Identifying Deception Using Novel Technology-Based Approaches to Uncover Concealed Information

Abstract

Concealing information, one of the many forms of deception, is a pervasive phenomenon as it is present in virtually every facet of interpersonal communication. In some cases, information concealment can have profound implications (e.g., insider threats in organizations, security screening at the border, and criminal interviews). New technologies are under development to aid in identifying concealed information, however, additional research is needed in three key areas to increase the feasibility of using these technologies in real-world credibility assessment contexts. First, research is needed to investigate the accuracy of new credibility assessment technologies relative to existing deception-detection systems. Demonstrating that new technologies meet or exceed detection accuracies of existing systems (e.g., the polygraph) is critical. Second, research is needed to determine if a targetless Concealed Information Test (CIT) is feasible. Existing CIT research supports the presence of main effect differences between persons concealing information and the control group. These behaviors may permit the detection of concealed information without the use of customized sets of stimuli. Eliminating the need to create customized sets of stimuli for each examinee would drastically increase the ease with which an automated system can be used to conduct a CIT. Finally, research is needed to illuminate various elements of the human-computer interaction that occurs during automated credibility assessments. This is a new domain of human-computer interaction as system users in this context are not instigating the interaction, and in many cases, they may be seeking to limit the effectiveness of the system. Before novel systems designed to conduct credibility assessments can be adopted, further research is needed to illuminate how users perceive, respond to, and strategically manage their behaviors when interacting with systems of this nature. This dissertation contains the results of a research program designed to address each of these areas. First, an experiment was designed to investigate the accuracy rates of two promising noncontact measures of concealed information (oculometrics and vocalics) relative to electrodermal activity (EDA). Second, an experiment was designed to evaluate the feasibility of using a targetless CIT to elicit main effect differences between concealers and the control group to identify concealed information. And third, a thorough analysis of examinees' general perceptions, self-reported stress and arousal, perceived effort and performance, and use of countermeasures within the context of an automated credibility assessment interview was conducted. This research effort has yielded the following findings. First, eye tracking and vocalics can be used to identify significant differences in the behaviors and physiology of examinees concealing information, however, the accuracy with which truth tellers and information concealers can be classified remains impractical for an applied setting. Second, there are main effect differences between persons concealing information and telling the truth, however, the use of countermeasures may limit the accuracy with which concealers can be identified. Finally, the presence of concealed information and the use of crime-relevant questions alter how examinees perceive and react to a system designed to identify concealed information. The limitations of this research, as well as directions for future research, are discussed.