Experienced and novice officers' generalized communication suspicion and veracity judgments.

Deception detection research has shown that police officers are less truth-biased and make their veracity judgments with greater confidence than do nonofficers. Here we examined nonofficers, novice officers, and experienced officers' response bias, confidence, and generalized communicative suspicion. In Experiment 1, novice officers aligned with nonofficers in terms of both generalized communicative suspicion scores and confidence, with both these groups scoring lower than experienced officers. Generalized communicative suspicion scores and veracity judgments were not significantly related for either sample. However, novice officers aligned with experienced officers in terms of judgments: both police groups were lie-biased, whereas nonofficers were truth-biased. These findings suggest that unlike experienced officers, who have embraced the police culture to a greater degree, novice officers are not dispositionally suspicious (generalized communicative suspicion); however, they are able to mirror the prototypical police behavior (deception judgments) in police-related contexts. Experiment 2 supported these notions.

Contributions of an artistic educational program for older people with early dementia: an exploratory qualitative study.

OBJECTIVE: To describe a contemporary artistic educational program based on photographic cyanotype techniques and to present the results of the program carried out with older people with early dementia. We determined whether these people could participate in the program, their viewpoint about it, and what this program could contribute to their experience. METHOD: Twenty-one people diagnosed with mild or moderate dementia participated in a series of artistic education workshops. While conducting the workshops, participant observation was carried out, and the participants' engagement was assessed. Upon completing the series, five focus groups were held with the participants with dementia, and another focus group with their professional caretakers. RESULTS: We observed the participants' high level of commitment to the activity and their interest in learning new things. We also observed the participants' satisfaction during the creative process and with their results. The artistic activities not only reinforced the feelings of capacity of the participants with early dementia but also transmitted a positive image of them. CONCLUSIONS: Dementia was not an obstacle to participation in the program, which was an opportunity for creativity, learning, enjoyment, and communication for people with dementia. In the authors' opinion, facilitating access to art and artistic education to people with early dementia can contribute to enforcing their rights and to improving the care system.

Regression toward the mean or heuristic processing in detecting deception? Reply to Elaad (2010).

Masip, et al. (2009) conducted a study in which observers had to make truth-lie judgments at the beginning, middle, or end of a series of videotaped statements. They found a decline in truth judgments over time and explained this finding in terms of information processing mode. Recently, Elaad (2010) challenged this explanation and contended that the decline could be a result of regression toward the mean. In the present paper, it is argued that because Masip, et al. took multiple Moment 1 judgments over time and then averaged across judgments, regression toward the mean was extremely unlikely. Furthermore, the decrease in truth judgments was found under several separate conditions; this cannot be explained by random fluctuations alone. Finally, Masip, et al.'s data were re-analyzed adjusting for the effects of regression toward the mean. The outcomes of these analyses were the same as those reported in the original article.

Heuristic versus systematic processing of information in detecting deception: questioning the truth bias.

Research on nonverbal detection of deception has normally been conducted by asking observers to judge the veracity of a number of videotaped communications. These video clips have typically been very short. Observers have a tendency to judge most of these statements as truthful. An experiment was conducted in which 52 participants (44 women, 8 men; M age = 22.2 yr., SD = 2.2) who were taking a psychology and law course were requested to make judgments of credibility at different points of the senders' statements. A strong truth bias was apparent when judgments were made at the beginning of the statements, suggesting that when exposed to brief communications, the observers make heuristic judgments. Over time, a decrease in the truth bias and an increase in overall accuracy were found, suggesting that later judgments were increasingly based on systematic information processing. These results suggest that the truth bias that has been found in previous deception research may be a result of having used very brief and uninformative behavioral samples as stimuli.

Definición de engaño / Defining deception

A la vista del relativo desacuerdo entre quienes estudian el engaño sobre cómo el engaño, la mentira o la comunicación engañosa deben ser definidos, en el presente trabajo se intenta integrar la visión de los autores más influyentes en este campo con el fin de formular una definición del engaño comprehensiva y bien delimitada. El punto de partida lo conforman los elementos de la mentira prototípica señalados por Coleman y Kay (1981), así como la noción de "comunicación engañosa" de Gerald Miller (1983; Miller y Stiff, 1993). El engaño se define como el intento deliberado, exitoso o no, de ocultar, generar, y/o manipular de algún otro modo información factual y/o emocional, por medios verbales y/o no verbales, con el fin de crear o mantener en otra(s) persona(s) una creencia que el propio comunicador considera falsa. Cada término de esta definición se discute en detalle y, al hacerlo, resulta evidente que integra varias teorías sobre el engaño y una serie de contribuciones de la psicología social y la comunicación. Además, se discuten algunas implicaciones específicas de la definición, como la importancia que el elemento intencional (el intento deliberado) tiene para el sistema legal. El objetivo del artículo es contribuir a alcanzar un acuerdo entre los científicos sociales sobre qué debe entenderse por engaño (AU)

Facial appearance and judgments of credibility: the effects of facial babyishness and age on statement credibility.

Researchers have found that facial appearance influences social judgments. For example, evidence has shown that facial babyishness and age affect perceivers' impressions of the stimulus person's veracity. In this experiment, the researchers examined whether these variables also influenced the credibility attributed to written statements purportedly made by these people in addition to several topics of interest in deception-detection research. Undergraduates (N = 270) were presented babyfaced or mature-faced photographs that depicted a child, an adult, or an older individual, in addition to a written truthful or deceptive statement purportedly made by the person in the photograph. Results showed that, as predicted, when the statements were accompanied by babyfaced pictures, participants tended to judge them as truthful, but only if the pictures did not depict children. Also, when the statements were accompanied by childen's pictures, participants tended to judge them as deceptive, but only if the pictures depicted a babyish face. Overall detection accuracy was close to chance and did not correlate with either judgmental confidence or with the respondents' estimated lie-detection accuracy. However, confidence and estimated ability were significantly correlated. Also, more confidence was placed in judgments of truthfulness than in judgments of deceptiveness. Respondents' truth bias and the existence of a veracity effect in the diverse experimental conditions were examined as well.

¿Existe un granito de verdad en juicios sobre el engaño? / Is there a kernel of truth in judgements of deceptiveness?

Este estudio consiste en una réplica ampliada del trabajo de Bond, Berry y Omar (1994). Ochenta y cinco estudiantes universitarios cumplimentaron un formulario para indicar en qué experimentos, de una lista de siete estudios en que tendrían que mentir y dos en que tendrían que decir la verdad, estarían dispuestos a participar, así como en qué medida lo estarían. Asimismo, indicaron en escalas de siete puntos el grado en que personas que los conocían bien los consideraban veraces o mentirosos, y cuanto lo eran en realidad. Además, proporcionaron una fotografía tipo carnet de sus rostros. Estas fotografías se mostraron a dos muestras de observadores. La primera juzgó su honestidad y veracidad. La segunda evaluó su atractivo y aniñamiento facial. Los resultados muestran que no hubo relación entre las valoraciones de la honestidad o veracidad efectuadas por los observadores y la disposición de los participantes para colaborar en experimentos que implicaran engaño. Aunque las autoevaluaciones de sinceridad de los participantes no correlacionaron con su sinceridad real, sí lo hicieron las de quienes los conocían bien -proporcionadas por los propios participantes -. Ni las autoevaluaciones de los participantes sobre su sinceridad ni las de personas próximas a ellos se basaron en la apariencia facial. El atractivo físico y el aniñamiento facial estaban relacionados marginalmente entre sí, y no guardaban ninguna relación con la veracidad real ni percibida. La mayoría de los estudiantes estuvieron de acuerdo en participar en la mayor parte de los experimentos que implicaban engaño, y no expresaron fuertes cuestionamientos éticos contra el acto de mentir. (AU)