Detecting Deception from Emotional and Unemotional Cues

Encoders were video recorded giving either truthful or deceptive descriptions of video footage designed to generate either emotional or unemotional responses. Decoders were asked to indicate the truthfulness of each item, what cues they used in making their judgements, and then to complete both the Micro Expression Training Tool (METT) and Subtle Expression Training Tool (SETT). Although overall performance on the deception detection task was no better than chance, performance for emotional lie detection was significantly above chance, while that for unemotional lie detection was significantly below chance. Emotional lie detection accuracy was also significantly positively correlated with reported use of facial expressions and with performance on the SETT, but not on the METT. The study highlights the importance of taking the type of lie into account when assessing skill in deception detection.