Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 47-50).

Specialist degree in school psychology, Eastern Illinois University, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 29-33).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, March, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Duquesne University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 150-161) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisors: David A. Schkade and Stefano Grazioli. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available from UMI.

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The ability to successfully distinguish truthful and deceptive messages within forensic contexts is important to preserve the integrity of the legal system. Research has shown that confession evidence is highly persuasive at a trial level and that false confessions leading to wrongful convictions are problematic within the judicial system. Some recent research also suggests that that neither lay observers nor law enforcement professionals are able to successfully distinguish truths and lies in the context of confessions. Therefore, the present safeguards in the judicial system may be inadequate to detect a false confession and prevent subsequent wrongful convictions. The research presented in this thesis was designed to explore the effectiveness of methods of detecting deception within forensically relevant contexts, specifically confessions. Study One examined the impact of presentation modality and the effectiveness of indirect deception measures on credibility assessments of autobiographical accounts depicting truthful and deceptive confessions. The outcome of this study revealed that fact finders were unable to accurately classify truthful and deceptive confessions across presentation modalities and that indirect measures were unsuccessful in this context. In light of these findings, subsequent studies examined the validity of statement content analysis to discern truth from deception within the context of confessions. Study Two assessed evaluations of Criteria-based Content Analysis and the Aberdeen Report Judgment Scales, as applied by untrained observers to discriminate truthful and deceptive confessions. Findings revealed null effects and demonstrated that training in the application of content-based evaluations is an integral element of the valid application of such measures to detecting deception. Studies Three, Four and Five, therefore incorporated a comprehensive training program and focused on the application of a theoretically based method for detecting deception, the Aberdeen Report Judgement Scales, to the analysis of forensically relevant statements describing confessions, alibis and victimisation accounts. Overall, findings revealed some modest evidence for the application of this framework within deceptive contexts, however, account differences as a function of truth status were often rather small and assessments on many dimensions produced null findings. These results are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications for discerning truths and lies within forensic contexts.

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Eyewitnesses to crimes sometimes perform cognitively demanding tasks while simultaneously observing a perpetrator. This division of attentional resources can cause them to remember the perpetrator less accurately. Pickel et al. (in press) showed that judging a target individual’s veracity impairs subsequent memory for his or her appearance and message. They argued that this result occurred because judging veracity is an attention-demanding task that is difficult to perform while simultaneously encoding the target’s information. The previous study also demonstrated that suspicion exaggerated the memory impairment effect, apparently by inducing suspicious witnesses to scrutinize the target more closely than non-suspicious witnesses. The goal of the present study was to replicate the findings that judging veracity impairs witnesses’ memory for the target’s appearance and message using a different video (i.e., a different target, crime scenario, and message) and that induced suspicion exaggerates this effect. In addition, I hypothesized that judging veracity also impairs witnesses’ performance on a lineup task and inflates confidence and ratings on other testimony-relevant judgments by giving witnesses the false sense that they have attended closely to the suspect’s physical appearance and message. I hypothesize that suspicion will exaggerate this effect. Results were found to be consistent with Pickel et al.’s (in press) previous findings. Witnesses who judged veracity performed more poorly on the lineup task than those who were not informed they would need to judge veracity, and witnesses who were made suspicious performed worse than those who judged veracity. Differences were discovered across the groups in relation to certainty ratings and other testimony-relevant judgments about the eyewitness experience. / Department of Psychological Science