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(Dis)Entangling Lies and Emotion

Janus, Erik (2023) (Dis)Entangling Lies and Emotion.

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Abstract:Lies are frequently told. Nevertheless, researchers struggle to identify reliable cues to lying that allow for an accurate discernment between lies and truths. Especially physiological cues have been subject to debate among scientists because autonomic responses reflect the experience of emotion or stress, not deception per se. Despite that, tools like the polygraph based on autonomic responses are used to detect lies. The present study investigated if Electrodermal Activity (EDA) can be differentially elicited as a function of whether people lie or tell the truth. Further, it was tested whether this relationship depended on the valence and arousal of the emotion people experienced during lie-telling and truth-telling. A 2 (Veracity) x 3 (Valence) full factorial within-participants design was used to explore if the physiology of lying can be disambiguated from the physiology of emotion. Emotion was manipulated using short news video clips that varied in valence (negative, neutral, positive). Participants (N = 35) watched six video clips and were instructed to describe the content truthfully or untruthfully. EDA was decomposed into tonic EDA. A repeated measures General Linear Model was run to disentangle the effects of Veracity and Valence on EDA. Lying led to higher levels of skin conductance than telling the truth. Emotion did not significantly alter levels of skin conductance. Despite significant differences, it was concluded that EDA is of limited practical value in discerning liars from truth-tellers.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology MSc (66604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/96767
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