Elizabeth Elliott

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Postdoctoral scholar at Iowa State University

Purpose: Cognitive load and arousal are cornerstones of many deception detection strategies and theories; in turn, their effective measurement is critical. However, fundamental criteria for establishing the quality and accuracy of measures have largely been overlooked. In this study, we examined the reliability and construct validity of common cogn...

We examined how speakers' language proficiency affects observers' deception detection. Proficiency was divided into measures of accentedness, temporal fluency, lexicogrammar, and comprehensibility. Results indicated that speaker proficiency significantly affected observer discrimination and response bias. Observers readily perceived differences in...

Using videotaped interviews of beginner, intermediate, and native English speakers, we examined whether observers’ perceptions of linguistic measures of accentedness, temporal fluency, lexicogrammar, and comprehensibility influenced their deception detection. We found that observers could detect differences in speech characteristics between profici...

Nous avons examiné la façon dont les impressions d’observateurs au sujet de locuteurs non natifs et leurs indices de tromperie a influé sur leur prise de décisions. Les locuteurs anglophones natifs et non natifs ont menti ou dit la vérité au sujet d’avoir commis une transgression, et les observateurs essayaient de déceler leurs mensonges. Les obser...

Testimonial evidence can be critical to the establishment of the facts of a case. Unfortunately, witnesses are not always truthful. In turn, legal professionals are charged with discerning witnesses’ credibility. Can they effectively accomplish this task? Scientific research on deception detection, particularly arising from the field of psychology,...

Speech characteristics contribute substantially to impression formation and can serve as a way for observers to evaluate a speaker’s credibility (Vrij et al., 2004; Vrij & Winkel, 1994). Certain speech characteristics, such as those related to the speaker’s accent, can have powerful effects on how the speaker is perceived (Fuertes et al., 2012; Lev...

Evidence across fields suggests that perceptions of speech characteristics can affect deception detection. Using a mock interrogation paradigm, we examined observers’ perceptions of accent, fluency, lexicogrammar, and comprehensibility in truth- and lie-tellers’ (N = 72) accounts, across three language proficiency groups (i.e., beginner, intermedia...

Determining non-native speakers’ credibility poses a challenge for legal decision-makers, as observers may attribute deception based on characteristics related to language proficiency. We examined linguistic differences between truth- and lie-tellers (N = 55) from four proficiency groups (i.e., beginner, intermediate, advanced, and native English)...

When detecting deception, observers exhibit a “truth bias” toward native English speakers, but this effect disappears when judging non-native speakers (e.g., Elliott & Leach, 2016). Using linguistic analyses of interviewees (N = 116) with varying English proficiencies, we tested whether hesitation phenomena (e.g., pauses, response latency) characte...

Recent research suggests that observers exhibit a truth bias toward native English speakers (i.e., they tend to judge them as truthful) but not non-native speakers (Leach & Da Silva, 2013). Why? One possibility is that decreases in temporal fluency associated with speaking in a non-native language are misperceived as signs of deception. We examined...

We examined the impact of interviewees’ language proficiencies on observers’ lie detection performance. Observers (N = 132) were randomly assigned to make deception judgments about interviewees (N = 56) from Four proficiency groups (i.e., native, advanced, intermediate, and beginner English speakers). Discrimination between lie- and truth-tellers w...

The present meta-analysis explored the relationship between psychopathy and instrumental and reactive violence with a focus on factor and facet scores. At total of 53 studies (reporting on 55 unique samples, N = 8753) from both published and unpublished sources were included. Results from random-effects analyses indicated moderate and significant r...