Drawing as an innovative and successful lie detection tool

• We examined an innovative lie detection tool: Drawings. Participants were sent out on a mission to receive a package from a particular location and to deliver it somewhere else. They were told that they may be intercepted by agents belonging to the organisation they were to represent, or to a hostile organisation. They were instructed to reveal the actual details about their mission to friendly agents but to lie and make something up about all aspects of their mission to hostile agents. After the mission the participants were intercepted and interviewed by either friendly or hostile agents. In these interviews they were asked to describe the location where they received the package, and after the interview they were asked to sketch that location. The results showed that participants’ drawings revealed more cues to deceit than their speech.

Keyword

deception

lie detection

drawing

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)