Abstract
One technique for examining written statements or interview transcripts for verbal cues of veracity and lying involves the analysis of linguistic features and grammatical structures associated with word usage. This technique is commonly referred to as Statement Analysis (SA). There are varying degrees of empirical support for different SA techniques and for specific linguistic markers; what is less known in the literature is the degree to which verbal indicators of veracity and lying vary across languages. We examined this research question. Participants from three language groups – English, Spanish, and Chinese – witnessed a video portraying an actual crime and then wrote false and true statements about what they had witnessed in their respective languages. The statements were coded using various linguistic features of SA. The selected linguistic features discriminated between true and false witness statements and the effect sizes were relatively large. Importantly, language did not moderate the relationship between veracity and the coded features, indicating cross-language similarity in the efficacy of SA features to differentiate truths from lies.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the following individuals for their aid in the collection of data in Study 1: Jeff Fujimoto for his aid in collecting data in Ecuador, Angel Avendano for his aid in collecting data in Bolivia, and Xiaohang Feng for her aid in collecting data in China. This report was prepared with the support of research grant FA9550-11-1-0306 from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
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Matsumoto, D., Hwang, H.C. & Sandoval, V.A. Cross-Language Applicability of Linguistic Features Associated with Veracity and Deception. J Police Crim Psych 30, 229–241 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-014-9155-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-014-9155-0