Facial and vocal cues of deception and honesty

doi:10.1016/0022-1031(79)90045-3

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Volume 15, Issue 4, July 1979, Pages 378-396

https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(79)90045-3 Get rights and content

Abstract

Facial expressions and vocal cues (filtered speech) of honest and deceptive messages were examined in posed and spontaneous situations. The question of interest was the degree to which nonverbal cues transmit information about deception. Results indicated that (a) for both the facial and vocal channels, posing (as compared to spontaneous behavior) produced a higher level of communication accuracy; (b) facial expressions of deceptive (as compared to honest) messages were rated as less pleasant, while vocal expressions of deception were rated as less honest, less assertive, and less dominant, particularly in the posed condition; (c) the sender's ability to convey honesty was negatively correlated with his/her ability to convey deception, suggesting the existence of a demeanor bias—individual senders tend to appear and sound consistently honest (or dishonest) regardless of whether they deliver an honest or a deceptive message; (d) in the posing condition, the sender's abilities to convey honesty/deception via facial and vocal cues were positively and significantly correlated, whereas in the spontaneous condition they were not; and (e) senders whose full (unfiltered) speech indicated more involvement with their responses were judged as more honest from both their vocal (filtered speech) and facial cues, in both the honest and deceptive conditions.

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In lie detection, that is, the distinction between truth (accurate) and lies (inaccurate), extensive research has been conducted to find if any vocal characteristics can differentiate truth-tellers from liars. Studies have looked at vocal characteristics such as; talking time (Mehrabian, 1971; Knapp et al., 1974; Todd-Mancillas and Kibler, 1979), speech rate (Anolli and Ciceri, 1997; DePaulo and DePaulo, 1989; Feeley and DeTurck, 1998), vocal immediacy (Kraut and Poe, 1980), vocal uncertainty (Kraut and Poe, 1980; Stiff and Miller, 1986), silent pauses (Anolli and Ciceri, 1997; Stiff and Miller, 1986), vocal pleasantness (Scherer et al., 1985; Zuckerman et al., 1979; Rockwell et al., 1997), vocal stress (O'Hair, Cody, 1987; O'Hair et al., 1990) and pitch (Villar et al., 2013; Streeter et al., 1977; Zuckerman et al., 1979; Rockwell et al., 1997). Although these individual studies generally find that the examined vocal characteristic in the respective study does predict accuracy, a meta-analysis of the field has revealed only small effects overall, which is a general issue in lie-detection research (DePaulo et al., 2003; see also Luke, 2019).
In two studies, we examined if correct and incorrect testimony statements were produced with vocally distinct characteristics. Participants watched a staged crime film and were interviewed as eyewitnesses. Witness responses were recorded and then analysed along 16 vocal dimensions. Results from Study 1 showed six vocal characteristics of accuracy, which included dimensions of frequency, energy, spectral balance and temporality. Study 2 attempted to replicate Study 1, and also examined effects of emotion on the vocal characteristic-accuracy relationship. Although the results from Study 1 were not directly replicated in Study 2, a mega-analysis of the two datasets showed four distinct vocal characteristics of accuracy; correct responses were uttered with a higher pitch (F0 [M]), greater energy in the first formant region (F1 [amp]), higher speech rate (VoicedSegPerSec) and shorter pauses (UnvoicedSegM). Taken together, this study advances previous knowledge by showing that accuracy is not only indicated by what we say, but also by how we say it.
Personality traits of a good liar: A systematic review of the literature
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Although deception is used by many high-risk occupations, including military leaders, lawyers and politicians, there are currently no selection tests to determine which people have superior lie production abilities for these roles. The lack of selection tests is particularly crucial in the high-risk covert roles of undercover operations and human source management within policing. This paper uses the PRISMA systematic review technique to summarise and synthesis the extant literature examining deception theories and lie production. This paper also examines the relationship between lie production and Emotional Intelligence, and the personality traits of the Dark Triad and the HEXACO, to elucidate the characteristics of good liars. The scant research published within this field has been conducted with a variety of experimental designs and dependent variables. Generally, results indicate that the traits, skills and abilities behind sender demeanour, such as believability and honesty, may be fundamental to lie production ability. These characteristics could be considered in selection testing for to identify people with the ability to deceive effectively.
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Indeed, these insincere remarks are perceived as so innocuous that they are often grouped with compliments, courtesies (Ekman and O'Sullivan, 2006), and politeness behaviour (e.g., Talwar et al., 2007). In the literature on deception (unrestricted to prosocial lies), meta-analyses provide clues about the nonverbal indicators of insincerity during social interactions (DePaulo et al., 2003; Sporer and Schwandt, 2006; Zuckerman et al., 1979). Despite speakers’ attempts to hide that they are lying, auditory and visual cues that accompany the production of prosocial lies, such as changes in voice pitch or facial expressions, tend to “leak out” (Buller and Aune, 1987; Villar et al., 2013).
In social life, humans do not always communicate their sincere feelings, and speakers often tell ‘prosocial lies’ to prevent others from being hurt by negative truths. Data illuminating how a speaker's voice carries sincere or insincere attitudes in speech, and how social context shapes the expression and perception of (in)sincere utterances, are scarce. Here, we studied the communication of social, other-oriented lies occurring in short dialogues. We recorded paired questions (So, what do you think of my new hairdo?) and responses (I think it looks really amazing!) using a paradigm that elicited compliments which reflected the true positive opinion of the speaker (sincere) or were meant to hide their negative opinion (insincere/prosocial lie). These Question–Response pairs were then presented to 30 listeners, who rated the sincerity of the person uttering the compliment on a 5-point scale. Results showed that participants could successfully differentiate sincere compliments from prosocial lies based largely on vocal speech cues. Moreover, sincerity impressions were biased by how the preceding question was phrased (confident or uncertain). Acoustic analyses on a subset of utterances that promoted strong impressions of sincerity versus insincerity revealed that compliments perceived as being sincere were spoken faster and began with a higher pitch than those that sounded insincere, while compliments rated as insincere tended to get louder as the utterance unfolded. These data supply new evidence of the importance of vocal cues in evaluating sincerity, while emphasizing that motivations of both the speaker and hearer contribute to impressions of speaker sincerity.
Neural correlates of inferring speaker sincerity from white lies: An event-related potential source localization study
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Citation Excerpt :
When the utterance content matches the speaker׳s true beliefs, emotions, and/or attitudes, it may be described as ‘sincere’; alternately, when the speaker conveys ideas that differ from his or her true beliefs, it may be described as insincere (and sometimes, a white lie). Researchers have characterized a number of nonverbal cues that tend to be associated with deception, such as subtle changes of expression, pitch of the voice, and body posture (Frank and Ekman 1997; Vrij, 1994; Zuckerman et al., 1979). Although much of the deception research focuses on high-stakes lying and associated forms of physiological arousal—which likely account for many of the verbal and non-verbal indicators of deception—the small lies which are part of normal daily interactions are not typically associated with these effects (DePaulo et al., 2003).
During social interactions, listeners weigh the importance of linguistic and extra-linguistic speech cues (prosody) to infer the true intentions of the speaker in reference to what is actually said. In this study, we investigated what brain processes allow listeners to detect when a spoken compliment is meant to be sincere (true compliment) or not (“white lie”). Electroencephalograms of 29 participants were recorded while they listened to Question–Response pairs, where the response was expressed in either a sincere or insincere tone (e.g., “So, what did you think of my presentation?”/“I found it really interesting.”). Participants judged whether the response was sincere or not. Behavioral results showed that prosody could be effectively used to discern the intended sincerity of compliments. Analysis of temporal and spatial characteristics of event-related potentials (P200, N400, P600) uncovered significant effects of prosody on P600 amplitudes, which were greater in response to sincere versus insincere compliments. Using low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (LORETA), we determined that the anatomical sources of this activity were likely located in the (left) insula, consistent with previous reports of insular activity in the perception of lies and concealments. These data extend knowledge of the neurocognitive mechanisms that permit context-appropriate inferences about speaker feelings and intentions during interpersonal communication.
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^☆: This study was funded in part by Biomedical Research Support Grants, Division of Research Resources, National Institute of Health, to The Johns Hopkins University and to Harvard University, and by the Milton Fund of Harvard University.

¹: Judith A. Hall was formerly Judith Hall Koivumaki.

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Facial and vocal cues of deception and honesty☆

Abstract

Nonverbal communication of affect in children

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Sex, personality, and physiological variables in the communication of affect via facial expression

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Communication of affect through facial expressions in humans

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences

Personality and the structure of the nonverbal communication of emotion

Journal of Personality

Decoding discrepant nonverbal cues

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Nonverbal leakage and clues to deception

Psychiatry

Detecting deception from the body or face

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Body movement and voice pitch in deceptive interaction

Semiotica

The ability to judge truth-telling, or lying, from the voice as transmitted over a public address system

The Journal of General Psychology

Nonverbal disclosure of teacher deception and interpersonal affect

Journal of Educational Psychology

Cues to deception in an interview situation

Social Psychology

Verbal and nonverbal cues in the perception of lying

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

The relationship between abilities to express emotional meanings vocally and facially