Truth, Lies, and Videotape: an Investigation of the Ability of Federal Parole Officers to Detect Deception

The ability of a group of Canadian federal parole officers to detect deception was investigated over the course of 2 days of lie detection training. On the first day of training, 32 officers judged the honesty of 12 (6 true, 6 fabricated) videotaped speakers describing personal experiences, half of which were judged before and half judged after training. On the second day, 5 weeks later, 20 of the original participants judged the honesty of another 12 videotapes (again, 6 pre- and 6 posttraining). To isolate factors relating to detection accuracy, three groups of undergraduate participants made judgments on the same 24 videotapes: (1) a feedback group, which received feedback on accuracy following each judgment, (2) a feedback + cue information group, which was given feedback and information on empirically based cues to deception, and (3) a control group, which did not receive feedback or cue information. Results indicated that at baseline all groups performed at or below chance levels. However, overall, all experimental groups (including the parole officers) became significantly better at detecting deception than the control group. By the final set of judgments, the parole officers were significantly more accurate (M = 76.7%) than their baseline performance (M = 40.4%) as well as significantly more accurate than the control group (M = 62.5%). The results indicate that detecting deceit is difficult, but training and feedback can enhance detection skills.