Training in Assessment Criteria Indicative of Deception to Improve Credibility Judgments

• NCJ Number: 229205
• Journal: Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice Volume: 9 Issue: 3 Dated: July-September 2009 Pages: 199-207
• Author(s): Kevin Colwell Ph.D.; Cheryl Hiscock-Anisman Ph.D.; Amina Memon Ph.D.; Lori H. Colwell Ph.D.; Laura Taylor; Debra Woods B.S.
• Date Published: September 2009
• Length: 9 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study explored the effectiveness of assessment criteria indicative of deception (ACID) training in increasing a rater's ability to discriminate between honest and deceptive transcripts.

Abstract

This study was able to link previous theory and research regarding memory and deception to an effective method of training that improves credibility assessments. Results demonstrated that training in the ACID technique increased raters' ability to assess the credibility of transcribed interviews. Trained raters outperformed untrained raters in identifying transcripts as honest or deceptive, whereas untrained raters did no better than chance. Trained raters were able to correctly identify 77 percent of transcripts as honest or deceptive, whereas untrained raters correctly identified 57 percent. This suggests that the ACID technique may have direct practical implications for professional lie detectors. It is easy to learn, easy to apply, and was able to override raters' naive, stereotypical beliefs about the characteristics of deceptive statements. Data were collected from 20 undergraduate and graduate research assistants at a State university in southern Georgia; half of the participants were trained to judge the accuracy of protocol transcripts obtained from three studies using the ACID technique. References