The Effects of Cognitive Capacity and Suspicion on Truth Bias

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of cognitive capacity and suspicion on veracity judgments. It was hypothesized that under low suspicion conditions, truth bias would be more pronounced when participants had low cognitive capacity than when participants had high cognitive capacity. One hundred and seven participants viewed presentations of people either truthfully or deceptively describing a series of pictures. Prior to the presentations, a short description designed to increase suspicion was read to half the participants. Participants viewed half of the presentations while working on arithmetic problems (low capacity) and the other half while not working on arithmetic problems (high capacity). Following each presentation, the participants were required to evaluate the communicator's performance on a number of scales and indicate whether the communicator was actually describing the picture. The results partially supported the hypothesis.