Veracity judgement, not accuracy: Reconsidering the role of facial expressions, empathy, and emotion recognition training on deception detection

People hold strong beliefs about the role of emotional cues in detecting deception. While research on the diagnostic value of such cues has been mixed, their influence on human veracity judgements is yet to be fully explored. Here, we address the relationship between emotional information and veracity judgements. In Study 1, the role of emotion recognition in the process of detecting naturalistic lies was investigated. Decoders' veracity judgements were compared based on differences in trait empathy and their ability to recognise microexpressions and subtle expressions. Accuracy was found to be unrelated to facial cue recognition and negatively related to empathy. In Study 2, we manipulated decoders' emotion recognition ability and the type of lies they saw: experiential or affective (emotional and unemotional). Decoders received either emotion recognition training, bogus training, or no training. In all scenarios, training did not affect veracity judgements. Experiential lies were easier to detect than affective lies; however, affective unemotional lies were overall the hardest to judge. The findings illustrate the complex relationship between emotion recognition and veracity judgements, with abilities for facial cue detection being high yet unrelated to deception accuracy.

Automated summary

The study found a complex relationship between emotional recognition ability and decoders' veracity judgements, with high abilities for facial cue detection but unrelated to deception accuracy.