ABSTRACT
Detecting deception and identifying the processes of fraud provide significant challenges for psychologists. Most psychological research is based on the assumption that the people involved in the studies are telling the truth. Laboratory research on the ability to detect deception usually consists of showing videotaped clips of liars and truth-tellers to observers who have to indicate after each clip whether it contained a truth or a lie. In these studies, the observers base their judgments on limited information. The poor ability to detect deception is related to the fact that people have incorrect beliefs about indicators of lying. Zimmerman, Compo and Carlucci and Vrij demonstrated that many people use invalid cues as indicators of deception. A strong illustration of how people respond to expressed emotion in forming judgments of plausibility is given by Doss who describes how a mother who murdered her sons pleaded with great emotion for their 'return' and fooled many people into believing she was innocent.
