Siegfried Ludwig Sporer

Recognizing faces of other ethnic groups: An integration of theories.

Studies of the recognition of faces of an ethnic group different from ones own reveal a robust recognition deficit for faces of the respective out-group (cross-race effect or own-race bias) and a tendency to respond less cautiously with respect to out-group faces. Cross-national comparisons reveal

The detection of deception with the reality monitoring approach: a review of the empirical evidence

One of the verbal approaches to the detection of deceit is based on research on human memory that tries to identify the characteristics that differentiate between internal and external memories (reality monitoring). This approach has attempted to extrapolate the contributions of reality monitoring (RM) research to the deception area. In this paper, we have attempted to review all available studies conducted in several countries in order to yield some general conclusions concerning the discriminative power of this approach. Regarding individual criteria, the empirical results are not very encouraging: few criteria discriminate significantly across studies, and there are several variables that moderate their effect. Some of the contradictory findings may have emerged because of differences in the operationalizations and procedures used across individual studies. However, more promising results have been reported in recent studies, and the approach as a whole appears to discriminate above chance level, reaching accuracy rates that are similar to those of criteria-based content analysis (CBCA). Some suggestions for future research are made.

Moderators of nonverbal indicators of deception: A meta-analytic synthesis.

In many legal proceedings, fact finders scrutinize the demeanor of a defendant or witness, particularly his or her nonverbal behavior, for indicators of deception. This meta-analysis investigated directly observable nonverbal correlates of deception as a function of different moderator variables. Although lay people and professionals alike assume that many nonverbal behaviors are displayed more frequently while lying, of 11 different behaviors observable in the head and body area, only 3 were reliably associated with deception. Nodding, foot and leg movements, and hand movements were negatively related to deception in the overall analyses weighted by sample size. Most people assume that nonverbal behaviors increase while lying; however, these behaviors decreased, whereas others showed no change. There was no evidence that people avoid eye contact while lying, although around the world, gaze aversion is deemed the most important signal of deception. Most effect sizes were found to be heterogeneous. Analyses of moderator variables revealed that many of the observed relationships varied as a function of content, motivation, preparation, sanctioning of the lie, experimental design, and operationalization. Existing theories cannot readily account for the heterogeneity in findings. Thus, practitioners are cautioned against using these indicators in assessing the truthfulness of oral reports.

Psychological Issues in Eyewitness Identification

Contents: Preface. S.L. Sporer, G. Koehnken, R.S. Malpass, Introduction: 200 Years of Mistaken Identification. J.P. Lipton, Legal Aspects of Eyewitness Testimony. D.J. Narby, B.L. Cutler, S.D. Penrod, The Effects of Witness, Target, and Situational Factors on Eyewitness Identifications. S.L. Sporer, Psychological Aspects of Person Descriptions. J.W. Shepherd, H.D. Ellis, Face Recall--Methods and Problems. R. Hammersley, J.D. Read, Voice Identification by Humans and Computers. J.E. Chance, A.G. Goldstein, The Other-Race Effect and Eyewitness Identification. R.S. Malpass, Enhancing Eyewitness Memory. G. Koehnken, R.S. Malpass, M.S. Wogalter, Forensic Applications of Line-Up Research. G.M. Davies, Childrens Identification Evidence. A.D. Yarmey, The Elderly Witness. A. Maass, Logic and Methodology of Experimental Research in Eyewitness Psychology. R.S. Malpass, S.L. Sporer, G. Koehnken, Conclusion.

Listening, not watching : Situational familiarity and the ability to detect deception

In 4 experiments, the authors investigated the influence of situational familiarity with the judgmental context on the process of lie detection. They predicted that high familiarity with a situation leads to a more pronounced use of content cues when making judgments of veracity. Therefore, they expected higher classification accuracy of truths and lies under high familiarity. Under low situational familiarity, they expected that people achieve lower accuracy rates because they use more nonverbal cues for their veracity judgments. In all 4 experiments, participants with high situational familiarity achieved higher accuracy rates in classifying both truthful and deceptive messages than participants with low situational familiarity. Moreover, mediational analyses demonstrated that higher classification accuracy in the high-familiarity condition was associated with more use of verbal content cues and less use of nonverbal cues.

Are Computers Effective Lie Detectors? A Meta-Analysis of Linguistic Cues to Deception

This meta-analysis investigates linguistic cues to deception and whether these cues can be detected with computer programs. We integrated operational definitions for 79 cues from 44 studies where software had been used to identify linguistic deception cues. These cues were allocated to six research questions. As expected, the meta-analyses demonstrated that, relative to truth-tellers, liars experienced greater cognitive load, expressed more negative emotions, distanced themselves more from events, expressed fewer sensory–perceptual words, and referred less often to cognitive processes. However, liars were not more uncertain than truth-tellers. These effects were moderated by event type, involvement, emotional valence, intensity of interaction, motivation, and other moderators. Although the overall effect size was small, theory-driven predictions for certain cues received support. These findings not only further our knowledge about the usefulness of linguistic cues to detect deception with computers in applied settings but also elucidate the relationship between language and deception.

A theoretical review and meta-analysis of the description-identification relationship in memory for faces

Verbal descriptions can sometimes impair (or “overshadow”) and other times facilitate subsequent attempts at perceptual identification of faces; however, understanding the relationship between these two tasks and the theoretical mechanisms that bridge this relationship has often proven difficult. Furthermore, studies that have attempted to assess the description-identification relationship have varied considerably in demonstrating significant and null results, often across a variety of paradigms and design parameters. In the present paper we review the relevant literatures and theoretical positions proposed to explain this relationship, and we present the first meta-analysis of this effect across 33 research papers and a total of 4278 participants. Our results suggest that there does appear to be a small, but significant, relationship between the description measures of accuracy, number of incorrect descriptors, and congruence with that of subsequent identification accuracy. Furthermore, certain conditions were found to strengthen the magnitude of this relationship, including the use of face recognition versus eyewitness identification paradigms and the length of delays between relevant tasks. We discuss both the theoretical and practical implications of this relationship for understanding memory for faces.

Does Training Improve the Detection of Deception? A Meta-Analysis

This meta-analysis examined whether training improves detection of deception. Overall, 30 studies (22 published and 8 unpublished; control-group design) resulted in a small to medium training effect for detection accuracy (k = 30, gu = 0.331) and for lie accuracy (k = 11, gu = 0.422), but not for truth accuracy (k = 11, gu = 0.060). If participants were guided by cues to detect the truth, rather than to detect deception, only truth accuracy was increased. Moderator analyses revealed larger training effects if the training was based on verbal content cues, whereas feedback, nonverbal and paraverbal, or multichannel cue training had only small effects. Type of training, duration, mode of instruction, and publication status were also important moderators. Recommendations for designing, conducting, and reporting training studies are discussed.

A Brief History of the Psychology of Testimony

The historiography of psychology has largely ignored the history of applied aspects of its field. Moreover, contemporary legal psychologists have often overlooked previous related work. The present paper attempts partially to fill these gaps by providing a brief description of the history of the psychology of testimony at the beginning of this century, particularly in central Europe. It is argued that in central Europe, in contrast to the United States and Britain, there existed a pervasive experimental psychology of testimony. This movement probably originated with Binet in France and Stern in Germany. However, it was especially the latter and his followers who succeeded in institutionalizing a ‘Psychologie der Aussage’ that was widely discussed in legal circles at that time. Although the early studies have often been criticized for their methodological flaws and their negativistic one-sidedness the European movement did have some belated impact in that expert psychological testimony slowly started to be admitted before courts of law. It is of special interest to the contemporary researcher that many of the critical issues raised by early legal scholars were quite sophisticated and remain as pertinent as ever to the experimental study of testimony.

Matching Faces Differences in Processing Speed of Out-Group Faces by Different Ethnic Groups

Numerous studies have demonstrated an out-group processing deficit for faces of other ethnic groups (“cross-race effect” or “own-race bias”). Most studies have employed Blacks, Asians, and Whites. This study employed a perceptual matching task to investigate the out-group processing deficit with 128 Turkish and 128 Austrian children between the ages of 10 and 15 years studying Turkish and German faces. Participants were required to match a face (in three-quarter view) to the corresponding face in a 2 × 5 matrix of faces (in frontal view). As predicted from Sporers in-group/out-group model of face processing, there was an asymmetric interaction between ethnicity of participants and ethnicity of faces. Turkish children were faster in matching Turkish faces than were Austrian children, whereas there was no difference for German faces. Older children matched faces faster than younger children. Practical implications for matching of faces to photographs on identification cards or when searching for targets of other ethnic groups are discussed.