ABSTRACT
The different approaches to determining if someone is lying are briefly examined. Two studies are proposed that test the possibility of detecting deception, drawing directly on the laboratory experiment framework. As such they consist, essentially, of generating, or finding, genuine and false accounts and exploring the possible processes for telling one from the other, as well as assessing how accurately people can distinguish between the two. This is part of a large and complex variety of studies that have been conducted starting early in the twentieth century, but with precursors that can be found in the Bible and in all early cultures.
The chapter emphasises psychological accounts of the cognitive demands made when not telling the truth and how they can be utilised to develop techniques for detecting deception. In one study true and false accounts are generated and then a criteria-based content analysis (CBCA) system is used to determine if that process can detect deceit. The second study utilises available videos of people making appeals to the public when their loved ones have disappeared. In some cases, the people making the appeal are the actual culprits. Aspects of their utterances are examined as a way of establishing who is lying.
The context in which accounts are generated are considered throughout. They are an integral part of understanding how lies are uncovered. This may be the artificiality of the academic laboratory, or real events in which determining truth is crucial. It may be focused questioning or freely given accounts. All of these are relevant to the processes of lying and truthfulness.
