The Detection of Deception in Cross-Cultural Settings: The Effects of Training and Language on Lie Detection Ability in Hong Kong Chinese

This dissertation, "The Detection of Deception in Cross-cultural Settings: the Effects of Training and Language on Lie Detection Ability in Hong Kong Chinese" by Hiu-wan, Keens, Cheng, 鄭曉韻, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis titled The Detection of Deception in Cross-Cultural Settings: The Effects of Training and Language on Lie Detection Ability in Hong Kong Chinese Submitted by Cheng Hiu Wan Keens For the degree of Master of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong in April 2004 This study examined the factors that moderate people's ability to detect deception accurately. We examined two hypotheses: (1) behavioral and emotion evaluation training enhanced an individual's ability to detect deceit; and (2) different non-verbal and verbal indicators of deception were present when participants lied in their first language (Cantonese) or second language (English). Sixty local law enforcement officers undertook a 3 or 5-day training course on interviewing techniques. On the first day of training, all the officers judged the honesty of 12 subjects (8 deceptive, 4 truthful) videotaped about a crime scenario. On the last day of their training, all of the original participants re-judged the honesty of the videotaped subjects. The same 12 videotapes were also shown to 31 post-graduates and 79 undergraduates studying criminology in order to gauge their ability to detect liars from truth-tellers in a lie detection judgment exercise. In addition, the 'opinion' scenario was adopted to examine language effects. Thirty-one post-graduate criminology students watched videotapes of 20 confederates who defended an opinion (10 deceptively, 10 truthfully) on the reinstatement of capital punishment in Hong Kong (HK) The study revealed that the judgment accuracy of all groups performed at or above chance levels. Overall, however, trained participants did not perform significantly better than those in the control group. The results, however, suggested that training significantly inflated the observers' confidence in accurately detecting deceit: a positive correlation between training and lie detection judgment accuracy was not observed. Participants' non-verbal and verbal indicators of deception increased when either lying or telling the truth using English as a second language. While observers were more accurate at identifying English liars, they found it more difficult to identify English truth tellers. Consequently the results suggest that being interviewed in one's second language increases the likelihood of being disbelieved: i.e. false-positive errors are increased when subjects use a second language. Possible explanations for these findings, and their implications, are discussed. Further work on the effects of language on lie detection is warranted and will be useful in improving knowledge about language effects in many criminal justice settings. It is argued that an emphasis on the behavioral and facial emotional expression paradigm cannot alone be relied upon in the context of lie detection involving second language interviews. (374 words) DOI: 10.5353/th_b2970699 Subjects: Lie detectors and detection - China - Hong Kong - Cross-cultural studies Language and languages