Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T07:19:29.476Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Use of “um” in the deceptive speech of a convicted murderer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

GINA VILLAR ,
JOANNE ARCIULI  and
DAVID MALLARD
GINA VILLAR*
Affiliation:
University of Sydney and Charles Sturt University
JOANNE ARCIULI
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
DAVID MALLARD
Affiliation:
Charles Sturt University
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Gina Villar, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, 75 East Street, Lidcombe, NSW 2141, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated a link between language behaviors and deception; however, questions remain about the role of specific linguistic cues, especially in real-life high-stakes lies. This study investigated use of the so-called filler, “um,” in externally verifiable truthful versus deceptive speech of a convicted murderer. The data revealed significantly fewer instances of “um” in deceptive speech. These results are in line with our recent study of “um” in laboratory elicited low-stakes lies. Rather than constituting a filled pause or speech disfluency, “um” may have a lexical status similar to other English words and may be under the strategic control of the speaker. In an attempt to successfully deceive, humans may alter their speech, perhaps in order to avoid certain language behaviors that they think might give them away.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 83 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Akehurst, L., Köhnken, G., Vrij, A., & Bull, R. (1996). Lay persons’ and police officers’ beliefs regarding deceptive behavior. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 10, 461–473.3.0.CO;2-2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arciuli, J., Mallard, D., & Villar, G. (2010). “Um, I can tell you're lying”: Linguistic markers of deception versus truth-telling in speech. Applied Psycholinguistics, 31, 397–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benus, S., Enos, F., Hirschberg, J., & Shriberg, E. (2006). Pauses in deceptive speech. In Hoffmann, R. & Mixdorff, H. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Speech Prosody. Dresden: TUD Press.Google Scholar
Bond, C. F., Kahler, K. N., & Paolicelli, L. M. (1985). The miscommunication of deception: An adaptive perspective. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 21, 331–345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bond, C. F., Omar, A., Mahmoud, A., & Bonser, R. N. (1990). Lie detection across cultures. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 14, 189–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bond, C. F., Jr., & DePaulo, B. M. (2006). Accuracy of deception judgments. Personality & Social Psychology Review, 10, 214–234.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bond, G. D. (2008). Deception detection expertise. Law and Human Behavior, 32, 339–351.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burgoon, J., & Floyd, K. (2000). Testing for the Motivational Impairment Effect during deceptive and truthful interaction. Western Journal of Communication, 64, 243–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Clark, H. H., & Fox Tree, J. E. (2002). Using “uh” and “um” in spontaneous speaking. Cognition, 84, 73–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cody, M., Lee, W., & Chao, E. (1989). Telling lies: Correlates of deception among Chinese. In Forgas, J. P. & Innes, J. M. (Eds.), Recent advances in social psychology: An international perspective (pp. 359–368). Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Davis, M., Markus, K. A., Walters, S. B., Vorus, N., & Connors, B. (2005). Behavioral cues to deception vs. topic incriminating potential in criminal confessions. Law and Human Behavior, 29, 683–704.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
DePaulo, B., Rosenthal, R., Rosenkrantz, J., & Green, C. (1982). Actual and perceived cues to deception: A closer look at speech. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 3, 291–312.Google Scholar
DePaulo, B. M., & Kirkendol, S. E. (1989). The motivational impairment effect in the communication of deception. In Yuille, J. (Ed.), Credibility assessment (pp. 51–70). Belgium: Kluwer Academic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DePaulo, B. M., Lindsay, J. J., Malone, B. E., Muhlenbruck, L., Charlton, K., & Cooper, H. (2003). Cues to deception. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 74–118.Google Scholar
Dunning, T. (1993). Accurate methods for the statistics of surprise and coincidence. Computational Linguistics, 19, 61–74.Google Scholar
Ebesu, A., & Miller, M. (1994). Verbal and nonverbal behaviors as a function of deception type. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 13, 418.Google Scholar
Feeley, T. H., & deTurck, M. A. (1998). The behavioral correlates of sanctioned and unsanctioned deceptive communication. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 22, 189–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox Tree, J. E. (1995). The effects of false starts and repetitions on the processing of subsequent words in spontaneous speech. Journal of Memory and Language, 34, 709–738.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox Tree, J. E. (2007). Folk notions of um and uh, you know, and like. Text & Talk, 27, 297–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrard, P., Maloney, L., Hodges, J., & Patterson, K. (2005). The effects of very early Alzheimer's disease on the characteristics of writing by a renowned author. Brain, 128, 250–260.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldman-Eisler, F. (1968). Psycholinguistics: Experiments in spontaneous speech. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Granhag, P. A., & Strömwall, L. A. (2002). Repeated interrogations: Verbal and non-verbal cues to deception. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 16, 243–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hancock, J. T., Curry, L. E., Goorha, S., & Woodworth, M. (2008). On lying and being lied to: A linguistic analysis of deception in computer-mediated communication. Discourse Processes, 45, 1–23.Google Scholar
Hocking, J., & Leathers, D. (1980). Nonverbal indicators of deception: A new theoretical perspective. Communication Monographs, 47, 119–131.Google Scholar
Johnson, R. Jr., Henkell, H., Simon, E., & Zhu, J. (2008). The self in conflict: The role of executive processes during truthful and deceptive responses about attitudes. NeuroImage, 39, 469–482.Google Scholar
Kasl, S., & Mahl, G. (1965). The relationship of disturbances and hesitations in spontaneous speech to anxiety. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1, 425–433.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Knapp, M. L., Hart, R. P., & Dennis, H. S. (1974). An exploration of deception as a communication construct. Human Communication Research, 1, 15–29.Google Scholar
Kowal, S., O'Connell, D., Forbush, K., Higgins, M., Clarke, L., & D'Anna, K. (1997). Interplay of literacy and orality in inaugural rhetoric. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26, 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kraut, R. (1978). Verbal and nonverbal cues in the perception of lying. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 380–391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kraut, R., & Poe, D. (1980). Behavioral roots of person perception: The deception judgments of customs inspectors and laymen. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 784–798.Google Scholar
Levine, T. R., & McCornack, S. A. (2001). Behavioral adaptation, confidence, and heuristic-based explanations of the probing effect. Human Communication Research, 27, 471–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maclay, H., & Osgood, C. E. (1959). Hesitation phenomena in spontaneous English speech. Word, 15, 19–44.Google Scholar
Mann, S., Vrij, A., & Bull, R. (2002). Suspects, lies, and videotape: An analysis of authentic high-stake liars. Law and Human Behavior, 26, 365–376.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mann, S., Vrij, A., & Bull, R. (2004). Detecting true lies: Police officers’ ability to detect deceit. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 137–149.Google Scholar
Miller, G. R., DeTurck, M. A., & Kalbfleisch, P. J. (1983). Self-monitoring, rehearsal, and deceptive communication. Human Communication Research, 10, 97–117.Google Scholar
Newman, M. L., Pennebaker, J. W., Berry, D. S., & Richards, J. N. (2003). Lying words: Predicting deception from linguistic styles. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 665–675.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O'Sullivan, M. (2003). The fundamental attribution error in detecting deception: The boy-who-cried-wolf effect. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 1316.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Porter, S., & Yuille, J. C. (1996). The language of deceit: An investigation of the verbal clues in the interrogation context. Law and Human Behavior, 20, 443–358.Google Scholar
Rayson, P. (2008). Wmatrix: A web-based corpus processing environment [Computer software]. Lancaster University, Computing Department. Retrieved April 28, 2008, from http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/Wmatrix/Google Scholar
Rayson, P., Berridge, D., & Francis, B. (2004, March). Extending the Cochran rule for the comparison of word frequencies between corpora. In Purnelle, G., Fairon, C., & Dister, A. (Eds.), The 7th International Conference on Statistical Analysis of Textual Data. Louvain-la-neuve, Belgium: Presses Universitaires de Louvain.Google Scholar
Riggio, R. E., & Friedman, H. S. (1983). Individual differences and cues to deception. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 45, 899–915.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, V. L., & Clark, H. H. (1993). On the course of answering questions. Journal of Memory and Language, 32, 25–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sporer, S. L., & Schwandt, B. (2006). Paraverbal indicators of deception: A meta-analytic synthesis. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, 421–446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vrij, A. (1995). Behavioral correlates of deception in a simulated police interview. Journal of Psychology, 129, 15–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vrij, A. (2004). Why professionals fail to catch liars and how they can improve. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 9, 159–181.Google Scholar
Vrij, A. (2008). Nonverbal dominance versus verbal accuracy in lie detection: A plea to change police practice. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 35, 1323–1336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vrij, A., Akehurst, L., Soukara, S., & Bull, R. (2004). Detecting deceit via analyses of verbal and nonverbal behavior in children and adults. Human Communication Research, 30, 8–41.Google Scholar
Vrij, A., Edward, K., & Bull, R. (2001). People's insight into their own behaviour and speech content while lying. British Journal of Psychology, 92, 373–390.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vrij, A., Edward, K., Roberts, K. P., & Bull, R. (2000). Detecting deceit via analysis of verbal and nonverbal behavior. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 24, 239–263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vrij, A., & Heaven, S. (1999). Vocal and verbal indicators of deception as a function of lie complexity. Psychology, Crime & Law, 5, 203–215.Google Scholar
Vrij, A., & Mann, S. (2001). Telling and detecting lies in a high-stake situation: The case of a convicted murderer. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 15, 187–203.3.0.CO;2-A>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vrij, A., & Winkel, F. (1991). The frequency and scope of differences in nonverbal behavioural patterns: An observation study of Dutchmen and Surinamers. In Bleichrodt, N. & Drenth, P. J. D. (Eds.), Contemporary issues in crosscultural psychology (pp. 120–137). Amsterdam: Swets en Zeitlinger.Google Scholar
Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Zhou, L., Burgoon, J. K., Nunamaker, J. F., & Twitchell, D. (2004). Automating linguistics-based cues for detecting deception in text-based asynchronous computer-mediated communications. Group Decision & Negotiation, 13, 81–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zuckerman, M., DePaulo, B. M., & Rosenthal, R. (1981). Verbal and nonverbal communication of deception. In Berkowitz, L. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 14, pp. 1–59). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar