMENT

Vertical eye movements. See Table 3 for statistics on vertical eye movements. Reduced
condition Ns were usually due to loss of calibration of point of regard caused by head
movements, which did not affect the assessment of pupil dilation. For Video 1, a main
effect occurred for type of question, F(1, 133) = 10.17, p = .002, ή = .071 (yes–no M = 50,
open-ended M = 57). Open-ended questions entailed slightly more eye movements. There
was also a lie condition main effect, F(2, 133) = 3.65, p = .028, ή = .071. A significant
Question Type × Lie Condition interaction occurred as well, F(2, 133) = 5.99, p = .003,
ή = .083. For yes–no questions, truth tellers had significantly more eye movements than
rehearsed or unrehearsed liars. Regarding Video 2, question type generated a main effect,
F(1, 128) = 4.61, p = .034, ή = .035, by which yes–no questions elicited less eye movement
(yes–no M = 50, open-ended M = 57). A main effect for lie condition happened, F(2, 128)
= 3.52, p = .032, ή = .052. Truth tellers had significantly more eye movements than rehearsed
liars. These analyses partially support H3. Truth tellers generally had more eye movements,
especially for yes–no questions.
Adjusted Video 1 eye movements were calculated by subtracting the general yes–no
vertical eye movement means from the yes–no Video 1 vertical eye movement means. The
same was done for the open-ended means as well as for Video 2. Corresponding adjust-
ments were also done for the horizontal eye movement data of both videos. Adjusted verti-
cal means are reported in Table 3. Adjusted horizontal means appear in Table 4. For
adjusted vertical eye movements of Video 1, a significant interaction occurred, F(2, 131) =
6.39, p = .002, ή = .089. Also, lie condition mattered, F(2, 131) = 3.24, p = .042, ή = .047.
In the case of yes–no questions, truth tellers had significantly more movement than
rehearsed liars. Regarding Video 2, lie condition had an impact, F(2, 126) = 3.88, p = .023,
ή = .058. Rehearsed liars had less eye movements the other two conditions.

Horizontal eye movements. Table 4 summarizes horizontal eye movements. As in Table

3, the largest means are observed with truth tellers. For Video 1, an effect for type of ques-
tion occurred, F(1, 133) = 6.06, p = .015, ή = .044. Open-ended questions elicited more eye
movements (yes–no M = 52, open-ended M = 58). Lie condition had an impact, F(2, 133)

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

 Walczyk et al. / COGNITIVE DETECTION OF DECEPTION IN WITNESSES   13

TABLE 3:  Vertical Eye Movements (in pixels)

Lie Condition  

  Truth Telling Unrehearsed Lying Rehearsed Lying  

Means
Significantly
Questions M SD M SD M SD Different

Yes–no questions  
General 53 40 44 36 54 45 None
N 45 47 45  
Video 1 67 45 44 40 40 36 1-2,1-3
N 43 46 47  
Video 2 60 46 46 43 37 34 1-3
N 42 42 47  
Adj. Video 1 14 39 0 31 –14 38 1-3
N 43 46 45  
Adj. Video 2 5 36 2 28 –18 41 1-3, 2-3
N 42 42 45  
  1 2 3  
Open-ended questions  
General 58 36 50 36 49 35 None
N 45 47 45  
Video 1 64 38 58 43 49 36 None
N 43 46 47  
Video 2 62 40 51 37 42 34 1-3
N 42 42 47  
Adj. Video 1 5 36 8 27 0 30 None
N 43 46 45  
Adj. Video 2 4 31 1 28 –6 34 1-3, 2-3
N 42 42 45  
  1 2 3  

= 4.14, p = .018, ή = .059, with an interaction, F(2, 133) = 5.59, p = .005, ή = .078. Truth
tellers had more eye movements than either rehearsed or unrehearsed liars with yes–no
questions only. For Video 2, there was a main effect for question type, F(1, 129) = 6.93,
p = .009, ή = .051. Open-ended questions elicited more eye movement (yes–no M = 50,
open-ended M = 54). Lie condition was significant, F(1, 129) = 4.24, p = .016, ή = .062.
Truth tellers moved their eye more than rehearsed liars.
For the adjusted Video 1 horizontal eye movements, a significant interaction occurred,
F(2, 131) = 5.04, p = .008, ή = .071, but no effect of lie condition, F(2, 131) = 2.32, p =
.102. Truth tellers had significantly more eye movements than rehearsed liars with yes–no
questions. Regarding adjusted Video 2 horizontal means, lie condition was significant, F(3,
95) = 3.95, p = .022, ή = .059. Rehearsed liars had less eye movement than unrehearsed
liars and truth tellers.
Importantly, the same pattern of significant differences was found for vertical (Table 3)
and horizontal (Table 4) eye movements. For the videos, open-ended questions elicited the
most eye movements. Mixed support was obtained for H3. Whether or not means were
adjusted, truth tellers tended to have the most eye movements, and yes–no question tended
to produce the best discrimination across conditions.
Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012
14   Criminal Justice and Behavior

TABLE 4:  Horizontal Eye Movements

Lie Condition  

  Truth Telling Unrehearsed Lying Rehearsed Lying  

Means
Significantly
Questions M SD M SD M SD Different

Yes–no questions  
General 55 41 47 37 53 42 None
N 45 47 45  
Video 1 70 40 45 39 43 43 1-2, 1-3
N 43 46 47  
Video 2 63 41 49 46 38 36 1-3
N 42 43 47  
Adj. Video 1 14 38 –2 37 –9 34 1-3
N 43 46 45  
Adj. Video 2 6 32 1 34 –16 33 1-3, 2-3
N 42 43 45  
  1 2 3  
Open-ended questions  
General 60 40 52 34 50 36 None
N 45 47 45  
Video 1 67 42 60 43 48 36 None
N 43 46 47  
Video 2 66 37 54 42 44 39 1-3
N 42 43 47  
Adj. Video 1 5 37 8 27 –1 32 None
N 43 46 45  
Adj. Video 2 5 28 3 29 –5 33 1-3, 2-3
N 42 43 45  
  1 2 3  

H4: PUPIL DILATION DURING DECEPTION

Table 5 summarizes pupil dilation. For Video 1, there was a main effect for question
type, F(1, 142) = 32.72, p = .001, ή = .187. Open-ended questions involved more pupil
dilation (yes–no M = 67, open-ended M = 69). Lie condition had no effect, F(2, 142) =.16,
p = .850. For Video 2, open-ended questions entailed more pupil dilation, F(1, 142) =
12.55, p = .001, ή = .081 (yes–no M = 65, open-ended M = 67). Lie condition had no
impact, F(2, 142) =.67, p = .513. A significant interaction occurred, F(2, 142) = 3.62, p =
.029, ή = .049. The simple main effects across question type were not significant. However,
pair-sample t tests across lie conditions clarified the interaction. For truth tellers, open-
ended questions involved more pupil dilation, which also occurred for unrehearsed liars,
but not for rehearsed liars. Rehearsing answers apparently equated the cognitive load of
answering across question types. H4 was not supported.

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

 Walczyk et al. / COGNITIVE DETECTION OF DECEPTION IN WITNESSES   15

TABLE 5:  Pupil Dilation (in pixels)

Lie Condition  

  Truth Telling Unrehearsed Lying Rehearsed Lying  

Means
Significantly
Questions M SD M SD M SD Different

Yes–no questions  
General 67 19 67 14 70 20 None
Video 1 66 18 67 12 67 16 None
Video 2 64 18 68 16 66 16 None
N 48 47 50  
  1 2 3  
Open-ended questions  
General 65 16 66 14 69 20 None
Video 1 67 18 70 14 70 17 None
Video 2 66 18 69 17 66 16 None
N 48 47 50  
  1 2 3  

DISCRIMINANT ANALYSES

Two exploratory discriminant analyses, one for each video, assessed the collective
potential of the cognitive cues except pupil dilation. They served as the IVs. Only adjusted
IV means were used (Walters, 1996) and inconsistency totals. Lie condition was the
dependent (grouping) variable for both, with three levels: truth tellers, unrehearsed liars,
and rehearsed liars. Condition means are reported in Table 6, along with the results of one
way ANOVAs comparing them. Ns were reduced by only including observations that have
complete data for all the IVs. Rows of IVs with significant models are italicized. All but
the open-ended eye movement means were significant.
The discriminant model of Video 1 was significant, Wilks’s Lambda =.77, p = .001; 67%
of the sample was accurately classified, 33% accuracy expected by chance. The false posi-
tive rate (truth tellers misclassified as liars) was 9%. The false negative rate (liars misclas-
sified as truth tellers) was 17%. Video 2’s discriminant model was also significant, Wilks’s
Lambda =.81, p = .001; 69% of the sample was classified accurately. The rate of false
positive was very close to that of Video 1 at 8%, as was the false negative rate at 14%.
Overall, these results show across videos that the adjusted cognitive cues of this research,
along with inconsistencies, perform well beyond chance and with low false positive rates.

DISCUSSION

Though highly valued by juries (Bond & DePaulo, 2006), the testimony of eyewitnesses
has several threats to its validity, especially misidentification (Loftus, 2007; Wells & Olson,
2003). Perjury is the most pernicious threat and an impediment to evenhanded justice. Given
recent concerns with the polygraph’s validity (DePaulo et al., 2003; Lykken, 1998; NRC,
Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012
16   Criminal Justice and Behavior

TABLE 6: Lie Condition Means and ANOVA Results for Independent Variables of the Discriminant
Analyses

Lie Condition  

Unrehearsed Rehearsed
  Truth Telling Lying Lying  

  M M M F p

Adjusted yes–no response times  

Video 1 –43.90 192.71 –78.54 15.15 .001
Video 2 37.10 204.80 16.40 8.47 .001
Adjusted open-ended response times  
Video 1 356.66 569.57 31.05 26.73 .001
Video 2 247.24 446.59 –110.95 23.09 .001
Total Video 1 inconsistency 0.05 0.62 0.51 7.62 .001
Total Video 2 inconsistency 0.12 0.82 0.68 9.34 .001
Adjusted vertical eye movements  
Yes–no  
Video 1 13.17 0.57 –13.94 6.13 .003
Video 2 5.45 0.95 –17.79 5.04 .008
Open-ended  
Video 1 5.46 8.79 –0.02 0.92 .401
Video 2 4.43 2.62 –6.49 1.52 .221
Adjusted horizontal eye movements  
Yes–no  
Video 1 12.93 –0.96 –9.00 4.03 .020
Video 2 5.79 2.49 –15.51 5.06 .008
Open-ended  
Video 1 4.02 8.49 –1.27 1.05 .352
Video 2 4.40 4.51 –5.28 1.45 .237
N for Video 1 42 45 45  
N for Video 2 41 40 44  

Note. ANOVAs in italicized rows have p values < .05 and were used in discriminant analyses.

2003), an effective alternative lie detector would benefit the criminal justice system by
uncovering deception during interviews, thereby reducing perjury. We sought to help refine
TRI-Con, a method of lie detection designed to induce cognitive load selectively on liars
(Walczyk et al., 2005). Participants adopted the roles of eyewitnesses of videos of actual
thefts and then told the truth or lied, rehearsed or unrehearsed, when questioned. Moreover,
although others have considered the effects of rehearsal on deception detection (e.g.,
Littlepage et al., 1986; Littlepage & Pineault, 1985; O’Hair et al., 1981), this study is the
first to examine its effects on multiple cognitive cues: response time, answer consistency,
eye movements, and pupil dilation. The analyses suggest the individual and collective value
of most of these cues for lie detection.

RESPONSE TIME

The longer response times hypothesized to occur with deception, especially unrehearsed,
were confirmed. Response time, a valuable cue to deception (DePaulo et al., 2003;
Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012
 Walczyk et al. / COGNITIVE DETECTION OF DECEPTION IN WITNESSES   17

Seymour et al., 2000; Sporer & Schwandt, 2007), was the best one of those we evaluated.
Also, open-ended questions elicited longer response times than yes–no questions, replicat-
ing previous studies (Walczyk et al., 2005; Walczyk et al., 2009). Importantly, the same
general pattern of group differences of Video 1 was replicated with Video 2 (see Table 1),
but not across question types. For yes–no questions, unrehearsed liars took significantly
longer to answer than both truth tellers and rehearsed liars. That rehearsed liars did not dif-
fer significantly from truth tellers may partially reflect that answers to yes–no questions are
syntactically constrained. The adjusted yes–no scores showed the same pattern as the unad-
justed ones but also control for individual differences (Walters, 1996), making them most
appropriate for lie detection examinations.
For the unadjusted open-ended response times of both videos, rehearsed liars answered
the quickest, followed by truth tellers. Unrehearsed liars were the slowest. This pattern was
maintained with the adjusted open-ended scores, except for a nonsignificant difference
between truth tellers and unrehearsed liars for Video 2. For yes–no and open-ended ques-
tions, rehearsal is an effective cognitive load-attenuating countermeasure as assessed by
response time, replicating others’ findings (O’Hair et al., 1981; Walczyk et al., 2009). That
open-ended question response times were significantly below those of truth tellers implies
that the use of rehearsal is a detectable countermeasure for this question type.
These findings suggest that open-ended questions involving eyewitness accounts can
provide better cues than yes–no questions. Why? Walczyk, Roper, Seemann, and Humphrey
(2003) observed that lying to yes–no questions was less cognitively demanding in general
than lying to open-ended questions according to participant self-reports of lie construction.
For the yes–no questions, they reported flipping an answer from yes to no or vice versa to
make it untrue. For open-ended questions, more thought was given to the plausibility of
answers due to their greater range of possible responses. Likewise, in this study, owing to
fewer syntactic and more plausibility constraints, open-ended questions may generally
have imposed greater cognitive loads, which can multiply the cues to deception (Vrij et al.,
2010). In short, the less constrained the response, the greater are the opportunities for cues
to deception to manifest (DePaulo et al., 2003). Still, open-ended questions will not always
impose greater cognitive load. For instance, if answering a yes–no question truthfully
requires retrieval of a truth long-dormant but an open-ended question accesses a truth of a
recent event, the former should cause more load.

INCONSISTENCIES

This hypothesis was generally supported. Although the frequencies of inconsistencies

were low across question categories, truth tellers had significantly fewer than rehearsed or
unrehearsed liars across videos. The two lying conditions did not differ. Walczyk et al.
(2009) and Vrij et al. (2010) both found more inconsistencies in liars than truth tellers,
especially when deceptions are unrehearsed. Importantly, total inconsistency depends on
how many interrelated questions are asked and the depth of their logical interdependence.
Video 1 and Video 2 had only five and four interrelated question pairs, respectively, which
may not have been sufficiently cognitive load inducing to provoke many contradictions.
Even so, they did help distinguish truth tellers from liars. Also, the present data showed that
the inconsistencies are often subtle, blurting “he” instead of “she.” Having to answer under
time restriction may maximize inconsistencies as question interrelatedness increases,
which future research can explore.
Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012
18   Criminal Justice and Behavior

EYE MOVEMENTS

The hypothesis that truth tellers would have the most eye movements was partially sup-
ported. Because of the ETL 400’s design, eye movements were analyzed into vertical and
horizontal components. On examining the vertical eye movements of Table 3 and the hori-
zontal movements of Table 4, it is evident that the largest unadjusted vertical eye movement
means occurred for truth tellers’ yes–no and open-ended questions of both videos, although
the differences were not always significant. Importantly, the same pattern of significant dif-
ferences held across tables. For Video 1, yes–no questions of truth tellers entailed greater
eye movements than unrehearsed and rehearsed liars. For Video 2, truth tellers moved their
eyes more than rehearsed liars for both question types. Truth tellers were expected to have
the most eye movements. The unadjusted means thus partially supported this hypothesis.
The adjusted yes–no means retained the same general pattern of truth tellers having the most
eye movements and surprisingly showed that rehearsed liars had less eye movements than
unrehearsed liars. For Video 1, truth tellers had more eye movement than rehearsed liars
with yes–no questions. For Video 2, rehearsed liars had less than truth tellers and unre-
hearsed liars for both question types. Adjusting means support this hypothesis in that the
largest means tend to be with truth tellers, but do not support it with the smallest means
tending to go with rehearsed liars, especially for yes–no questions. Searching memory for
rehearsed lies may require less environmental distraction than unrehearsed lying.
Stimulation from the environment can be distracting and impair internal processing
(Doherty-Sneddon et al., 2002; Doherty-Sneddon & Phelps, 2005; Glenberg et al., 1998).
Expanding on this notion, we predicted less eye movements for liars because their high
cognitive loads focused on internal processing would have them reducing environmental
distraction. In addition to having to generate or recall deceptive answers, liars’ loads were
presumed high due to having to maintain eye contact (Vrij et al., 2010). As noted above,
sometimes rehearsed liars had the least eye movements likely to minimize environmental
distraction, which we believe helped them recall their prepared lies. Future research should
try to replicate these results and assess the effects of extensive rehearsal of lies on eye
movements. We expect that well-rehearsed lies will have eye movement rates exceeding
those of truth tellers. The present data show that eye movements can distinguish truth tell-
ers from liars and run contrary to the stereotype that liars are shifty-eyed (Vrij, 2000). Out
of cognitive necessity, their eyes often must be stationary.

PUPIL DILATION

Surprisingly, the greater pupil dilation hypothesized with deception was not observed.
Researchers have nonetheless found more pupil dilation in lying (Bradley & Janisse, 1979;
Dionisio et al., 2001; Heilveil, 1976; Lubow & Fein, 1996; Webb et al., 2009). One prob-
lem in this study may have been that dilation reflected not only cognitive load but emo-
tional arousal as well (DePaulo et al., 2003). Of the cues of this research, it may be the most
confounded index of cognitive load. For instance, the novelty of the procedure and the
stress of having to maintain eye contact may have been sufficiently arousing, even for truth
tellers, to have overshadowed small group differences due to lying. Given its utility in past
studies, though, researchers should continue to examine it. If cognitive lie detection exam-
ination procedures become standardized, it will likely become less ambiguous as an index
of the cognitive load of deception.

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

 Walczyk et al. / COGNITIVE DETECTION OF DECEPTION IN WITNESSES   19

EXPLORATORY DISCRIMINANT ANALYSES

The verbal skills of liars moderate the efficiency of lie generation (Walczyk et al., 2003), so
do social skills (Walczyk et al., 2005) and other individual differences (Vrij, 2000). We con-
trolled for them by following the recommendation of Walters (1996). Specifically, only
response time and eye movement means adjusted by means of general questions were used to
estimate discriminant functions, along with inconsistency data. Collectively they discriminated
among truth tellers, rehearsed liars, and unrehearsed liars. Moreover, although Walczyk et al.
(2009) demonstrated the value of adjusted response times and inconsistency totals as dis-
criminators, our research contributes by also considering the effects of rehearsal on eye data.
Table 6 reveals an interesting contrast. The best discriminators for response times
involved open-ended questions, whereas for eye movements they were with yes–no ques-
tions. Our explanation follows. Eye movements and response times both index cognitive
load, but differently. Measuring the amount of processing, response time is a direct conse-
quence of cognitive load (Solso, 2001), but gaze aversion and eye movements reflect
attempts to manage load (Doherty-Sneddon et al., 2002; Doherty-Sneddon & Phelps, 2005;
Glenberg et al., 1998). Minimal syntactic constraint on answers to open-ended questions
likely required extended memory search for plausible lies for unrehearsed liars, causing the
long responses times, but also dramatic reduction in processing below that of truth telling
when lies are rehearsed. The processing reduction caused by rehearsal could not be
matched with the constrained yes–no questions. In contrast, Table 6 shows a much greater
range of adjusted eye movement means across lie conditions for yes–no questions than for
open-ended questions. Adjusted yes–no means for unrehearsed liars are close to those of
general questions (near zero). Truth tellers have the most eye movements, reflecting mini-
mal need to reduce load. Rehearsed liars have eye movements dramatically below those of
general questions, suggestive of attempted load reduction. Reduced eye movements for
yes–no questions may reflect rehearsed liars’ lessening of environmental distraction to
focus on overcoming the Stroop-like interference of giving mildly practiced responses that
were incompatible with a habitual behavior: answering truthfully syntactically constrained
yes–no questions. Stated generally, rehearsing responses lightens cognitive load more for
unconstrained responding than for constrained responding, but rehearsal of atypical
responding (e.g., lying) produces the most interference and need for focused attention when
response options are highly constrained. This account must be verified by future research.
Admittedly, some polygraph validity studies have achieved higher classification accura-
cies than those of this research (Lykken, 1998; NRC, 2003). Even so, we caution readers
against dismissing prematurely TRI-Con and other cognitive load-inducing lie detection
techniques. The polygraph has been refined over many decades, whereas TRI-Con and
similar techniques (see Vrij, Fisher et al., 2008) are new. Only research aimed at refining
averting-rehearsal, dual tasking, and combined approaches will realize their potential.
Some encouraging findings for TRI-Con are the low rates of false positives we observed,
which are a problem with the polygraph and a major reason for its limited use in the
criminal justice system (Lykken, 1998).

USING TRI-CON WITHIN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

There are many legal and psychological obstacles to the adoption of new forensic tech-
nologies like cognitive-load-inducing lie detection techniques. Will judges, lawyers,

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

20   Criminal Justice and Behavior

victims, suspects, defendants, and witnesses accept TRI-Con and similar approaches, even
if they become well validated? Having to answers questions under the guidelines of TRI-
Con might not be accepted by professionals initially. However, to put this in a historical
perspective, the public’s initial reaction to the invasiveness of the polygraph was negative.
Still, the device was eventually accepted (Lykken, 1998). If TRI-Con and other load-induc-
ing techniques can prove their worth, they likely will be accepted, too. TRI-Con has poten-
tial to assess truthfulness and deception wherever short answers can be given. For instance,
if a suspect provides an alibi that police believe is false, a series of yes–no and open-ended
questions could be written based on the alibi-probing details the individual may not have
anticipated. Moreover, as in this research, prompting, the asking of questions, and the
assessment of cues can be largely automated. Also, determining whether an examinee is
answering honestly or lying rehearsed or unrehearsed can be done using statistical proce-
dures like logistical regression or discriminant analyses. Of course, more refinement of TRI-
Con is needed, especially on authentic samples and involving high stakes lies.

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

A few limitations are noteworthy. Unlike the polygraph, lie detection did not occur at the
level of the question. Rather, it occurred for question set. Walczyk et al. (2005) noted that
the cognitive cues to an individual question may be too unreliable at present to support such
precise lie detection. However, the present data suggest that response times, inconsistency,
and eye movements can discriminate truth tellers from rehearsed and unrehearsed liars.
Future refinement of load-inducing approaches that adds cognitive cues, tweaks the proce-
dures to prevent rehearsal further, and imposes concurrent tasks that interfere selectively
with lying may make question-level detection a reality. Another limitation is the fact that
two factors were actually manipulated in this research under the IV lie condition: lie
instructions (lie, tell the truth) and level of rehearsal (rehearsed, unrehearsed). Moreover,
they were not fully crossed in a 2 × 2 factorial design. That is, there was no rehearsed, truth
teller condition. Had there been one, then interactions between these factors could have
been examined. However, readers can discern the effects of lie instructions by comparing
unrehearsed liars and truth tellers and can consider the effects of level of rehearsal by com-
paring rehearsed and unrehearsed liars. The rehearsal of truthful responses is rare in authen-
tic contexts but should be added as a condition in future research. Another limitation relates
to instructions to maintain eye contact; these might be ineffective with Japanese and other
non-Western cultures for whom such eye contact goes against a societal norm. These
instructions might induce inordinately high levels of anxiety and be distracting within these
cultures (McCarthy, Lee, Itakura, & Muir, 2006), even for truth tellers. Finally, the motiva-
tion of our participants to appear truthful was not as high as that of actual witnesses lying
to protect someone. Future research testing TRI-Con and similar approaches should
increase the incentive for lying by offering cash rewards to participants who can deceive
while appearing sincere, as well as test more authentic samples (e.g., prisoners). Still, the
promising results of this study justify more research on TRI-Con and other cognitive load-
inducing techniques with the hope of uncovering deception during interviews of witnesses
and thereby reducing perjured testimony.

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

 Walczyk et al. / COGNITIVE DETECTION OF DECEPTION IN WITNESSES   21

Appendix

General and Video-Related Questions

General Questions Question pairs involving inconsistencies: 2-16, 3-15, 5-10, 7-17
1) What was president Washington’s first name?*
2) Is Independence Day celebrated during August?
3) Is it possible for a person to be burned when operating an oven?
4) What is your last name?
5) What is your age?
6) What is your biological mother’s first name?
7) In what city is the White House located?
8) You received your GED or graduated from high school in what year?
9) What is your gender?
10) Were you born before the year 1979?
11) What is your race?
12) Are you a freshman?
13) Is our current president’s first name Leo?
14) Are you a student?
15) Can an oven get hot?
16) On what date does the United States celebrate Independence Day?
17) Is Los Angeles the location of the White House?
18) What is the name of city of the Louisiana state capital?
Video 1 Questions Question pairs involving inconsistencies: 19-20, 19-23, 19-28,
22-23, 22-25
19) What job did the perpetrator have?
20) Following the crime, who came into the office and talked with the perpetrator?
21) What was the perpetrator’s race?
22) Was the perpetrator a woman?
23) What was the perpetrator’s job-related reason for being in the office?
24) Was the perpetrator wearing a baseball cap?
25) What was the perpetrator’s criminal act?
26) Approximately what was the perpetrator’s age?
27) Was the perpetrator wearing shorts?
28) Was the perpetrator wearing formal black shoes?
Video 2 Questions Question pairs involving inconsistencies: 29-33, 29-34, 30-33,
30-35
29) What was the criminal act?
30) Was the perpetrator a man?
31) Was the perpetrator Asian?
32) What was the race of the clerk behind the counter?
33) How did the perpetrator try to conceal the criminal act?
34) Where did the criminal act take place?
35) What did the perpetrator and the clerk talk about?
36) Was the perpetrator wearing a hat?
37) At the time of the crime, how many were visible in the store?

Note. Boldfaced general questions have verifiable truths.

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

22   Criminal Justice and Behavior

REFERENCES

Anastasi, A., & Urbina, S. (1997). Psychological testing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Bond, C. F., Jr., & DePaulo, B. M. (2006). Accuracy of deception judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10,
214-234.
Bradley, M. T., & Janisse, M. P. (1979). Pupil size and lie detection. The effect of certainty on detection. Psychology: A
Quarterly Journal of Human Behavior, 16, 33-39.
DePaulo, B. M., Lindsay, J. J., Malone, B. E., Muhlenbruck, L., Charlton, K., & Harris, C. (2003). Cues to deception.
Psychological Bulletin, 129, 74-112.
Dionisio, D. P., Granholm, E., Hillix, W. A., & Perrine, W. F. (2001). Differentiation of deception using pupillary response
as an index of cognitive processing. Psychophysiology, 38, 205-211.
Doherty-Sneddon, G., Bruce, V., Bonner, L., Longbotham, S., & Doyle, C. (2002). Development of gaze aversion as disen-
gagement from visual information. Developmental Psychology, 38, 438-445.
Doherty-Sneddon, G., & Phelps, F. G. (2005). Gaze aversion: A response to cognitive or social difficulty? Memory &
Cognition, 33, 727-733.
Garrett, B. (2010). The substance of false confessions. Stanford Law Review, 62, 1051-1119.
Garrido, E., Masip, J., & Herrero, C. (2004). Police officers’ credibility judgments: Accuracy and estimated ability.
International Journal of Psychology, 39, 254-275.
Glenberg, A. M., Schroeder, J. L., & Robertson, D. A. (1998). Averting the gaze disengages the environment and facilitates
remembering. Memory & Cognition, 26, 651-658.
Hartwig, M., Granhag, P. A., Stromwall, L. A., & Vrij, A. (2004). Police officers’ lie detection accuracy: Interrogating freely
versus observing video. Police Quarterly, 7, 429-456.
Heilveil, I. (1976). Deception and pupil size. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 32, 443-449.
Inbau, F. E., Reid, J. E., Buckley, J. P., & Jayne, B. C. (2001). Criminal interrogation and confessions. Gaithersburg, MD:
Aspen.
Landström, S., Granhag, P., & Hartwig, M. (2005). Witnesses appearing live versus on video: Effects on observers’ percep-
tion, veracity assessments, and memory. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19, 913-933.
Littlepage, G. E., & Pineault, M. A. (1985). Detection of deception of planned and spontaneous communications. Journal of
Social Psychology, 125, 195-201.
Littlepage, G. E., Tang, D. W., & Pineault, M. A. (1986). Nonverbal and content factors in the detection of planned and
spontaneous communications. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 1, 439-450.
Loftus, E. (1979). Eyewitness testimony. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Loftus, E. F. (2007). Memory distortions: Problems solved and unsolved. In M. Garry & H. Hayne (Eds.), Do justice and let
the sky fall: Elizabeth Loftus and her contributions to science, law, and academic freedom (pp. 1-14). Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Lubow, R. E., & Fein, D. (1996). Pupillary size in response to a visual guilty knowledge test: New technique for the detection
of deception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 2, 164-177.
Lykken, D. T. (1998). A tremor in the blood: Uses and abuses of the lie detector. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
McCarthy, A., Lee, K., Itakura, S., & Muir, D.W. (2006). Cultural display rules drive eye gaze during thinking. Journal of
Cross-Cultural Psychology, 37, 717-722.
National Research Council. (2003). The polygraph and lie detection. Committee to Review the Scientific Evidence on the
Polygraph. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
O’Hair, H. D., Cody, M. J., & McLaughlin, M. L. (1981). Prepared lies, spontaneous lies, Machiavellianism, and nonverbal
communication. Human Communication Research, 7, 325-339.
O’Sullivan, M., Frank, M. G., & Hurley, C M. (2009). Police lie detection accuracy: The effect of lie scenario. Law and
Human Behavior, 33, 530-538.
Pashler, H. (1994). Dual-task interference in simple tasks: Data and theory. Psychological Bulletin, 116, 220-244.
Porter, S., & Yuille, J. (1996). The language of deceit: An investigation of the verbal clues to deception in the interrogation
context. Law and Human Behavior, 20, 443-458.
Seymour, T. L, Seifert, C. M., Shafto, M. G., & Mosmann, A. L. (2000). Using response time measures to assess “guilty
knowledge.” Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 30-37.
Solso, R. L. (2001). Cognitive psychology (6th ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Sporer, S. L., & Schwandt, B. (2006). Paraverbal indicators of deception: A meta-analytic synthesis. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 20, 421-446.
Sporer, S. L., & Schwandt, B. (2007). Moderators of nonverbal indicators of deception: A meta-analytic synthesis.
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 13, 1-34.
Vrij, A. (1993). Credibility judgments and detectives: The impact of nonverbal behaviour, social skills and physical charac-
teristics on impression formation. Journal of Social Psychology, 133, 601-611.
Vrij, A. (2000). Detecting lies and deceit. Chichester, UK: Wiley.

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012

 Walczyk et al. / COGNITIVE DETECTION OF DECEPTION IN WITNESSES   23

Vrij, A., Fisher, R., Mann, S., & Leal, S. (2008). A cognitive load approach to lie detection. Journal of Investigative
Psychology and Offender Profiling, 5, 39-43.
Vrij, A., Leal, S., Granhag, P. A., Mann, S., Fisher, R. P., Hillman, J., & Sperry, K. (2009). Outsmarting the liars: The benefits
of asking unanticipated questions. Law & Human Behavior, 33, 159-166.
Vrij, A., Mann, S., Fisher, R., Leal, S., Milne, B., & Bull, R. (2008). Increasing cognitive load to facilitate lie detection: The
benefit of recalling an event in reverse order. Law & Human Behavior, 32, 253-265.
Vrij, A., Mann, S., Leal, S., & Fisher, R. (2010). “Look into my eyes”: Can an instruction to maintain eye contract facilitate
lie detection? Psychology, Crime, & Law, 16, 327-348.
Walczyk, J. J., Mahoney, K. T., Doverspike, D., & Griffith-Ross, D. A. (2009). Cognitive lie detection: Response time and
consistency of answers as cues to deception. Journal of Business and Psychology, 24, 33-49.
Walczyk, J. J., Roper, K., Seemann, E., & Humphrey, A. M. (2003). Cognitive mechanisms underlying lying to questions:
Response time as a cue to deception. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 755-774.
Walczyk, J. J., Schwartz, J. P., Clifton, R., Adams, B., Wei, M., & Zha, P. (2005). Lying person to person about life events:
A cognitive framework for lie detection. Personnel Psychology, 58, 141-170.
Walters, S. B. (1996). Principles of Kinesic Interview and Interrogation. New York, NY: CRC.
Webb, A. K., Honts, C. R., Kircher, J. C., Bernhardt, P., & Cook, A. E. (2009). Effectiveness of pupil diameter in a probable-
lie comparison question test for deception. Legal and Criminal Psychology, 14, 279-292.
Wells, G. L., & Olson, E. A. (2003). Eyewitness testimony. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 277-295.
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. 1-59). New York: Academic Press.

Jeffrey J. Walczyk is a professor of psychology at Louisiana Tech University. He is former associate editor of the Journal
of Educational Psychology. His research interests include cognitive and social aspects of deception as well as the psychology
of reading.

Diana A. Griffith is a research associate at Louisiana Tech. Formerly an editorial assistant of the Journal of Educational
Psychology, she writes grants and conducts research on deception.

Rachel Yates received her master’s degree in industrial-organizational psychology in 2009. Presently she is the administra-
tive assistant at the Center for Secure Cyberspace of Louisiana Tech.

Shelley R. Visconte is a doctoral candidate in counseling psychology at Louisiana Tech. Her research interests include the
study of autism.

Byron Simoneaux is a doctoral candidate in counseling psychology at Louisiana Tech. His dissertation concerns gender
differences in the attribution of deception in others.

Laura L. Harris is a doctoral student in counseling psychology at Louisiana Tech.

Downloaded from cjb.sagepub.com at UNIV OF DELAWARE LIB on June 12, 2012