The Effects of Communication Media and Culture on Deception Detection Accuracy1

Abstract

As the world “gets smaller” and more people engage in cross-cultural communications, their ability to successfully separate truth from deception can be critically important. Yet it is challenging. While deceptive communication has been studied for decades, some areas are not well understood. In particular, two areas that could benefit from further research concern the effects of cultural differences and communication media on deception and its detection. Building on developments in theories of deception and its detection, we examine the question: How do differences in culture between senders and receivers affect deception detection, especially where the deceptive communication occurs across different media? To address this question, stimulus materials from recorded interviews were created featuring participants from the United States, Spain, and India. Three stimulus sets were created, one each in American English, Spanish, and Indian English, and each consisting of 32 interview snippets. Half of the snippets were honest and half were dishonest. Each snippet represented one of four media: full audio-visual, video only, audio only, and text only. Veracity judges were also recruited from the same three countries as the interview participants, to independently observe and evaluate the communication both within their culture and across other cultures. Evidence was found that different combinations of cultural and media effects affected the accuracy of deception detection.