Detecting lies in children and adults.

Full Abstract

In this study, observers' abilities to detect lies in children and adults were examined. Adult participants observed videotaped interviews of both children and adults either lying or telling the truth about having been touched by a male research assistant. As hypothesized, observers detected children's lies more accurately than adults' lies; however, adults' truthful statements were detected more accurately than were children's. Further analyses revealed that observers were biased toward judging adults' but not children's statements as truthful. Finally, consistent with the notion that there are stable individual differences in the ability to detect lies, observers who were highly accurate in detecting children's lies were similarly accurate in detecting adults' lies. Implications of these findings for understanding lie-detection accuracy are discussed, as are potential applications to the forensic context.

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Author information

Author/s: Edelstein, Robin S (RS); Luten, Tanya L (TL); Ekman, Paul (P); Goodman, Gail S (GS);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, USA. ggoodman(-atsign-)ucdavis.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Clinical Trial; Comparative Study; Journal Article

Journal: Law and human behavior (Law Hum Behav), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Feb; vol 30 (issue 1) : pp 1-10

Dates: Created 2006/05/26; Completed 2006/07/27; Revised 2008/11/21;

PMID: 16729205, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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