The use-the-best heuristic facilitates deception detection

Bruno Verschuere (), Chu-Chien Lin, Sara Huismann, Bennett Kleinberg, Marleen Willemse, Emily Chong Jia Mei, Thierry Goor, Leonie H. S. Löwy, Obed Kwame Appiah and Ewout Meijer
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Bruno Verschuere: University of Amsterdam
Chu-Chien Lin: University of Amsterdam
Sara Huismann: University of Amsterdam
Bennett Kleinberg: Tilburg University
Marleen Willemse: University of Amsterdam
Emily Chong Jia Mei: University of Amsterdam
Thierry Goor: University of Amsterdam
Leonie H. S. Löwy: University of Amsterdam
Obed Kwame Appiah: University of Amsterdam
Ewout Meijer: Maastricht University

Nature Human Behaviour, 2023, vol. 7, issue 5, 718-728

Abstract: Abstract Decades of research have shown that people are poor at detecting deception. Understandably, people struggle with integrating the many putative cues to deception into an accurate veracity judgement. Heuristics simplify difficult decisions by ignoring most of the information and relying instead only on the most diagnostic cues. Here we conducted nine studies in which people evaluated honest and deceptive handwritten statements, video transcripts, videotaped interviews or live interviews. Participants performed at the chance level when they made intuitive judgements, free to use any possible cue. But when instructed to rely only on the best available cue (detailedness), they were consistently able to discriminate lies from truths. Our findings challenge the notion that people lack the potential to detect deception. The simplicity and accuracy of the use-the-best heuristic provides a promising new avenue for deception research.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01556-2

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