Examining the role of speaker familiarity and statement practice on deception detection

Detecting deception is a ubiquitous, but difficult component of daily interactions. While prior work has shown that people are poor lie detectors, research has also shown that increased familiarity with the statement sender impacts accuracy. The current study examined how increased familiarity with a statement sender, as well as the type of statement provided, influenced detection accuracy. Participants judged truthful and deceptive statements from different speakers that varied in how familiar they were to the participant (pre-experimental familiarity, experimental familiarity, no familiarity). The statements that were evaluated varied in veracity, statement type (descriptions or denials), and whether the statements had been practiced. Participants believed they were more accurate in their veracity assessments for the pre-experimentally familiar speakers compared to the other speaker types. While participants were more accurate for pre-experimentally familiar speakers compared to strangers, there was no difference in accuracy between judgments for the pre- and experimentally familiar speakers. Participants were also more likely to believe statements that had been practiced, regardless of the statements’ actual veracity or their degree of familiarity with the speaker.