Option 3: Drunken Senators
Option 3 reminded me of a Maureen Dowd column from earlier this month, which described a story of two politicians and a night that may or may not have happened. According to an article in The New York Times, on a congressional trip to Estonia two summers ago, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed a vodka-drinking contest, and Republican Senator John McCain happily obliged. The report said that “after dinner drinks had gone so well, McCain later told people who unexpectedly engaging he found Mrs. Clinton to be.” He described her as “one of the guys.” Later, when walking through the Capitol, McCain was said to have been heard happily reminiscing about that night – apparently it had been a while since the Senator had gone through a few rounds of flip cup.
But afterward, Senator McCain denied the evening ever occurred. He went on the conservative talk show Hannity and Colmes and said that the reports of him going shot-for-shot with Senator Clinton were absolutely false. Then he went on Jay Leno and said that, basically, The Times got it wrong. That evening “didn’t happen. It didn’t happen.” McCain turned down the Atlantic Monthly when they wanted an interview to talk about his adventures in the Baltics with a certain senator from New York.
Some might say that it appears this will go down as one of Washington’s unsolvable political mysteries, but I say it is a perfect case for a reality monitoring analysis.
Reality monitoring identifies eight criteria for evaluating a story. They are clarity, perceptual information, spatial information, temporal information, affect, reconstructability, realism and cognitive operations.
The clarity of this story was never really in question. Had there been fewer details and a less vivid description, it probably would not have made for as good of a story. Without the sharp and clear report of who was involved, who initiated the drinking, where they were, what they were doing, etc., The New York Times wouldn’t have had much to put on its cover. And without that cover story, talk show hosts would have seemed a bit off-base discussing Senator McCain’s drinking habits and partners. Indeed the story – regardless of its validity – is clear.
In terms of Perceptual Information, the best we have gleaned of that was McCain’s comments in passing on Capitol Hill when he was joking with reporter Joshua Green that it had been a long time since he had engaged in a drinking game. In the midst of his denial, McCain never told us the smells of the room or the sounds he’d overheard, but he might have been referring to a physical sensation – hangover – when he told Green that it had been a while since he’d something like that.
Spatial Information for this story is tough. We know that the alleged night of drinking occurred on a Congressional trip to the Baltics, specifically Estonia. As near as I can tell, that’s as far as the detail goes – we don’t know the name of the bar or where in the bar they were. However, it is difficult to say whether that should diminish the credibility of the story for two reasons: they were in an unfamiliar city; it is possible that even sitting in the bar, the Senators did not know where they were. The other, of course, is that if a location were to be disclosed, it would only be the name of the place the Senators had dinner. Neither one has denied to having dinner together, and the drinks were said to be “after dinner drinks.” A location would not substantiate or diminish the story.
The clarity of this story goes hand-in-hand with the Temporal Information provided. A sequence of events is provided: several members of the Senate were out to dinner. After dinner, Senator Clinton suggested that the group have a vodka-drinking contest. Senator McCain happily and quickly agreed. There were six senators present along with staff, and all of them drank.
The Affect of the story is really what is in question here. We know that the Senators went out to dinner and more recently Senator McCain has even admitted that he had some drinks that night, but he felt that it was a gross misrepresentation to call it a drinking contest. He has said that he had only a couple of drinks and was relatively sober in comparison to Senators Clinton and Collins, who were “revelers.” Essentially, the Senator has argued that he felt he was not truly partying, while the Times report seemed to suggest that he was.
The story is fairly Reconstructable, once the name of the restaurant is disclosed. All the essential elements could easily be in one place at the same time. We know that the Senators were together; we know they eat dinner; we know they are of age to drink.
The story’s Realism is what made it a headline on The New York Times. Senators Clinton and McCain have shown an unlikely affinity toward each other given their party differences. In fact, one article about the incident was titled, “2008 May Test Clinton’s Bond with McCain,” referring to the fact that the two candidates are running against each other for president. Their friendship has been the object of a great deal of surprise because of their political roles but also lends an element of realism to the story that they would be drinking together.
Finally, McCain’s Cognitive Operations seal the deal for me that this story is true. His comments that Clinton is “one of the guys,” that “she can hold her liquor,” and that “it had been a while” sound like the kinds of things he would be thinking in that situation.
The clarity, reconstructability and realism of this story are untouchable. The cognitive operations and temporal information seem to support its truth. Spatial information in this case seems somewhat irrelevant. The only thing truly subject to dispute here is the affect, and with McCain’s conservative voter base, he has every reason to lie about this instance’s affect on him. All in all, it sounds like Senators Clinton and McCain had a fun night in a bar; I’d like to have been a fly on the wall.
Shades of Gray
Option 3
I chose to do the third option for this week’s assignment because I am a member of a group listserv here on campus that we lovingly refer to as “spam-l” for its utterly useless content. The listserv was created for the purpose of moving our discussion of mundane topics, pointless debates, internet oddities, personal stories, and funny pictures away from our main “events-l” listserv. Well, the idea worked and in the year and I half that I have been a member of the listserv it has received just over 11,000 e-mails (and that from a group of around 50 members). Like I said, spam-l is often the venue for an elaborate story whose veracity is always in question. The perfect subject for a reality monitoring analysis.
The story I chose was written by a friend this past summer while he was interning in Boston this past summer. Apparently engineering interns don’t have enough work to do, because he would send a fairly elaborate story detailing his escapades to the listserv at least once a week. In this particular story he talked about a girl he met while in Boston who is also an engineer and goes to Cornell. He described how they met at the internship, the interests they had in common, how they hit it off and went on a few “dates,” how she told him two weeks later that she had a boyfriend, and how they continued to remain friends and hang out. Keep in mind that this story is spread out over a 3-4 page e-mail filled with elaborate descriptions, (probably) embellished story telling and the general good sense of humor I can expect from my friend. He was writing to entertain all of us, even while keeping us updated with the events in his life. But was he telling the truth? That is for reality monitoring to decide.
Reality monitoring lays out eight criteria on which to judge a story or statement: 1) clarity; 2) perceptual information; 3) spatial information; 4) temporal information; 5) affect; 6) reconstructability of the story; 7) realism; and 8) cognitive operations. The story my friend told is most definitely clear, vivid, and lively. Of course, this could be because he wrote up his memory as a story, embellishing certain parts and emphasizing others in an effort to entertain us, the readers. Since the story describes his interactions with the girl he had just met and was getting along well with, it is full of perceptual information. Although lacking in physical sensations, he more than makes up for it with visual details and descriptions of what they did and saw (i.e. the color of the theater they walked into, the pleasantness of the food at dinner, etc). Likewise, it is all presented in an ordered, temporal format in which the chronological order is precisely described and followed. The story also is very affective, as he describes how each action the two take together make him feel (i.e. “it made me happy…”, “I was crushed…”, “we had an awkward tension between us that I was enjoying…”, etc). Comparable to the temporal situation, the story was also perfectly reconstructable. It was told in a temporal order and filled in with many, many details – much more than we would ever need to just get the point of the story. Similarly, the story is quite believable. It is exactly the kind of situation I have seen my friend in before, and he behaved in similar manners. It is consistent with what I know to be his manner and reality. Finally, the story also had a number of cognitive operations (i.e. “it suddenly occurred to me that we might not be on the same page…” or “I interpret it as a ‘gosh, I kinda like you’ smile”). So his story more than meets all eight criteria of Sporer’s Reality Monitoring criteria – the seven “truth criteria”
and the one “lie criteria.” Does it make the story true?
Personally, I believe the basis of the story. I believe my friend did meet this girl, that they hit it off for a couple of weeks before she told him that she had a boyfriend, and that they continued to hang out for the rest of the summer. However, I also believe that my friend was writing a story to entertain all of us, and as such, all of the facts may not be entirely true or may be embellished. Since e-mail is a very composable medium, he certainly had the time to plan, write, and edit the story before sending it out to the listserv. It’s not like he seemed to be doing much work at the internship after all. In my mind, there were just too many unnecessary details (which Vrij talked about as potentially signaling a false statement), which, while embellishing the story, added little to the factual information. Overall, everything just seemed very neat, packaged, predictable, and fantastic in the way he told the story for it to be all genuine. But reality monitoring signaled that story was, in essence, bona fide thing. So I went and asked my friend how much was actually true.
At first he protested my questions, saying that of course it was all true and how could I accuse him of sending something false or embellished out to spam-l. We both burst out laughing and he admitted that while the basis of the story was legitimate, he made up a number of things and embellished many others. What does this say about reality monitoring? Seemingly, it can’t distinguish between shades of truth where the story is essentially true but where many of the details are not. Is there any way, between reality monitoring and CBCA, that such shades could be detected and the overall veracity verified? This could be an interesting topic in which further analysis would be necessary. Honors thesis anyone?
Assignment 8--Vrij+cues = <3
Option A
Vrij tells us, "there is no typical verbal deceptive behavior." However, Statement Validity Assessment and Reality Monitoring are popular lie detection techniques. Vrij outlines the 7 verbal characteristics that may/may not contribute to deceptive behavior: negative statements (denials, disparaging remarks), plausible answers, irrelevant information, overgeneralization (use of "everybody," "always," etc), self-references, direct answers, response length.
Emotions play a role as well. For example, sometimes liars may feel guilty about lying or what they're lying about and may tend to
overgeneralize and refrain from
self-references. Another example of emotion impacting a deceptive situation is becoming irritable--this might increase usage of
short answers or negative statements.
Content complexity is significant in regards to
plausibility, as well as deceivers limiting how much they divulge and self-references. However, deceivers want do not want to appear suspiciously trite, so they may provide
irrelevant information.
Vrij compiled results from studies dating as far back as 1974 through 1999, and what he found was:
1. Liars make more negative statements
2. Liars make fewer self-references
3. Liars use shorter answers
4. Liars are more indirect
5. Liars seem less plausible
6. Liars stink
In regards to non-verbal deception detection, there has been much less consistent and limited evidence in findings. Since verbal detection has proven more consistent, it should therefore be considered more symptomatic when lies are being told. Unfortunately, as varies points out, as soon as we emphasize certain verbal characteristics in liars, those liars will eventually learn to overcompensate and divert attention from those expected cues.
Assignment 8 -- Trouble with Teachers
Option C – Reality Monitoring
Reality monitoring is a process which attempts to differentiate between experienced events and imagined events, by looking at verbal characteristics which are indicative of real or imagined experiences. 7 criteria are thought to occur more in truthful statements (actually experienced events) while 1 criterion is though to occur more in deceptive statements (imagined experiences).
I felt that my results would be biased if I asked a friend to recall a story, because I think that they would be more likely to tell me the truth, and I also would be more likely to believe their story. So, I searched for a random blog, and took a story I found there. The blogger is a 17 year old girl from Singapore, and her blog post can be found here: http://raining-noodles.blogspot.com/2006/10/i-think-therefore-i-am-i-think.html.
Here is the story I analyzed: My apprehension around teachers dates back eight years. Ms G had left the class to attend to some important affair after warning us to remain quiet. But have you ever witnessed thirty children silently seated at their desks without the supervision of an adult? Neither have I. My classmate whispered to me that apparently it's impossible to hold a bottle of water with your arm stretched out straight for more than seven minutes, and one second later a group of us were counting out loud, my best friend's arm horizontal to the ground, a watch in my hand. Clearly, the search for truth is way more important than reducing noise pollution.
By the time Ms G's sneaky sneakers entered the classroom my fate had already been sealed, and because I'd been the timer, The Loud Person Who Did Most Of The Counting Out Loud Very Loudly, I alone was invited outside the classroom for a lecture by Ms G. Except that it would have actually been more comforting if she had actually articulated something, because all she did was stare at me with disappointment and rebuke in her eyes which brought me to tears more quickly than any onion I have ever diced. To this day I can still remember the route I took from my chair to the corridor and back, the flight of stairs to our right and sixty ears perked up behind me, and the orientation of our classroom -- A remarkable feat for someone who habitually loses her way in any area bigger than a small room, whose sense of direction parallels religion in that its existence may just be a matter of faith.
I found it interesting that this was written by a young adult, telling a story she experienced when she was 9 years old. Despite having happened 8 years ago, I found that it did exhibit all of the truth criteria. The story, despite being told in a very entertaining manner, was very clear, exhibiting clarity (#1) and also allowing for someone to be able to reconstruct the story themselves (#6). It is very easy to figure out the sequence of events from this story. The story also exhibits realism (#7), because most of us are familiar with schoolchildren, and know that it’s very hard for them to be quiet!
The author also included perceptual information (#2), such as hearing her teacher’s sneakers, and counting out loud. There was spatial information (#3) talking about the classroom and the hallway, and there was temporal information (#4) when she mentioned “one second later” the action took place. She also wrote about affect (#5), when she described tears in her eyes after being rebuked by her teacher.
She was very clear in writing this story, and doesn’t exhibit and cognitive operations (#8) at all. She never leaves any indication that she isn’t completely sure about what happens. And after analyzing this with reality monitoring, I would agree that she really does remember this situation, and that it really did happen like she says. The only concern I have is that this story, she says, did take place when she was a younger child, and Vrij mentions that younger children are more likely to believe that something took place when it actually did not take place. It could be that she constructed this event when she was a child, and today still believes that it did happen. This is why Vrij states that reality monitoring would probably be best on adults. But based on the criteria of reality monitoring, I believe that her story is true.
Assignment 8
Reality Monitoring deals with memory characteristics of perceived (actually experienced) and imagined events. The main idea behind reality monitoring is that memories based on real experiences differ from memories based on fiction. For this assignment, I looked at my 22 year old friend's blogspot, and chose one of the stories to monitor.
The story is about how my friend got the chance to interview Michelle Monaghan, an actress from MI3, at her spring internship in Sydney. In the blog, it says that her manager had training on Monday, so she asked her to do the interview. She recently saw a movie with the actress in it, which she says is now one of her favorite movies, and she agreed to do the interview. She then goes on to mention that she is really excited about interviewing an internationally known superstar who has been in movies with Tom Cruise and Angelina Jolie. She then goes on to talk about the interview, and about how the actress was so pretty and thin in real life. The interview went really well and she was able to ge a picture with the actress.
In order to determine the reality of this story, it is important to see how much perceptual, contextual, and affective information is in the story. Perceptual information contains visual details, sounds, smells, tastes, and physical sensations; Contextual information contains details about where and when the event took place; and Affective information contains details about how someone felt during the event. Statements about actually experienced events included more perceptual information, more spatial information, and more temporal information than statements about imagined events.
After learning all of the criteria for reality monitoring, I determined that my friend's story was entirely truthful. She used a lot of perceptual information, specifically about how she felt when she was asked to do the interview, and how she physically felt before and after the interview took place. There was a lack of contextual information about where the event took place, but since she had an internship in Sydney, it was understood that it took place at her workplace there. If this story took place in another frame of reference, it might not have been as believable. She included a lot of affective information about how she felt in the story. She used a lot of exclamations and capitalized words which really showed her excitement. There were also somexpletiveses in there that made her emotion even more convincing.
Overall, I think that Vrij's approach of Reality Monitoring worked very well in the case of analyzing a story in a blog. I feel that my ability to detect deception has grown, and that the next time I hear a story, or read one, I will know what to look for in order to determine how truthful it really is.
We know that users recognize CMC spaces to be forums for deception. Research, like the study conducted by Dhamija et al. (2006), has found that most internet users believe internet deception to be pervasive. Interestingly, however, similar studies, like the one conducted by Capsi and Gorsky (2006) have found that internet users detect deception with very low frequency. Even in a laboratory setting – where the natural inclination for individuals to believe the people with which they interact, also known as truth bias, is often diminished – George et al. (2004) found that deception detection rates over CMC are very low. There are several factors involved in deception detection in online spaces, some of which explain the low rates found in these studies.
Motivation can play a role in deception detection. Research has indicated that highly motivated liars in face-to-face media have a tendency to “leak” nonverbal cues, increasing the rate of detection. In CMC, on the other hand, high motivation frequently leads to decreased detection. In the absence of nonverbal cues and heightened control over the message that CMC affords, deceivers are more successful over CMC.
One reason for this might be those predicted by the Social Presence Theory. This theory suggests that the lack of social presence felt by receivers may prevent them from feeling that their conversation is “real.” Without feeling that their conversation has the same strength and communicative properties of face-to-face conversation, listeners and receivers cannot engage in realistic dialogue. George et al. (2006) cite a study which explains why this poses a problem for deception detection in online spaces. According to Short et al. (1976), without feeling like the conversation is real, participants cannot ascertain the veracity of the message. Because the conversation takes on an unnatural feel, receivers pay less attention to communicative partners; this negligence minimizes ability to detect deception.
Suspicion is another variable in deceptive communication. As suspicion increases, deception detection increases. George et al. (2006) found that participants given some forewarning of deception were five times more likely to correctly identify deceptive statements than were participants who were not given a warning. Interestingly, this study found an “abysmal” rate of deception detection even after study participants had been predisposed toward suspicion. This is surprising because one might expect that in an experiment setting, the truth bias would be diminished for all participants – even those who had not been given a warning. If anything, it might be predicted that in the controlled environment of an experiment, both suspicion and detection would be abnormally high.
Verbal cues also play a role in deception detection. Hancock et al. (2004) describes these cues as an increase in negative statements and use of the passive voice. The passive voice serves to distance the speaker from the lie. Rowe classifies deceptive cues into “low-level” and “high-level” or cognitive clues. Low-level verbal clues include the increased use of negative statements and passive voice along with increased hyperbole and overgenerality. High-level verbal cues to deception mainly include logical fallacies or factual inconsistencies.
Finally, Rowe also points out that hesitation – even in a text based communication – is an indication of deception. So taken together, Hancock and Rowe’s research tells us that if we want to get away with a lie, we should relay it in an online environment and type it out relatively quickly.
Assignment 7 Option 3
For the purposes of this assignment, I consulted our course syllabus. In my mind, if someone wants to learn about digital deception he/she should first understand lies and deception in general, and then apply it to knowledge about CMC. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is a poor source to gain any general notion about any of these topics. Really the only content worth reading is the disclaimer--"Some information in this article or section has not been verified and may not be reliable. Please check for any inaccuracies, and modify and cite sources as needed."
If I were taking on the arduous task of updating the Wiki site or creating a new one purely for digital deception, I'd probably outline it a bit like this:
1. Definition of truth, lie, and deception
2. Description of the varying natures of truths and lies
3. Brief overview of media and CMC
4. Comparison of verbal and non-verbal cues to deception
4. Outline of different types of online deception (Rowe)
5. Discussion of prevalence of lies and deception in everyday life
6. What is motivation and how does it impact lying behavior?
7. Insights on identity deception online, including in chat rooms and profiles
8. Description of phishing and other frauds
9. How to detect deception
I think all of these aspects are important, because without any preceding understanding of each topic, it's difficult to harness a broad scope of deception.
As the site is now, readers have some weak examples of deception (just # 4 in my anatomy of a better article). Interestingly, the phishing article is really well-done, and truth isn't bad but highly philosophical, so feasibly we could latch on and beef up the CMC related material and make some serious improvement.
Assignment 7: Deception Detection
The most common thought about deception detection is that it is more difficult in CMC because of the lack of non-verbal cues. This tends to be true, but in addition to this thought, there are also some other factors that play a major role when it comes to deception detection in online spaces. These factors are the arousing suspicion in receivers using CMC, the motivation of the deceiver, and the verbal cues used by the deceiver.
Arousing suspicion in receivers using CMC will improve deception detection accuracy. According to George et al, previous research has shown that truth bias can be an obstacle to accurately detecting deception, but it can be reduced by artificially arousing suspicion in receivers, specifically warnings from a third party source. There were statistically significant differences for warnings, with warned receivers being more accurate at deception detection than receivers who were not warned.
Research has demonstrated that overall, highly motivated deceivers will be detected more accurately than deceivers who have little (or no) motivation to act deceptively. This is also referred to as the motivational impairment effect. DePaulo and Morris (2004) conducted a review that revealed that is was typically easier to identify a number of non-verbal differences in highly motivated deceivers (when compared to their less motivated counterparts. There is also another theory that discusses motivation in relation to deception detection. The Interpersonal Deception Theory (IDT) says that moderate levels of motivation may facilitate verbal and nonverbal aspects of deception. According to Burgoon et al, when deceivers are motivated to lie during interactive communication, they may be more likely to self-monitor and engage in strategic behaviors to convince their partner that they are being truthful, which should enhance their credibility. Both of these theories involving motivation are slightly different, but the one thing they have in common is that they both assume that increased motivation should improve verbal performance during deception.
Verbal cues also play a major role in deception detection in an online space. According to Hancock et al, verbal cues such as an increase in negative statements and linguistic constructions that distance the liar from their presentations are usually a sign that deception is taking place. These can also be referred to as high-level or cognitive clues. Negative statements used by the deceiver over an online space were more often detected as deceptive than a positive statement. The linguistic constructions such as active and passive voice are used to distance the deceiver from the deceivee, in order to make the deceiver feel potentially less guilty.
Overall, there are a few different factors besides the lack of non-verbal cues that can be used in deception detection in an online space. Arousing suspicion, the motivation of the deceiver, and the verbal cues used by the deceiver can all be used in order to detect deception in CMC.
Assigment 7, Option 1: What affects deception detection?
Detecting online deception is not an easy task, for many reasons. Detecting deception in any medium is difficult, but there are certain properties and elements of CMC that affect deception detection in this medium more than in others. Some of these elements are the lack of nonverbal cues, suspicion, and motivation.
Much of the research on deception detection has found that most cues are unreliable for determining deception, but the most reliable ones are nonverbal cues. This includes cues such as the pitch of the speaker’s voice and the amount of body movements/fidgeting. When people are trained to look at these cues, they are (slightly) better at accurately detecting deception (Ekman). Over CMC, however, these cues are not present. Primarily, the cues that people use over CMC are verbal cues (although there is an idea of a different set of nonverbal cues being present, such as length of pauses, and message length, but these haven’t yet been thoroughly studied). One would hypothesize that because there are less of the reliable nonverbal cues present in CMC, someone trying to detect deception would be less accurate in CMC, as they have fewer cues from which to base their decision (Hancock).
Another factor that influences deception detection is suspicion. People are generally not suspicious, and are often victims of the truth-bias. Especially in normal, every-day situations, we are very willing to believe the stories of the people we encounter. CMC, however, is somewhat of a different environment. We can still relate with well-known people like our friends and family, but there is also potential to interact with anyone in the world, in relatively new situations like chatrooms or forums. Being in these unusual circumstances can lead to increased suspicion. Another thing which contributes to suspicion is awareness of potential deception, either by being warned (in a laboratory experiment) or by having knowledge of previous deception (through a news broadcast on online predators). This kind of suspicion can help reduce the truth bias, and leads to somewhat better accuracy of deception detection (George).
Finally, motivation can also influence deception detection, especially in CMC. Motivation has a large influence on a liar’s attitude, because they are more concerned with being successful, and this motivation can lead to two different outcomes. First is that high motivation causes the liar to become too focused on his lie, and the liar ends up “leaking” more nonverbal cues due to the cognitive load of the lie, which leads to increased detection. This is often seen in FTF situations, where the liar doesn’t have the time to compensate for the cognitive strain of telling the lie. In CMC situations, however, we have seen that high motivation can actually cause decreased detection, because the liar is less likely to be given away by nonverbal cues (as they are not present in CMC), and the liar also has more time and resources to allot to making his lie believable (Hancock). Therefore, it has been shown that high motivation can actually make it much harder to detect deception in CMC.
