Mann Et Al - Detecting Lies

Question 0

Who were the participants in Mann’s study?

Answer 0

99 Kent police officers (24 females and 75 males), the majority of which were detectives

Question 1

What was the aim of Mann et al’s study?

Answer 1

To test the ability of police officers to distinguish truth and lies during interviews with suspects

Question 2

What were participants asked to judge from real life police interviews that had been videotaped?

Answer 2

Truthfulness

Question 3

How many video clips were the participants shown and of how many suspects?

Answer 3

54 video clips of 14 suspects

Question 4

How long were the video clips?

Answer 4

They ranged from 6-145 seconds

Question 5

What were the participants asked to fill out questionnaires on?

Answer 5

Their experience of detecting liars

Question 6

What were the 3 things that participants asked to do after each video clip?

Answer 6

Indicate whether it showed a truth or a lie, Rate how confident they were with their decision and identify any behavioural cues they used to detect the lies

Question 7

How accurate were the police in detecting lies?

Answer 7

66.2%

Question 8

How accurate were the police in detecting truths?

Answer 8

63.6%

Question 9

Between what variables was there a weak positive correlation?

Answer 9

Increasing experience and detecting truth and detecting lies

Question 10

What were some of the most frequently mentioned cues?

Answer 10

Direction of gaze, movements, vagueness, contradictions in story and fidgeting

Question 11

What were the 4 conclusions of Mann’s study?

Answer 11

The police officers were reasonably good at detecting lies, to establish whether they were better than the general public would require a control group, the more experience an officer has of detecting lies the better they are at it and officers who relied more on story cues were better at detecting lies