Deception. Unabomber (Ted Kaczynsk) and tipped off the FBI. Alternatives to Polygraph. Detecting Deception

Transcription

1 Deception Unabomber (Ted Kaczynsk) - Child prodigy - PhD in math, professor at age 25 - Resigned 2 years later and became a recluse - Sent 16 bombs, killed 3 people and injured 23 - Brother and sister-in-law recognized the style of writing and beliefs from the manifesto and tipped off the FBI - University and airline bomber - He put out his own manifesto Alternatives to Polygraph 1. Micro-expressions 2. Thermal imaging 3. Event-related brain potentials (ERP) 4. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri) Detecting Deception - Dr. Cal Lightman is the world's leading deception expert. If you lie to Lightman, he'll see it in your face and your posture, or hear it in your voice. If you shrug your shoulder, rotate your hand, or even just slightly raise your lower lip, Lightman will spot the lie. - LIE TO ME!!! - Based on Paul Ekman Paul Ekman - Microexpression = brief, involuntary facial expression shown when one is trying to conceal or repress an emotion - Nursing students experiment Masking their expressions when seeing gross things

2 - Micro seconds that expressions are shown for Porter & ten Brinke (2008) - At Dalhousie University - Watched different types of videos Try to look opposite to your actual reaction - Participants viewed disgusting, sad, frightening, happy, and neutral images Responding to each with a genuine or deceptive (simulated, neutralized, or masked) expression - Masked emotions were associated with more inconsistent expressions and an elevated blink rate

3 - Negative emotions were more difficult to falsify than happiness - Better at neutralizing emotions than faking other emotion - Untrained observers performed only slightly above chance at detecting deception - Inconsistent emotional leakage occurred in 100% of participants at least once and lasted longer than the current definition of a microexpression (1/25 1/5 of a second) Thermal Imaging - Detects facial warming due to blood flow - Increase in face temperature when lying - No sensors on person needed - Measuring temperature on your face - Liars have hotter temperature around eyes and cheeks - Pretty non-intrusive method Event-Related Brain Potentials (ERP) - Place electrodes on scalp and note changes to electrical patterns in response to stimulus - Promising form = P300 used to detect guilty knowledge IDEALIZED EVENT-RELATED BRAIN POTENTIAL (ERP) DURING A LIE DETECTION TEST Brain Fingerprinting - More advanced version of P300 technology - Controversial he says his research is really good, others are fairly skeptical - Farwell Brain Fingerprinting is a revolutionary new technology for solving crimes, with a record of 100% accuracy. The technology is fully developed and available for application in the field. - State v. Harrington (2003) Farwell claims BF was the most important evidence

4 Because the scientific testing evidence [i.e., BF] is not necessary to a resolution of this appeal, we give it no further consideration. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri) - Measures differences in brain activity when people are being honest versus deceptive Different parts of the brain are activated when person is deceptive versus when they are telling the truth - Tells the difference between rehearsed and spontaneous lies Peterson during an interview before his wife s body was found: - "God, the first word that comes to mind is, you know, glorious She was amazing umm, she is amazing." - Was talking about his wife in the past tense Susan Smith Even though she had just disappeared, nothing was said as to whether she was dead or not years old - Told police there was a car-jacking - Lots of press conferences/media coverage - Confesses on the 9 th day - Murdered her two sons (3 yrs and 14 months) Penny Boudreau - In Nova Scotia - Reported 12-year-old daughter missing - Pleading and crying for her return on TV - Actually strangled her and left her body outside the town - Found after 2 weeks - Got her to confess by putting a confederate in her prison cell because the police really had no other evidence

5 Detecting High Stake Lies (Vrij & Mann, 2001) - 52 police officers - 5 relatives in press conferences - All guilty of killing relatives - Accuracy rates Ranged from 0% to 80% Average = 50% - Took videos of relatives - Police rated whether they were guilty or not Are some people better at detecting deception? - Research suggests only slightly better than chance - Meta-analysis- A bunch of studies on one topic, combined into one finding Professional lie catchers = 55.5% Students = 54.2% - Accuracy of professional lie catchers vary: Have a truthfulness bias (believe more things are true than false) Tend to rely on wrong cues - Can be improved through training - Students are practically the same as professionals at detecting deception - Truth bias Assume more things are true than false - Can get better at detecting if you re trained on what to look for Best cues to deception - Vocal cues Increase in voice pitch*

6 Use of speech fillers = um, ah Slower rate of speech - Nonvocal cues Fewer hand, foot, and leg movements - Verbal cues Less detail Less compelling Less cooperative - Slower rate of speech liars need more time to think up their story Muchausen Syndrome - Intentionally produces physical complaint - Constantly seeks physician consultations, hospitalizations, and surgery for non-existent disease - Motivated by need for attention - Muchausen Syndrome by Proxy Harm their children to get attention Usually biological mother to biological child - Feign illness - Falsify lab results - Exaggerate a medical problem - Aggravate an existing ailment - Induce actual illness - Delay seeking treatment - Fictitious disorder Makes up illness

7 - Internal desire for attention Wendy Scott - By her own count, she became a patient at more than 600 hospitals, sometimes being released from one in the morning and getting herself admitted to another by nightfall. Her portrayals of agonizing stomach problems were so convincing that many doctors resorted to surgery to help her, and she underwent 42 operations, nearly all of them unnecessary. Her abdomen is criss-crossed with scars - Claims to be cured; generally thought of not to be treatable Muchausen by Internet - People who pose as sick or having a sick loved one in internet support groups - E.g., cancer support groups - Pretending they re sick in chat room to get online attention Somatoform Disorder - Physical symptoms that cannot be explained by organic impairment Not actual medical disorder - Symptoms are not intentionally produced Often co-occurs with depression or anxiety Somatization disorder 8 or more symptoms Conversion disorder numbness - Psychological, manifesting as a physiological symptom - Glove anesthesia- hand goes numb Malingering - Psychological or physical symptoms are intentional - There are external motivations for the production of symptoms e.g., avoid criminal punishment, to obtain drugs, for compensation such as disability, admitted to hospital Prevalence quite high in forensic settings

8 - Faking/creating symptoms - Men are more motivated to be moved (from prison to hospital) because male prison cells are worse than women s Defensiveness - Defensiveness refers to the conscious denial or minimization of physical or psychological symptoms Might wish to appear high functioning to be seen as a fit parent Some patients may not want to admit they have certain symptoms - Opposite of malingering - Denying serious symptoms Malingering Example: Hillside Stranglers - Kenneth Bianchi & Angelo Buono, Jr. - Faked Dissociative Identity Disorder - Pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity - Killed / sexually assaulted women - Faked having multiple personalities Said other personality committed the murders - Convinced many psychologists Spanos, Weekes, & Bertrand - Role play the part of an accused murderer remanded for pre-trial psychiatric evaluation - Three groups of 16 varied on cues for DID: 1. most explicit treatment (i.e., Bianchi treatment) 2. less explicit hypnotic treatment 3. non-hypnotic treatment - Most subjects in the Bianchi treatment displayed the major signs of multiple personality (e.g., adoption of a different name, spontaneous posthypnotic amnesia)

9 - All participants in first category developed another personality, so proves how Bianchi was being led on by the psychologists How can you tell someone is faking hypnosis? More likely faking if Decreased stress tolerance Increase arousal rate For example Prolong arm levitation without tiring Elevated pulse and respiration rate Suggested acts are stopped when hypnotist leaves Toe-tapping to music that stops when hypnotist leaves room Malingered Amnesia - Two types Anterograde Don t make any new memories Retrograde Forget everything that happened before the incident - Have real amnesia, likely to get 50% on a test (just guessing) - Faking over exaggerating, they d pretend to forget them all, so get around 0% Malingered Amnesia - If malingering, go too far - Simple tasks that most people can accomplish Even those with brain damage Explanations of Malingering - Three explanatory models of malingering (Rogers, 1990): Pathogenic model Criminological model Adaptational model

10 Pathogenic Model - Assumes malingering results from an underlying mental disorder - The patient attempts to gain control over his or her pathology by creating fictitious symptoms - Little empirical support - Fake other disorder to mask a real disorder Criminological Model Bias - Suspect if: Antisocial personality disorder (APD) Forensic assessment Lack of cooperation Discrepancy between reported findings and clinical results - Research does not support an association between APD or cooperation and malingering - Offenders more likely to have it - 4 risk factors Malingering if have 2 or more - 70% - 80% in prison have APD - Over generalization - Ad hominem (logical fallacy) An attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it - Badness (person, circumstances, behaviour) - Assuming the person is bad, so they will do bad things Adaptational Model - Asserts malingering is likely to occur when:

11 A perceived adversarial context is present Personal stakes are very high No other viable alternatives are perceived - Research findings support this model - External risk motivating the person - Feel like they are stuck, no other alternatives Research Assessing Malingering - Three basic designs: Case study One or two examples looked at in depth Simulation Known groups Simulation Design - People are told to pretend they have specific symptoms of a disorder - Hard experiment to do - Ultimate study would need: 1. Nonclinical-experimental Doesn t have disorder 2. Nonclinical-control 3. Clinical-experimental Actually has disorder 4. Clinical-control Known-Groups Design - Compare patients and genuine malingers Establish groups?

12 - Compare similarities and differences - Compare in real world Actual vs. malingering - Hard to find people who would admit to malingering Being Sane in Insane Places (Rosenhan, 1973) - 8 people Went to psych institutions Lied about name and occupation and said could hear voices Admitted and diagnosed Average 7 to 52 days No one was caught to be malingering, even though they all were Detection Strategies Interview Assessments Example: Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) 1. Rare symptoms 2. Symptom combinations 3. Improbable symptoms 4. Blatant symptoms 5. Subtle symptoms 6. Selectivity of symptoms 7. Severity of symptoms 8. Reported versus observed symptoms - Very long, takes about an hour to complete - Odd symptoms combinations reported Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS)

13 Best ways to detect - Rare symptoms* - Symptom combinations - Erroneous stereotype - Indiscriminant symptom endorsement - Symptom severity - Obvious and subtle symptoms - Reported vs. observed symptoms - End up overacting exaggerating so it s obviously fake - Eager to talk about it actual patients don t want to discuss