Lessons from Pinocchio: Cues to Deception May Be Highly Exaggerated // Lie To Me, Ekman, etc.

Luke, Timothy J., 2018. “Lessons from Pinocchio: Cues to Deception May Be Highly Exaggerated”. Open Science Framework. June 7. doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/XT8FQ

Abstract: Deception researchers widely acknowledge that cues to deception - observable behaviors that may differ between truthful and deceptive messages - tend to be weak. Nevertheless, several deception cues have been reported with unusually large effect sizes, and some researchers have advocated the use of such cues as tools for detecting deceit and assessing credibility in practical contexts. Examining data from a deception cue meta-analysis and using a series of Monte Carlo simulations, I demonstrate that (1) many estimated effect sizes of deception cues may be greatly inflated by publication bias and low power and (2) composite measures of deception cues designed to improve classification accuracy may exaggerate the detectability of deception. Indeed, contrary to the optimistic view that some cues may be useful for catching lies, the extant deception literature could have been obtained even if all studied cues have true effects of zero.  I warn against the hazards of faith in potentially illusory cues to deception and offer some recommendations for improving the state of the science of deception.

From Rolf Degen's https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1004978190815723521, with interesting link inside.