Skulking around the dinosaur: Eliciting cues to children's deception via strategic disclosure of evidence

Abstract

Research has shown that cues to deception are more salient as an effect of strategic use of evidence (SUE) during interviews. This study examined the feasibility of the SUE-technique for eliciting cues to children's deception. Experiment 1 investigated verbal cues to deception as a function of early vs. late disclosure of evidence. Eighty-four children (12–14 years) either guilty or innocent of a mock crime were interviewed. As predicted, deceptive statements were significantly more inconsistent with the evidence than truthful statements, and this was more pronounced as a function of late compared to early disclosure of evidence. In Experiment 2, adult observers (N = 168) made veracity assessments of the videotaped statements. Observers in the late disclosure condition achieved an accuracy rate higher than chance (63.1%), whereas accuracy rates in the early disclosure condition were at chance level (56%). Accuracy rates were significantly higher for truthful (70.2%), than deceptive statements (48.8%). Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.