Pinocchio's Clock: Using Response Time to Detect Deception in Sender-Receiver Games

Xin Jiang () and Bohan Ye ()
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Xin Jiang: University of Southern California
Bohan Ye: Department of Economics, University of California Riverside

No 202608, Working Papers from University of California at Riverside, Department of Economics

Abstract: Timestamps that reveal response times (RTs) have become a common feature of contemporary social media platforms and messaging applications. What information does RT reveal when users have conflicting interests, and can they use this information to improve communication outcomes? We conduct a sender–receiver experiment to examine the relationship between RT and message honesty. We find that longer RTs are associated with a higher likelihood of deception, consistent with a cognitive-conflict mechanism under which lying involves greater cognitive struggle. Receivers, however, rely more consistently on senders’ message frequency than on RT when assessing message credibility.

Keywords: lie detection; response time; information acquisition; cognitive conflict (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D01 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 Pages
Date: 2026-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-neu
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