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Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs.
2003, /29(3), 269-311
Facial Appearance and Judgments

of Credibility: The Effects of
Facial Babyishness and Age
on Statement Credibility
JAUME MASIP
EUGENIO GARRIDO
CARMEN HERRERO
Department of Social Psychology and Anthropology
University of Salamanca, Spain
ABSTRACT. Researchers have found that facial appearance influences social judg-
ments. For example, evidence has shown that facial babyishness and age affect per-
ceivers' impressions of the stimulus person's veracity. In this experiment, the researchers
examined whether these variables also influenced the credibility attributed to written
statements purportedly made by these people in addition to several topics of interest in
deception-detection research. Undergraduates {N = 270) were presented babyfaced or
mature-faced photographs that depicted a child, an adult, or an older individual, in ad-
dition to a written truthful or deceptive statement purportedly made by the person in the
photograph. Results showed that, as predicted, when the statements were accompanied
by babyfaced pictures, participants tended to judge them as truthful, but only if the pic-
tures did not depict children. Also, when the statements were accompanied by childen's
pictures, participants tended to judge them as deceptive, but only if the pictures depict-
ed a babyish face. Overall detection accuracy was close to chance and did not correlate
with either judgmental confidence or with the respondents' estimated lie-detection ac-
curacy. However, confidence and estimated ability were significantly correlated. Also,
more confidence was placed in judgments of truthfulness than in judgments of decep-
tiveness. Respondents' truth bias and the existence of a veracity effect in the diverse ex-
perimental conditions were examined as well.
Key words: age, babyfacedness, credibility, detection of deception, truth bias
WITHIN THE DECEPTION-DETECTION FIELD, three maiti areas of inquiry

stand out: (a) people's ability to lie successfully and to accurately detect decep-
tion (e.g., Vrij, Edward, Roberts, & Bull, 2000); (b) channel or modality effects
on accuracy, in other words, what kind of information (visual, vocal, verbal,
269
270 Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs
transmitted by the face, transmitted by the body, etc.) is most useful for untrained
observers to detect deception (DePaulo, Zuckerman, & Rosenthal, 1980a); and
(c) the behavioral indicators of deception: real deception cues, which actually do
distinguish truth from deception; perceived deception cues, which are indicators
that people actually use to make veracity judgments; and the beliefs about cues
to deceit, which are the cues that people say they use or say may be useful for
making credibility judgments (DePaulo & Rosenthal, 1979; Zuckerman, Koest-
ner, & Driver, 1981). In this article, we explore the accuracy issue. More specif-
ically, participants assessed the credibility of truthful and deceptive written mes-
sages. Also, we report on perceived cues to deceit. Specifically, the facial ap-
pearance of the purported senders of these written messages was conceptualized
as a static cue that could yield judgments of truthfulness or deceptiveness, thus
acting as a perceived deception cue. In addition, we examine the influence of cer-
tain facial characteristics on the credibility judgments.
Observers' Accuracy in Detecting Truthful and Deceptive Accounts
A number of reviews and meta-analyses of the deception literature have

shown that observers' detection accuracy in judging credibility is very poor (De-
Paulo, Zuckerman, & Rosenthal, 1980b; Kalbfleisch, 1985; Kraut, 1980; Vrij,
2000). In 1980, Kraut published a review of the relevant literature available at the
time and reported that mean accuracy was 57%where 50% was the chance
leveland rarely exceeded the 65% rate. Zuckerman, DePaulo, and Rosenthal
(1981) came to similar conclusions; they stated that "most of the results fall in
the .45-.60 range with a chance level of .5" (p. 26). Recently, Vrij (2000) exam-
ined whether things had changed since the reviews of Kraut and Zuckerman et
al. After examining a series of 39 studies published between 1980 and 1999, he
reached the same conclusions: "The majority of the accuracy rates fall in the
range of 45-60%, and the mean accuracy rate is 56.6%. This is almost identical
to the 57% accuracy rate found by Kraut (1980)" (Vrij, p. 69).
Some deception scholars have, however, expressed concern in relation to
using the overall accuracy rate as a precise measure of people's ability to discern
The authors are grateful to several anonymous reviewers whose comments helped to im-
prove the article. The authors also wish to thank Josep Llevat, Pere Palleja, and Amparo
Matilla, who provided the series of photographs that made it possible to conduct this re-
search. Furthermore, Amparo Matilla also participated as research assistant during the
early phases of this experiment. The computer artist, Juan A. Muniz-Hemaz, was in charge
of manipulating the photographs. Technical and IT assistance were kindly provided by Jesus
Herrero and Jose M. Arana. This research was supported by the Junta de Castilla y Leon,
Programa de Apoyo a Proyectos de Investigacion, Ref. SA52/00B.
Correspondence should be sent to Jaume Masip, Department of Social Psychology
and Anthropology, University of Salamanca, Facultad de Psicologia, Avda. de la Merced,
109-131, 37005 Salamanca, Spain, jmasip@usal.es (e-mail).
Masip, Garrido, & Herrero 271
between truthful and deceptive communications. For example. Miller and Stiff
(1993) noted that researchers normally use the term "deception detection" to de-
scribe the mean accuracy rate obtained in judging both truthful and deceptive
messages. Because this composite does not reflect only accuracy in detecting
lies, its normal use in the literature might be misleading. Miller and Stiff advo-
cated the use of "detection accuracy" to refer to the combination of accuracy in
detecting truthful and deceptive statements and reserved the term "deception de-
tection" to refer only to accuracy in identifying deceptive statements.
Miller and Stiff's (1993) semantic distinction gains relevance in view of
Levine, Park, and McCornack's (1999) considerations concerning the differences
between observers' accuracy in detecting truths and lies. Levine et al. noted that
researchers have repeatedly found that people generally tend to lend credibility
to the verbal and nonverbal messages conveyed by others; that is, they show a
truth bias (e.g., DePaulo, Stone, & Lassiter, 1985; Vrij, 2000; Zuckerman et al.,
1981). Levine et al. argued that this truth bias could lead to a veracity effect, that
is, accuracy in judging truthful statements would be significantly greater than ac-
curacy in judging deceptive statements. In a series of three experiments, they re-
peatedly found that the proportion of judgments of truthfulness was significant-
ly greater than the actual distribution of truths and lies (truth bias). This, in turn,
produced a veracity effect: Truth-detection accuracy was significantly greater
than lie-detection accuracy. In addition, Levine et al. found that accuracy in de-
tecting the truthful statements was significantly greater than chance, whereas ac-
curacy in detecting the deceptive statements was significantly lower than chance.
Because the overall accuracy rate (Miller and Stiff's detection accuracy) blurs
these differences between the detection of truthful and deceptive statements,
Levine et al. advocated the use of two separate accuracy measures, one for the
truthful statements and one for the deceptive statements.
In summary, although overall detection rates (i.e., detection accuracy) are
very poor and close to chance, accuracy in detecting truthful accounts is often
significantly higher than chance and also higher than accuracy in detecting de-
ceptive accounts (deception accuracy), which is normally below chance. Al-
though these conclusions are largely based on research conducted using audiovi-
sual presentations of spoken messages, we think they can be generalized to writ-
ten accounts. For example, Sporer, Klipper, and Bursch (1995) found that lay re-
spondents who judged the credibility of written statements performed at chance
levels. The same result was found by Jackson and Granhag (1997), whose par-
ticipants were lawyers and students who assessed children's written accounts.
They also found a strong truth bias among the students' sample. Finally, lay re-
spondents of Experiment 2 by Tye, Amato, Honts, Devitt, and Peters (1999)
reached only a 59% accuracy ratethe authors did not indicate whether it sig-
nificantly departed from chance. One of the aims of the present study consisted
of explicitly replicating the overall accuracy, truth bias, and veracity effect find-
ings with written statements.
Judgmental Confidence, Estimated Detection Ability,

and Their Relation to Accuracy
Research into respondents' accuracy in detecting truthful and deceptive mes-

sages has repeatedly examined observers' confidence in their credibility judg-
ments (e.g., DePaulo & Pfeiffer, 1986; Ekman & O'Sullivan, 1991; Littlepage &
Pineault, 1981; Vrij, 1994; Vrij & Graham, 1997). In a recent meta-analysis of
this literature, DePaulo, Charlton, Cooper, Lindsay, and Muhlenbruck (1997)
concluded that the relationship between confidence and accuracy does not reach
statistical significance:
[P]eople's confidence in their judgments of whether another person is telling the
truth or lying is not significantly related to the accuracy of those judgments. Twen-
ty-seven correlations from 18 samples yielded a mean weighted correlation of only
.04. The largest reported correlation was .26. There were no significant moderators
of the size of the accuracy-confidence correlation. The estimate of a near-zero corre-
lation is based on a total of 2,972 judges, including law enforcement officers as well
as students, and friends and lovers ofthe senders as well as strangers, (p. 353)
Thus, it is apparent that respondents are unaware of how accurately they judge
the credibility of truthful and deceptive messages.
An interesting finding of the meta-analysis by DePaulo et al. (1997) con-
cerns the relationship between the kind of judgments respondents made (of
truthfulness or of deceptiveness) and confidence. DePaulo et al. calculated nine
effect sizes from a total of eight studies that examined the relationship between
the proportion of truthfulness judgments and confidence; they found a signifi-
cant positive correlation. Respondents were more confident in their judgments
of truthfulness than in their judgments of deceptiveness.
To account for this finding, DePaulo et al. (1997) referred to McCornack
and Parks's (1986; Levine & McCornack, 1992) model of deception detection.
According to this model, "as degree of involvement in a relationship increases,
confidence in ability to detect a partner's attempts at deception also increases.
As this confidence increases, individuals are increasingly likely to believe that
their partner will never lie to them" (Levine & McCornack, p. 144). In other
words, relational involvement gives rise to confidence, and confidence produces
a truth bias. This explanation could account for the significant correlation be-
tween confidence and judgments of truthfulness.
In our view, this explanation has two weaknesses. First, it does not differen-
tiate between the general capacity for detecting the partner's deception and the
confidence in a specific credibility judgment. Secondand more relevant to the
present discussionincreases in confidence might lead to making judgments of
truthfulness in cooperative interactions, such as those of interactional partners.
But in competitive interactions, an increased confidence may lead to an increase
in judgments of deceptiveness. For instance, police officers are often overconfi-
dent in their judgments, but they do not display a truth bias. Rather, they tend to
judge statetnents as deceptive (see Garrido, Masip, & Herrero, in press; Meiss-
ner & Kassin, 2002). Thus, McComack and Parks's (1986) model may account
only for the confidence-truthfulness judgment correlation within the context of
very close interpersonal relationships. There were studies included in the De-
Paulo et al. (1997) meta-analysis in which senders and receivers were not in-
volved in close relationships, and the significant correlation between judgments
of truthfulness and confidence was nevertheless found in these studies. In fact,
only three of the eight experiments included in the DePaulo et al. meta-analysis
used senders and receivers who were relational partners or friends (Anderson,
Ansfield, & DePaulo, 1997, as cited in DePaulo et al.; Levine & McComack,
1992; McComack & Parks). However, in some of the remaining experiments
(e.g., Fan, Wagner, & Manstead, 1995; Kohnken, 1987), this correlation was pos-
itive and substantial {r = .27 and r = .17, respectively). Therefore, the model of
McComack and Parks cannot account for this relationship between confidence
and judgments of tmthfulness.
An altemative explanation may be posed by referring to the truth bias phe-
nomenon. Because researchers have found that observers have a strong tendency
to judge statements as tmthful, then it is reasonable to expect that, when judging
statements as deceptive, respondents will be somewhat fearful of failing the judg-
ments and will make these judgments with a certain caution. This caution would
be reflected in small judgmental confidence.
Finally, a few researchers have also examined observers' general estimated
ability to detect deception (e.g., Ekman & O'Sullivan, 1991; Garrido et aL, in
press; Porter, Woodworth, & Birt, 2000). Unlike confidence, which refers to the
respondent's reliance on a specific judgment that he or she has just made, esti-
mated ability is something farther removed from that specific judgment, referring
to how skilled or good this person thinks he or she is at detecting lies. The scarce
extant research on the estimated ability-accuracy correlation mirrors that of the
confidence-accuracy correlation: No significant relationship has been found be-
tween estimated ability and accuracy (see Ekman & O'Sullivan; Garrido et aL;
Porter et al.). Because only a few researchers have examined this correlation,
more empirical research is needed. In this experiment, we examined the estimat-
ed ability-accuracy relationship.
Facial Appearance Items as Likely Perceived Static Deception Cues
The perceived deception cues have been defined as the indicators that
people actually use to make veracity judgments. This conceptualization im-
plicitly comprises two types of information conveyed by the sender: static
cues and dynamic cues. Static cues are those that do not change throughout the
communicative interaction, such as dress, physical appearance, and so forth.
On the other hand, dynamic cues are those that flow continuously as time goes
by, such as body movements, and vocal characteristics. However, despite the
fact that, potentially, both dynamic and static cues may be perceived indica-
tors of deceit, research conducted so far has focused almost exclusively on the
dynamic cues, neglecting any exploration into the static ones.
Zuckerman, DeFrank, Hall, Larrace, and Rosenthal (1979) found what they
termed a demeanor bias: Some senders were consistently judged as truthful and
some others as deceptive, regardless of whether they lied or told the truth. Bond,
Kahler, and Paolicelli (1985) confirmed the existence of a demeanor bias. As
conceptualized by Zuckerman et aL, such bias would depend on some internal
characteristics that influence the sender's perceptible demeanor, which, in turn,
would determine observers' ratings. However, as Bond and Robinson (1988) sug-
gested, it may be the case that "these biases originate in fixed features of the
mien, an innocent- or guilty-looking visage" (p. 304). If this were the case, then
the biased judgments of credibility would depend directly on the sender's ap-
pearance instead of depending on personality traits or social skills that influence
behavior. In other words, the sender's appearance may contain perceived static
indicators of deceit, which account for the demeanor bias.
One aspect of the physical appearance that might have an influence on ob-
servers' credibility judgments is the senders' facial appearance, given that it has
already been shown to influence other kinds of social judgments. More specifi-
cally, two facial characteristics that influence the perceivers' judgments of other
people and that, potentially, may influence the impressions of credibility, are
physical attractiveness (e.g., Berscheid & Walster, 1974; Bull & Rumsey, 1988;
Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972; Langlois, 1986; Langlois et aL, 2000; Shep-
herd, 1989; Zebrowitz, 1997) and facial babyishness (e.g.. Berry & McArthur,
1985, 1986; McArthur & Apatow, 1983-1984; Montepare & Zebrowitz, 1998;
Zebrowitz).
In a recent study, Masip, Garrido, and Herrero (in press) explored whether
facial babyishness influenced how truthful or deceitful an individual was per-
ceived to be. They based their hypotheses on Zebrowitz's (1997) babyface over-
generalization effect.
The Babyface Overgeneralization Effect
As the human being grows, it undergoes certain anatomical changes. Some of

these changes affect the cranium and face, making the prototypical facial appear-
ance of an adult quite different from that of a baby (e.g., Enlow, 1982; Montepare
& Zebrowitz, 1998; Zebrowitz, 1997). These changes include the following:
Cranial structure. During the growth process, there is a relative rising of the lo-
cation of features on the vertical plane of the face (Todd & Mark, 1981). There-
fore, a prototypical infant's face has a larger forehead and a smaller chin than a
prototypical adult's face. When seen in profile, an infant has a relatively receding
chin and a relatively prominent forehead (Pittenger & Shaw, 1975; Todd, Mark,
Shaw, & Pittenger, 1980). These characteristics are progressively attenuated dur-
ing the growth process as a result of, among other factors, the jaw enlargement
produced by the development of the teeth.
Eyes. The eyes of an infantile face are proportionally larger than those of an adult
face. The reason is that the eyes grow very little during the maturation process;
therefore, in an adult face, they are proportionally smaller than in an infant's face
(Montepare & Zebrowitz, 1998; Zebrowitz, 1997).
Eyebrows. Infants' eyebrows are thinner and are located on a higher position than
adults' eyebrows (Guthrie, 1976, as cited by Berry & McArthur, 1986).
Nose. Babies have a pug nose, relatively wider and shorter than an adult's nose
(Enlow, 1982). It is not until puberty that the nasal bridge enlarges, especially
among boys (e.g., Zebrowitz, 1997).
Ears. Infants also have shorter ears than adults (e.g., McArthur & Apatow,
1983-1984).
Lips. Infants' lips are less thin than adults' lips (Zebrowitz, 1997). Babies have
smaller mouths, with lips that are proportionally larger than adults' lips.
Cheeks. Babies have round, chubby cheeks. In the contrast, owing to jaw en-
largement, normal mature faces are not round but angular or strong.
Other characteristics. Babies usually have skin that is softer and more light col-
ored than that of adults. Their hair and eyes also tend to be light colored, and their
pupils are relatively larger than those of adults.
According to the ecological theory of social perception (McArthur &
Baron, 1983; see also Berry & McArthur, 1986; Montepare & Zebrowitz, 1998),
perception serves an adaptive function, both in the social and biological do-
mains. For example, any physical appearance variables may influence impres-
sions if they reveal psychological attributes whose detection is important for the
survival of the species or for the adaptive functioning of the individual (Berry &
McArthur). Also, the ecological theory holds that the adaptive information is re-
vealed in the very thing to be perceived (e.g., in the physical features that dif-
ferentiate infants from adults). In addition, this information specifies environ-
mental affordances, that is, opportunities for acting or being acted on. For ex-
ample, according to Berry and McArthur, infants afford training, nurturing, and
protecting, whereas mature individuals afford sexual pleasure, wisdom, or harm.
Because the detection of age-related affordances is important for adaptive func-
tioning, facial characteristics that distinguish infants from adults should be suf-
ficient to reveal them.
Empirical research has shown that the aforementioned prototypical babyish
features are easily recognizable by individuals of every age (see, e.g., Montepare &
Zebrowitz's [1998] review). In addition, in accordance with the ecological theory of
social perception, these very characteristics specify environmental affordances. For

example, McArthur (1982, as cited in Berry & McArthur, 1986) found that pro-
gressively more babyfaced facial profiles produced stronger perceptions of depen-
dency (less alertness, reliability, intelligence, and strength) and approachability (the
profiles were rated as progressively less threatening and more kind, flexible, and
lovable). The perception of these characteristics is important for survival (i.e., if the
baby were not nurtured, educated, and protected, he or she would probably die).
Therefore, these physical features serve as key stimuli that inhibit aggression and
release care giving (see Zebrowitz, 1997). For instance. Alley (1983) showed baby-
faced or less babyfaced facial profiles to participants and asked them whom they
would defend from a physical beating. Respondents tended to choose the most
babyfaced profile.
In summary, babyish facial features reveal certain internal characteristics of
babies. The perception of these characteristics by others is essential for the ba-
bies to survive. Therefore, people perceive the facial features easily, attribute the
correct meaning to them (e.g., dependency and approachability), and behave ac-
cordingly (look after the baby, nurture and educate him or her, etc.). This process
is indeed adaptive as it favors the survival of the baby and, ultimately, that of the
human species.
It is important to keep in mind that people's positive responses to babies
are not a result of being in front of a baby but a result of perceiving these phys-
ical features that are prototypical of babyish faces and act as key stimuli (e.g.,
McArthur, 1982, as cited in Berry & McArthur, 1986; Zebrowitz, 1997; Ze-
browitz, Fellous, Mignault, & Andreoletti, 2003). Therefore, if these features
are displayed by something that is not a baby (e.g., an adult), they will gener-
ate the same process: the observers' attribution of certain psychological traits
and their consistent response toward the stimulus that is displaying the relevant
features. This phenomenon is called the babyface overgeneralization effect,
and is an instance of what, within the framework of the ecological theory of so-
cial perception, McArthur and Baron (1983) called an error of commission. An
error of commission consists of detecting erroneous affordances in the object
of perception. In the words of Montepare and Zebrowitz (1998):
According to the ecological perspective, the adaptive value of identifying a person's
age may have produced such a strong tendency to respond to age-related physical
cues that perceivers' responses are overgeneralized to people whose physical quali-
ties merely resemble people of a certain age. In particular, the evolutionary necessi-
ty of quick, reliable, and appropriate responses to the needs of babies may predispose
people to respond in a similar fashion to those whose faces, voices, or bodies resem-
ble a baby's in some way. The result is a babyish-overgeneralization effectaccurate
perceptions of babies are overgeneralized to babyish-looking, -sounding, or -moving
adults who consequently are perceived to have childlike traits, (pp. 109-110)
Empirical research has supported the hypothesis that adult individuals who
look like adults but whose facial characteristics resemble in some way those of
babies (e.g., prominent forehead, large eyes, thin eyebrows, pug nose, etc.) are
attributed traits similar to those of babies: They are perceived as weaker than
their mature-faced counterparts in the physical, social, and intellectual domains.
In addition, babyfaced adults are perceived as warmer, more approachable, easy-
going, kind, and so on, than mature-faced adults (see Montepare & Zebrowitz's
[1998] review, pp. 112-116). This affects the perceivers' behavior toward the tar-
get individuals, and it has important social consequences in areas such as inter-
personal relationships, job and promotion opportunities, attribution of guilt, and
sentence severity in court, for example (see Montepare & Zebrowitz).
Babyfacedness and Impressions of Truthfulness
Drawing on some research that suggests that babyfacedness may be related

to honesty impressions (e.g.. Berry, 1990; McArthur & Apatow, 1983-1984; Ze-
browitz, Voinescu, & Collins, 1996), Masip et al. (in press) explicitly examined
whether babyfaced individuals were perceived as more truthful than their ma-
ture-faced counterparts. They took three photographs of the same man at three
ages: as a child, as an adult, and as a somewhat older individual. The rationale
for using faces of different ages was based on the current emphasis on children's
testimony and credibility in court (e.g.. Bull, 2001; Ceci, Leitchman, & Putnick,
1992; Ceci, Ross, & Toglia, 1989; Doris, 1991; Goodman & Bottoms, 1993;
Sachsenmaier & Watson, 1998), as well as on research on ageism, which has
found that older adults are attributed negative traits (see Kite & Johnson, 1988;
Nelson, 2002).
Masip et al. (in press) manipulated the facial features of the original pho-
tographs to build a babyfaced and a mature-faced version of each. Undergradu-
ate participants received one of these photographs and rated it on a series of be-
havioral-tendency and trait scales that measured strength, dominance, intelli-
gence, naivete, warmth, honesty, and truthfulness. Both honesty and truthfulness
scales were used, because the meaning of the Spanish word for honesty, namely
honestidad, is farther from veracity or truthfulness than its English counterpart,
being closer to a general quality of character indicating uprightness. As predict-
ed, increases in facial babyishness produced increases in ratings of physical
weakness, submissiveness, naivete, and warmth. In addition, as age increased, so
did perceivers' impressions of the stimulus person's strength, dominance, intelli-
gence, shrewdness, and coldness.
With regard to honesty and truthfulness, increased facial babyishness pro-
duced stronger impressions of honesty on the corresponding behavioral-tenden-
cy rating scale, and a marginal tendency pointing in the same direction was found
on the trait rating scale. Likewise, although neither age nor babyishness had any
significant effect on how truthful or deceitful the stimulus person was rated on
the trait scale, these variables were significant for the behavioral-tendency rat-
ings. In line with the prediction, babyish faces were judged as the least deceitful.
and children were judged as more mendacious than adults and old people. This
latter finding was explained in terms of the popular belief that children are very
imaginative and, therefore, invent, concoct, and lie; in fact, there is evidence that,
historically, children have been considered unreliable witnesses (e.g., Baartman,
1992; Ceci & Bruck, 1993; Sachsenmaier & Watson, 1998). This view still re-
mains among some legal professionals (Alonso-Quecuty, 1996). Finally, in the
study of Masip et al. (in press), the Age x Babyfacedness interaction was not sig-
nificant for either the honesty or the truthfulness scales.
The Present Experiment
The Masip et al. (in press) fmdings are consistent with the notion that the
babyface overgeneralization effect and the influence of the individual's age may
be behind the demeanor bias. However, in their experiment, perceivers judged the
person in the photograph. Whether that person's face had an influence on the ob-
servers' judgments of the credibility of a specific statement made by him or her
was not examined and, thus, was unknown. To tackle this issue, we designed the
present study to explore whether a given statement (purportedly produced by the
person in the photograph) was judged as truthful or deceptive. Thus, participants
received true or false written statements and a photograph of the person who pur-
portedly had produced them. They judged whether the statements were truthful
or deceptive and indicated their confidence in their judgments and their perceived
ability to detect deceit.
It is important to note that the object of judgment was not the photograph but
the statement. The photograph was merely an additional item of information. The
interesting point is, of course, whether under these conditions that photograph in-
fluences the respondents' ratings. Is the same statement more likely to be judged
as truthful when it is attributed to a babyfaced individual than when it is attrib-
uted to a mature-faced one? Is the same statement more likely to be judged as
truthful when it is attributed to an adult than when it is attributed to a child?
We explored other questions in addition to the impact of facial appearance
on credibility judgments. Specifically, we examined overall accuracy, as well as
accuracy in detecting truths and lies, in an attempt to replicate the Levine et al.
(1999) findings concerning the truth bias and veracity effect. The correlation be-
tween confidence and accuracy, as well as that between estimated ability and ac-
curacy, was also calculated. Finally, we also examined the relationship between
estimated ability and confidence. In view of the literature reviewed in this sec-
tion, we posed the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1. The percentage of overall accurate judgments made by receivers
will be poor and close to chance probability.
Hypothesis 2. In line with the previous findings showing that respondents tend to
judge video-recorded statements as truthful, and taking into account the Levine
et al. (1999) results, we hypothesized that our respondents would also show a
truth bias in judging statements presented in written form. This prediction was
broken down into the following four subhypotheses:
Hypothesis 2a: Observers will tend to judge statements as truthful. This sub-
hypothesis refers specifically to the truth bias strictly speaking (Levine et al.,
1999).
Hypothesis 2b: Accuracy in judging truthful statements will be higher than
accuracy in judging deceptive statements. Levine et al. (1999) referred to this as
the veracity effect.
Hypothesis 2c: Accuracy in judging truthful statements will be above
chance; accuracy in judging deceptive statements will be below chance.
Hypothesis 2d: In line with the DePaulo et al. (1997) meta-analyfical find-
ings, we predicted that observers' confidence in their judgments of truthfulness
(i.e., judgments that the statement is truthful) would be stronger than their confi-
dence in their deceptiveness judgments.
Hypothesis 3. In view of the reviewed evidence, we predicted that the receivers'

notion of their own lie-detection ability would be incorrect. More specifically,
Hypothesis 3a: The relationship between confidence and accuracy will not
be significant.
Hypothesis 3b: The relationship between estimated ability and accuracy will
not be significant.
Hypothesis 4. Although judgmental confidence is likely to be influenced by sit-

uational forces because it refers to a particular credibility-assessment judgment,
it is nevertheless reasonable to expect that, overall, it will bear a relationship to
the estimated general detection ability. More specifically, we predicted a signifi-
cant positive correlation between estimated ability and confidence in such a way
that those observers who view themselves as good lie detectors would show a
stronger confidence in their judgments than those who view themselves as bad
lie detectors.
Hypothesis 5. Masip et al. (in press) found that children's faces were rated as
more deceptive than adult faces on the behavioral-tendency scale. Therefore, we
posed the hypothesis that when the statements were accompanied by a child's
photograph, a tendency to judge these statements as deceptive would emerge;
conversely, when the statements were accompanied by photographs of older in-
dividuals, a tendency to judge them as truthful would emerge.
Hypothesis 6. Masip et al. (in press) also found that babyish faces were perceived
as less deceitful than the other ones. Therefore, we predicted that when the state-
ments were accompanied by babyish faces, a tendency to judge these statements
as truthful would emerge; conversely, when the statements were accompanied by
mature faces, a tendency to judge them as deceptive would emerge.
METHOD
Participants and Procedure
A sample of 270 undergraduate students of psychology at a Spanish univer-

sity participated in the study (230 women and 40 men, mean age = 20.26 years,
SD - 1.44, range = 18-27 years).
Overview and Study Design
We presented participants written statements accompanied by the photograph

of the person who had purportedly made the statement. The statements had been
produced by a student who had watched two video clips (Sequence 1 and Sequence
2) and had given a truthful and a deceptive account of each. These accounts were
recorded, and the statements were transcribed verbatim. The photographs were
taken from the Masip et al. (in press) experiment. We used two photographs of a
child, two of an adult, and two of a somewhat older individual, all of whom were
male. Within each age level, there were a babyfaced picture and a mature-faced pic-
ture. A control condition in which no face was presented was also included in the
design. Thus, we used four statements (Sequence 1-Truthful, Sequence 1-Decep-
tive. Sequence 2-Truthful, and Sequence 2-Deceptive) that were crossed with
seven facial conditions (3 age levels x 2 facial maturity levels, plus the no-face con-
trol condition), resulting in 28 conditions.
Given our limited number of participants, only 9 or 10 people could be allo-
cated to each condition. This was insufficient, especially considering that, to an-
alyze the data, all the variables had to be crossed with the accuracy (hit/miss)
variable. Therefore, we had to collect two judgments from each respondent.
These judgments had to be as independent as possible; therefore, (a) one would
be a judgment of a Sequence 1-based statement (i.e., a statement based on the
first original video sequence), and the other one would be a judgment of a Se-
quence 2-based statement; (b) one would be the judgment of a truthful statement,
and the other one would be the judgment of a deceptive statement; and (c) it was
intended that the two pictures viewed by any one participant should differ in both
age and facial babyishness. Judgments would later be taken as units of analysis
in the statistical tests.'
'This may seem questionable, because each sender had made two judgments. However, because
these two judgments had been made independently, we resorted to this strategy, also adopted by other
researchers in this field (e.g., Santtila, Roppola, & Niemi, 1999; see aUso Sporer and Kupper [1995,
as cited by Santtila et al.] for a published source presenting a rationale for this strategy). The alter-
native of using a mixed design, wherein one or two variables were treated as within-subject, involved
some problems: tt would have required keeping the between-subject variable constant for each sub-
set of participants, which could have made the experimental hypotheses too obvious, and the realism
of the study would have decreased. For example, (a) if a facial variable (e.g., age) had been kept con-
stant (as a between-subject variable: one third of the participants presented with a child's face, an-
other third presented with the adult face, and the remaining third presented with the face ofthe older
The 28 cells were, therefore, numbered, and 14 groups of participants were

created. Each group was assigned to two cells (i.e., two specific combinations of
the Age x Facial Babyishness x Sequence x Value of Truth interaction). The pres-
entation order ofthe cells was counterbalanced. We collected between 19 and 20
judgments per cell, which made it possible to conduct the loglinear analyses to
examine the effects of the manipulated variables on the observers' credibility
judgments and accuracy (after the data were collected, it was apparent that none
of the cells in the contingency tables had an expected frequency smaller than 5).
Creating the Stimulus Photographs
As described by Masip et al. (in press), we searched for a series of three pho-
tographs of a male individual at different ages (as a child, as an adult, and as a
man in his 60s). The reason behind using male pictures was that adult females re-
tain more babyish facial features than males (Bruce & Young, 1998; Friedman &
Zebrowitz, 1992; Zebrowitz, 1997; see also Bruce et al., 1993; Burton, Bruce, &
Dench, 1993). Therefore, an extremely mature-faced female could be perceived
as grotesque or unnatural. In these photos the person could not wear glasses or
have facial hair and could not be bald; and in all three pictures his hairstyle had
to be similar, his facial expression had to be more or less neutral, and he had to
face the camera. A few collections of photographs were obtained, and we select-
ed the series that most closely met our requirements.
Then we gave a computer artist precise instructions concerning the manipula-
tions to the three original photographs. He first placed a neutral, white background
on all the pictures, "dressed" the stimulus person with the same clothes in all the
photographs, removed the cap the subject wore in the original adult picture, and
made all three photos of the same size.^ Then he made the babyfacedness manipu-
person), whereas the other one was varied (babyishness: a repeated-measure variable), participants
would have noticed the similarities among the photographs (the two pictures seen by each participant
would differ in terms of babyishness but would be of the same age level); (b) presenting statements
based on the same original sequence (Sequence 1 to one half of the participants. Sequence 2 to the
remaining) while varying their truth value (repeated-measures variable) would have been trouble-
some, because the truthful and deceptive Sequence 2-based statements were very similar: Some cru-
cial details of the truthful account had been changed to build the deceptive one; therefore, consider-
ing one of them truthful necessarily meant considering the other one deceptive; (c) presenting sever-
al statements (repeated-measures variable) accompanied by the same face (between-subject variable)
or vice versa would have decreased the experimental realism of the study. The only suitable strategy
consisted of changing as many experimental conditions as possible to make both judgments as inde-
pendent as possible and then taking judgments as units of analysis.
Later, these modified original pictures were shown to three undergraduate samples (one per face; 9
respondents judged the child's face, 10 the adult's face, and 10 the oldest one) who had to assess the
age of the person in the photograph. All the respondents who judged the child's face indicated that
the person in the photograph was younger than 15 years. The respondents who judged the adult face
considered that the person in the photograph was around 30 years old. The oldest face was judged as
being around 50 years old, thus being perceived as somewhat younger than we had expected (we ex-
pected it to be judged to be around 60 years old).
lations. We needed a babyfaced version and a mature-faced version of each of the

three faces (the child, the adult, and the oldest man). Modifications consisted of
proportional increases or decreases of certain facial features: forehead size (the dis-
tance from the eyes to the hair: large in the babyish versions, small in the mature
ones), eyebrov^' position (distance from the eyes to the eyebrows: raised brows in
the babyish versions, lowered brows in the mature ones), eye size (large eyes in the
babyish versions, small eyes in the mature ones), nose (pug nose in the babyish ver-
sions, "bridged" nose in the mature ones), ear length (small ears in the babyish ver-
sions, large ears in the mature ones), lips (full lips in the babyish versions, thin lips
in the mature ones), chin length (short chin in the babyish versions, long chin in the
mature ones), and facial shape (round shape with chubby cheeks in the babyish ver-
sions, angular shape with a large and strong jaw in the mature ones).
The resulting photographs were printed in black and white on DIN-A4
sheets of paper that permitted a good image quality. The pictures were located in
the center of the paper; their size was 3.93 in. x 4.85 in. (10 cm x 12.33 cm).
Obtaining the Statements
All students enrolled in a social psychology module were offered the

chance to be exempt from taking an onerous partial examination if they watched
two video segments and told a truthful and a deceptive version of the facts de-
picted in each of them. We told the students that their performances would be
video recorded and shown to other participants, who would judge whether they
were lying or telling the truth. In addition, they were told that only the best liar
would receive the reward of not having to take the partial exam in an effort to
create a competitive climate likely to increase the participants' motivation to lie
convincingly.
Four female undergraduates volunteered. Each was shown two film se-
quences lasting approximately 2 min that depicted criminal actions (Sequence 1
and Sequence 2). After watching each sequence, the student senders were in-
structed to develop a deceptive statement and a truthful statement about the se-
quence. They were given 10 min to create each version, after which they were
video recorded as they made their statements (a free narrative account no less
than 2 min long). Thus, each sender produced four statements: (a) a deceptive ac-
count of the first sequence, (b) a truthful account of that same sequence, (c) a de-
ceptive account of the second sequence, and (d) a truthful account of the second
sequence.
We conducted pilot study with undergraduate participants to determine
the most convincing liar for the main study. One sender was chosen, but all
four candidates received the advertised reward for their participation (see Gar-
rido & Masip, 2001; Garrido et al., in press; Masip, Garrido, & Herrero,
2003). Finally, we transcribed verbatim the four statements of the sender who
had been chosen.
Data Collection
We collected data during practical psychology lectures. Participants entered

the classroom and sat, leaving one empty chair on each side. Then we told them
that they were going to receive a written statement along with a photograph of the
person who had given that statement orally. They were told that the statements had
been transcribed verbatim, and that each statement could be either truthful or de-
ceptive. Their task was to complete a questionnaire in which they expressed a
credibility judgment of the statements and answered some additional questions.
After being given these instructions, each participant received three sheets of
paper. One had the statement written on it, another one contained the photograph
of the person who had purportedly made the statement (except for the partici-
pants in the control condition, who received a paper with the phrase "No photo-
graph of the person who made this statement is available"), and the third was the
questionnaire on which we collected the receivers' answers. In the questionnaire,
the receivers were asked to indicate (a) whether the statement was truthful or de-
ceptive, (b) how confident they were in this credibility judgment (confidence was
measured on a scale ranging from 0 to 100 with 10-point intervals), and (c) to
what extent they thought they were capable of detecting lies (again, on a scale
ranging from 0 to 100 with 10-point intervals).
When the receivers had completed this task, we collected the material, and
they received a second written statement with a different accompanying photo-
graph and a blank questionnaire. When they had completed the second question-
naire, they were informed that the exercise was finished. We thanked them for
their participation and invited them to leave the classroom. After they had all
gone, the material was collected. Later, during the theoretical lectures of the
course, participants were thoroughly debriefed.
RESULTS
Examination of Extraneous Variables
To ensure that the potential effects of the experimental variables were not
due to the influence of extraneous factors, such as respondents' gender or age, we
performed some analyses to check whether or not relationships existed between
demographic factors and the experimental conditions.
Receivers' Gender
The proportion of male and female participants who judged Sequence

1-based statements was exactly the same as the proportion of male and female
participants who judged Sequence 2-based statements. The same held true for
truthful versus deceptive accounts. In other words, gender was unrelated to the
sequence or the value of truth variables. The proportion of male and female par-
ticipants was also similar for the various levels of the stimulus person's age
(child/adult/old/no face), x^(3, N = 540) = 0.81, /J = .85, as well as across the dif-
ferent babyishness conditions (babyfaced, mature faced, no face), %^(2, A^ = 540)
= 3.13, /7 = .21. In addition, the proportion of male and female participants was
the same regardless of whether the judgments belonged to the face conditions or
to the no-face condition, x^(l, N = 540) = 0.30, p = .58. When the no-face con-
dition was excluded, gender proportion was also unrelated to the original se-
quence, %2(1, A^ = 463) = 0.02,p = .88, the value of tmth, x\l, N = 463) = 0.01,
p = .91, the stimulus person's age, %^(2, N - 463) - 0.52, p = .77, or his facial
babyishness, x\l, N = 463) = 2.88, p = .09. A loglinear analysis wherein gen-
der, sequence, tmth value, age, and babyishness variables were entered, revealed
that the data fit very well the model constituted by merely the main effect of gen-
der,3 likelihood-ratio chi-square, x^(46) = 33.14, p = .92, X = 1.78, z - 13.45, and
the greatest standardized residual had an absolute value of 1.67. In summary, the
diverse experimental conditions did not differ in terms of the gender of the re-
spondents. Therefore, the potential effects of the experimental conditions could
not be attributed to gender.
Receivers'Age
We entered the sequence, value of truth, stimulus person's age, and facial
babyishness variables as independent variables in an analysis of variance
(ANOVA) wherein the receiver's age was taken as the dependent variable.
Neither the main effects nor the interactions of this analysis were significant,
all ps > .05. In addition, age differences did not emerge when the face condi-
tions were compared with the no-face condition, ?(538) = -0.60, p = .55;
Mann-Whitney U = 17,206, p = .61. Finally, when the no-face condition was
excluded, the ANOVA did not reveal any significant effect. In summary, the
diverse experimental conditions did not differ in terms of respondents' age.
Hence, the potential effects of the experimental conditions could not be at-
tributed to the age of participants.
Accuracy (Hit/Miss)
Accuracy ratings, expressed as percentages of correct judgments, are given

in Table 1. Hypotheses 1, 2b, and 2c referred to accuracy. Because the accuracy
variable was dichotomous (hit/miss), we used chi-square and loglinear analyses
to test these hypotheses.
It is important to note that the small, expected frequencies in all the cells making up the male cate-
gory advised against using a loglinear analysis. It was, therefore, calculated only with orientative
purposes in mind, as well as to merely replicate the results of the separate chi-square analyses.
Comparing Accuracy Rates With Chance Probability
To test Hypotheses 1 (which predicted that detection accuracy would be poor

and close to chance) and 2c (which predicted that accuracy in judging truthful
statements would be above chance, whereas accuracy in judging deceptive state-
ments would be below chance), we performed chi-square analyses to ascertain
whether the proportion of accurate judgments was greater than, smaller than, or
similar to the proportion of wrong judgments. A greater proportion of hits would
reflect an accuracy rate above chance, whereas a greater proportion of wrong
judgments would reflect an accuracy rate below chance.
Neither the proportion of correct judgments made under the control (no-
face) condition (45.5%) nor the proportion of those made when a face was pre-
sented (53.4%) was significantly different from chance, x^(l, A^ = 77) = 0.64, p
= .43, and x^(l, N - 463) - 2.08, p- .15, respectively. Likewise, neither accura-
cy at judging Sequence 1-based statements (49.6%), nor accuracy at judging Se-
quence 2-based statements (54.8%) was significantly different from chance,
X^l, N = 270) = 0.02, p = .90, and x^(l, A^ = 270) = 2.50, p = .11, respectively.
The percentage of correct judgments of the truthful statements (59.6%) was sig-
nificantly greater than chance, x\l, N = 270) = 10.02, p < .01, whereas accura-
cy in judging deceptive statements (44.8%) was only marginally below chance,
X^il, N = 270) = 2.90, p - .09. The overall hit rate across all conditions was
52.2%, which did not differ from chance probability, x^il,N- 540) = 1.07, p =
.30 (Table 1).
TABLE 1. Accuracy Rates as Percentage Df Correct Judgments
Statement
Facial condition Truthful Deceptive Combined
Child
Babyfaced 53.9 59.0 56.4
Mature-faced 53.9 42.1 48.1
Total 53.9 50.7 52.3
Adult
Babyfaced 73.0 35.9 54.0
Total 67.1 42.3 54.6
Old
Babyfaced 71.8 35.9 53.9
Total 66.7 39.5 53.3
Faces combined 62.5 44.2 53.4
No face 42.1 48.7 45.5
Total 59.6 44.8 52.2
In summary, overall accuracy did not differ from chance, neither across con-
ditions nor when examined separately for face and no-face conditions or Se-
quence 1-based statements versus Sequence 2-based statements. However, ac-
curacy in detecting the truthful statements was significantly above chance,
whereas accuracy in detecting the deceptive statements was marginally below
chance. Hypothesis 1 was, therefore, supported; partial support was also found
for Hypothesis 2c.
Comparing Accuracy Rates Between Conditions
Control (no-face) group versus the treatment groups. No significant differences

emerged between the accuracy rate attained when a face was not presented with
the statement (45.5%) and the accuracy rate reached when a face was presented
(53.4%), x\l, N = 540) = 1.65, p = .12. Similarly, neither facial babyishness
(babyfaced/mature faced/no face) nor the stimulus person's age (child/adult/
old/no face) had any significant effect on accuracy, X'^C^, N = 540) = 2.01, p =
.37, and x\3, N - 540) = 1.81, /? = .61, respectively. (Accuracy rates are given
in Table 1.)
Comparisons among the experimental conditions. We then excluded the no-face

condition and conducted a stepwise backward hierarchical loglinear analysis.
The variables that were entered in the analysis were original video sequence (Se-
quence I/Sequence 2), value of truth of the statement (truthful/deceptive), stim-
ulus person's age (child/adult/old), facial babyishness (babyfaced/mature faced),
and receivers' judgmental accuracy (hit/miss). The best model consisted of the
Value of Truth x Accuracy interaction, partial chi-square, X^(l, A' = 463) = 15.92,
/J < .01, ^ = 0.18, z = 3.87; its goodness of fit was excellent, xH44) = 20.31, p =
1.00; the greater standardized residual had an absolute value of 1.75. An addi-
tional chi-square analysis showed that the Value of Truth x Accuracy effect was
also significant when the no-face condition was included, x^(l. A' = 540) = 11.88,
p < .01. Thus, accuracy in judging truthful statements (59.6%) was significantly
greater than accuracy in judging deceptive statements (44.8%). This supported
Hypothesis 2b.
In summary, accuracy was poor; in most cases, it did not differ significantly
from chance. However, most judgments of the truthful statements were accurate,
which reflects the existence of a veracity effect. In fact, accuracy in judging the
truthful accounts was significantly greater than accuracy in judging the deceptive
ones.
Judgmental Confidence and Estimated Ability to Detect Deception
In addition to making the credibility judgments, participants expressed their

confidence in such judgments. They also estimated their ability to detect deception.
Both measurements were rated on a scale ranging from 0 to 100. The overall con-
fidence of respondents in their judgments of credibility was 52.0, whereas their
mean estimated ability was 46.7.
We performed a series of analyses to test the hypotheses dealing with confi-
dence and estimated ability. First, to test Hypothesis 2d, we measured whether
there was any significant relationship between the respondents' confidence and
their credibility judgments. We also examined the relationship between estimat-
ed ability and the kind of judgment (of truthfulness/of deceptiveness), which was
expected to be null. Next, we calculated the relationships between confidence
and accuracy (Hypothesis 3a) and estimated ability and accuracy (Hypothesis
3b). Furthermore, to test Hypothesis 4, we examined the correlation between es-
timated ability and confidence. Finally, we examined the possible influence of
other situational variables on confidence.
The Relationship Between Confidence and Judgment
Hypothesis 2d predicted that respondents' confidence in their judgments of

truthfulness would be greater than their confidence in their judgments of decep-
tiveness. To test this hypothesis, we performed a Student's t test comparing the
confidence participants had in each kind of judgment. The difference was signif-
icant, f(538) = 2.10, p = .04. Respondents placed more confidence in their judg-
ments of truthfulness (M = 53.6) than in their judgments of deceptiveness (M -
50.0), thereby supporting the hypothesis.
The Relationship Between Estimated Ability and Judgment
Because estimated ability does not depend on a specific judgment, we ex-

pected that the ability expressed in the questionnaires in which a judgment of
truthfulness was made would not differ significantly from the ability expressed
in the questionnaires in which a judgment of deceptiveness was made. Results
supported this prediction, r(538) = 1.23, p - .54 (M - 47.6 and M = 45.6, re-
spectively). Because, unlike confidence, estimated ability was by definition the
same in the two quesfionnaires of each participant, a more adequate way of ex-
amining the estimated ability-judgment relation consisted of calculating the cor-
relafion between estimated ability and the number of judgments of truthfulness
made by each participant (0, 1, or 2). This correlation was not significant, r(N =
210) ^ .OS, p = .19.
The Relationship Between Confidence and Accuracy
We performed a Student's t test to examine whether the participants' confi-

dence in their accurate judgments was significantly greater than their confidence
in the wrong judgments. Mean confidence rates were, respectively, M = 51.4 and
M = 52.6; the difference was not significant, ?(538) = -0.60, p = .55. In other
words, there was no relationship between the confidence participants had in their
judgments and whether or not these judgments were accurate. This result sup-
ported Hypothesis 3a.
The Relationship Between Estimated Ability and Accuracy
We conducted a Student's t test on participants' estimated ability to detect

deceit. The results indicated that estimated ability ratings were no higher in those
questionnaires in which the judgments were accurate {M = 47.0) than in those
questionnaires in which the judgments were inaccurate (M = 46.4), r(538) -
-0.40, p = .54. Another way of examining the relationship between respondents'
estimated lie-detection ability and their actual accuracy consisted of calculating
the correlation between estimated ability and the total number of accurate judg-
ments per respondent (0, 1, or 2). This correlation was not significant, r(/V = 270)
= .02, p = .74. Thus, no relationship was found between the perceived capacity
for detecting deceit and accuracy in making credibility judgments: Those partic-
ipants who viewed themselves as good lie detectors did not perform better (or
worse) than those who viewed themselves as not so good at this task. This result
supported Hypothesis 3b.
The Relationship Between Estimated Ability and Confidence
To examine the relationship between estimated ability (which was the same
in both questionnaires of each participant) and confidence, we created a new
variable by calculating each participant's mean judgmental confidence across his
or her two judgments. The correlation of the new variable with the participants'
estimated lie-detection ability was positive, rather high, and statistically signifi-
cant, r{N = 270) - .56, /? < .01. In other words, the more capable of detecting de-
ception the participants considered themselves to be, the more confidence they
expressed in their credibility judgments. This finding supported Hypothesis 4.
The Influence of Other Variables on Judgmental Confidence
Because we found that the participants' confidence was influenced by a sit-

uational variable (whether the statements were judged as truthful or deceptive),
it was advisable to examine whether other variables of the experimental situa-
tionin particular, those that had been manipulatedalso had an impact on the
confidence respondents had in their judgments. We performed an ANOVA, en-
tering as independent variables the original video sequence, the value of truth of
the statement, the stimulus person's facial babyishness, and his age. Confidence
was entered as the dependent variable. No significant main or interactive effects
were revealed by this analysis. In summary, the kind of judgment made by re-
spondents was the only situational variable that had an effect on their confidence.
Conclusions About Judgmental Confidence and Estimated Ability
Confidence and accuracy corretated significantly: Those who viewed them-

selves as good lie detectors also expressed more confidence in their judgments.
However, neither confidence nor estimated ability had any relationship to accu-
racy. As expected, participants' confidence in their truthfulness judgments was
significantly greater than their confidence in their deceptiveness judgments. No
other experimental variable had any effect on judgmental confidence.
Judgment (of Truthfulness/of Deceptiveness)
Hypotheses 2a, 5, and 6 dealt with the kind of judgment (of truthfulness/of
deceptiveness) made by respondents. We used a two-step strategy to analyze the
influence ofthe independent variables on these judgments. First, we conducted a
series of exploratory analyses to examine the separate effect of each independent
variable. This led us to group the two highest age levels into a single level and
made it possible to examine the effect that merely presenting or not presenting a
facial photograph could have on receivers' credibility judgments. Second, we ran
a loglinear analysis to replicate the findings of the separate analyses and to as-
certain whether there were third- or higher order interactions between the rele-
vant variables.
Exploratory Preliminary Analyses
Judgment. The frequency of judgments of truthfulness (n - 310) was signifi-

cantly greater than that of judgments of deceptiveness (n = 230), /^(l, A' = 540)
= 11.85, p< .01. This result supported Hypothesis 2a, and is consistent with the
findings that accuracy in judging truthful statements was greater than chance
and greater than accuracy in judging deceptive statements, which, in turn, was
marginally below chance level.
Sequence. We also examined the relationship between the sequence on which the
statements were based (Sequence I/Sequence 2) and the kind of judgment (of
truthfulness/of deceptiveness). No significant effects emerged, although a mar-
ginal effect was apparent, indicating that respondents tended to judge Sequence
1-based statements as truthful and Sequence 2-based statements as deceptive.
Value of truth. The Value of Truth x Judgment chi-square revealed a nonsignifi-

cant association, ^^(1, A^ = 540) = 1.09, p = .30. This is consistent with the find-
ing that overall accuracy was not significantly different from chance.
Face versus no face. A chi-square test to examine the relationship between the
kind of judgment and whether a face had been presented or not yielded significant
290 Genetic. Social, and Generat Psychology Monographs
results, x\\,N= 540) = 4.\l,p- .04. In comparison with the conditions in which
a face had been presented, in the no-face condition more judgments of deceptive-
ness than expected and fewer judgments of truthfulness than expected had been
made. When we analyzed the proportion of judgments of truthfulness and decep-
tiveness for the face and no-face conditions separately, it was apparent that when
a photograph was presented, the judgments of truthfulness (n = 274) were more
numerous than those of deceptiveness (n = 189), x^(l. A' = 463) = 15.61,/? < .01;
on the other hand, no significant differences emerged between the frequency of
judgments of truthfulness (n - 36) and deceptiveness (n = 41) in the no-face con-
dition, x^(l, N =71) = 0.33, p = .57. In summary, presenting the faces increased
the number of judgments of truthfulness.
Eacial babyishness. The analyses examining the relationship between facial

babyishness and age on one side and the credibility judgment on the other side
are summarized in Table 2. The association between babyishness and judgment
did not reach statistical significance, x^(2. A' = 540) = 4.95, p = .08. However,
observation of the standardized residuals of Table 2 reveals that (a) the mature-
faced photograph was not associated with either judgments of truthfulness or
judgments of deceptiveness; (b) there was a certain tendency to make judgments
of truthfulness when babyfaced photographs were presented, which nevertheless
did not reach the required statistical significance; and (c) relatively more judg-
ments of deceptiveness than judgments of truthfulness were made in the no-face
condition. To examine with greater clarity the association between the baby-
facedness variable levels and the respondents' judgments, we excluded the no-
face condition from the analysis. It was then clear that despite the fact that the
frequencies were in the direction predicted by Hypothesis 6, the relationship be-
tween facial babyishness and judgment was actually nonsignificant, x^(l. A' =
463) = 0.79, p = .37 (Table 3).
Age. The chi-square test examining the relationship between the stimulus person's
age and the observers' judgments did yield significant results, x^(3. A' = 540) =
9.68, p = .02. As shown in Table 2, (a) presenting infantile photographs increased
the likelihood of respondents making judgments of deceptiveness, (b) most of the
statements purportedly made by an old person were judged also as truthful, and
(c) there was a tendency to judge the statements attributed to adults as truthful.
We ran an additional chi-square test, excluding the no-face condition
judgments and collapsing the data across the adult- and the old-photograph
conditions'* (i.e., the two highest stimulus person's age levels were grouped).
"nrhe proportion of male and female respondents who were presented a child's face was not signifi-
cantly different from the proportion of male and female respondents who were presented an adult or
old face, x'iUN = 463) = 0.52, p = .47. These two conditions did not differ significantly in terms of
respondents' age, ((461) = 0.35, p = .72. Therefore, any potential effect of the child versus adult or
old variable could not be attributed to either the participants' gender or their age.
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The latter was made because Hypothesis 5 did not predict any difference be-
tween adult and old faces in terms of the respondents' credibility judgments
(only differences between children and older people were predicted) and, in-
deed, as the data in Table 2 reveal, the frequencies and percentages of judg-
ments of truthfulness and deceptiveness were almost exactly the same in both
of these age conditions, x\'^,N = 308) = 0.06,p = .81. Furthermore, although
the frequency of judgments of truthfulness was very similar to that of judg-
ments of deceptiveness when children's faces were presented, %^(1, A' = 155)
= 0.16, p = .69, truthfulness judgments were more numerous than judgments
of deceptiveness when adult faces, x^(l. A' = 154) = 9.38,/? < .01, or old faces,
X\l, N = 154) = 11.46, p < .01, were presented (Table 2). Therefore, the lat-
ter two conditions could be grouped to optimize the comparisons.
This Age (child/adult or old) x Judgment (of truthfulness/of deceptiveness)
chi-square was significant, x^(l, A^ = 463) - 5.52, p - .02. As shown in Table 3,
when the photographs depicted adults or old people, more judgments of truth-
fulness than expected and less deceptiveness judgments than expected were
made, whereas when the photographs depicted children's faces, more judgments
of deceptiveness than expected and fewer judgments of truthfulness than expect-
ed were made.
In summary, more judgments of truthfulness were made than judgments of
deceptiveness. Neither the original video sequence presented nor the value of
truth of the statement had any effect on respondents' judgments. However, pre-
senting a face increased the number of judgments of truthfulness. Contrary to
expectation, facial babyishness had no significant main effect on respondents'
credibility judgments. However, as predicted, when children's photographs
were presented, more judgments of deceptiveness and fewer judgments of truth-
fulness than expected were made, whereas when adult or old person's pho-
tographs were presented, more judgments of truthfulness and fewer judgments
of deceptiveness than expected were made.
Joint Analysis of the Effect of All Variables
To replicate the results of these separate analyses, as well as to examine

whether they were qualified by any higher order interaction, we ran a stepwise
backward hierarchical loglinear analysis. Sequence (Sequence I/Sequence 2),
value of truth (truthful/deceptive statement), stimulus person's age (child/adult or
old), facial babyishness (babyfaced/mature faced), and judgment (of truthful-
ness/of deceptiveness) were entered in the analysis. The best model comprised the
Babyishness x Age x Judgment interaction, likelihood ratio chi-square, X^ (24, A^
- 463) - 10.76, p - .99; all standardized residuals were smaller than 1.96 in ab-
solute values. This third-order interaction qualified the findings about the rela-
tionships of judgment with age and facial babyishness. Partial association statis-
tics and parameter estimates in raw and standardized form are given in Table 4.
294 Genetic. Social, and General Psychology Monographs
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There was a significant partial association for age, indicating that the number
of judgments made when photographs of adult or old individuals were presented
(n = 308) was significantly greater than the number of judgments made when chil-
dren's photographs were presented ( = 155), x^Cl, A^ = 463) = 51.52, p < .01.
This effect has little relevance, and it was probably due to having grouped the two
oldest age levels into a single level.
The first-order effect of judgment was substantial as well, partial chi-
square, %2(1, A^ - 463) = 15.69, p < .01, confirming the finding of a proportion
of truthfulness judgments higher than the proportion of deceptiveness judg-
ments. However, this effect was moderated by the purported witness's age, as
indicated by the Age x Judgment interaction, partial chi-square, ^^(1, A^ = 463)
- 5.62, p = .02. When childen's photographs were presented, a tendency to
make judgments of deceptiveness was apparent. Conversely, when adult or old
people's photographs were presented, a tendency to make judgments of truth-
fulness was found (Table 4).
All these effects had already been detected with the chi-square analyses pre-
sented earlier, but the loglinear analysis revealed that these latter associations
held true only when the photographs showed babyfaced individuals, not when
they depicted mature-faced people; the chi-square of the Babyishness x Age x
Judgment effect was x\l, N = 463) = 4.02, p = .045, although the significance
was not very strong and the z value was borderline (Table 4). The data in Table
5 clarify this effect. It includes percentages, observed and expected frequencies,
and standardized residuals with reference to the independence model corre-
sponding to the Age x Judgment effect separately for babyish and mature faces.
By looking at the standardized residuals, it is clear that the stimulus person's age
influenced receivers' judgments only when the witness's face was a babyish one,
but not when the witness was mature faced. Thus, Hypothesis 5, which predict-
ed that infantile photographs would yield judgments of deceptiveness and nonin-
fantile photographs would yield judgments of truthfulness, was supported, but
only when babyfaced individuals were presented.
In a similar way, this triple interaction also indicated that the babyfacedness
effect on credibility judgments was moderated by the stimulus person's age.
Table 5 also includes the Babyishness x Judgment effect separately for infantile
faces and older faces. It is apparent that facial babyishness had no effect on the
receivers' judgments when infantile faces were presented. However, when older
people's faces were presented, a tendency to make more judgments of decep-
tiveness than expected when those faces were mature was apparent, accompanied
by a moderate trend to make more judgments of truthfulness than expected when
they were babyfaced. In other words. Hypothesis 6, which predicted that baby-
faced photographs would yield judgments of deceptiveness and mature-faced
photographs would yield judgments of truthfulness, was supported, but only
when photographs of adult or old individuals were presented.
Obviously, all those findings qualified the results concerning the truth bias:
296
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Judgments of truthfulness were not always more frequent than those of decep-
tiveness. Additional univariate chi-square analyses indicated that, in accordance
with the fmdings just presented, the frequency of truthfulness judgments was sig-
nificantly greater than that of deceptiveness judgments only when the presented
face was babyfaced and depicted an adult, x\l, N = 76) = 10.32, />< .01, or an
older individual, x^(l, N = 78) = 10.05, p< .01. In no other combination of the
facial babyishness and age conditions did the proportion of judgments of truth-
fulness significantly exceed that of judgments of deceptiveness. Results of these
analyses are given in Table 6.
In summary, neither the original video sequence on which the statements
were based nor the value of truth of the statements had any effect on credibility
judgments. However, judgments were under the influence of age and facial
babyishness. The statements attributed to babyish faces were primarily judged
as deceptive if the faces were of a child and as truthful if they were of an older
individual, which supported Hypothesis 5, but only when faces were babyfaced.
Also, there was a certain tendency to judge the statements attributed to adult or
old faces as truthful if these faces were babyish and as deceptive if they were
mature faced. It is thus apparent that Hypothesis 6 was supported, but only when
adult or old faces were presented.
DISCUSSION
In the present experiment, the respondents received truthful or deceptive

written statements, accompanied by a facial photograph of the person who, pur-
portedly, had made each statement. Respondents made credibility judgments,
rated their confidence in these judgments, and indicated their own estimated
ability to detect deception. The faces that were presented varied in age and
babyishness. The purpose of the study was to examine a series of questions con-
cerning (a) the receivers' lie- and truth-detection accuracy; (b) the frequency of
truthfulness judgments compared with that of deceptiveness judgments; (c) the
receivers' estimated lie-detection ability, as well as their judgmental confidence;
(d) the relationship between these latter two variables and accuracy; and (e) the
associations between a certain kind of judgments and some facial characteristics
of the photographs.
Hypothesis 1: Accuracy
Hypothesis 1 predicted that overall accuracy in identifying truthful and decep-

tive messages would be poor and close to chance probability. Results indicated that
only 52% of the judgments of this study were accurate. This rate did not differ from
chance. This was so regardless of the sequence on which the statements were based
and whether or not statements were accompanied by a face.
These fmdings are consistent with the previous literature, which has typical-
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ly found accuracy rates ranging between 45% and 65% (e.g., DePaulo et al.,
1985; Kalbfleisch, 1985; Vrij, 2000), often slightly above the 50% chance ex-
pectations but not always so. Several different explanations have been posed for
this poor accuracy anfiong observers. Kraut (1980) maintained that the ability to
deceive successfully has an adaptive value, as does the ability to detect decep-
tion. This leads to an equilibrium "in which people are skilled simulators and so-
cial actors, and are also talented at perceiving others' deceptions, with, of course,
individual variation at both skills" (p. 213) (for further discussion on the socio-
biology of human deception, see Bond et al., 1985; Bond, Omar, Mahmoud, &
Bonser, 1990; Bond & Robinson, 1988). Burgoon, Buller, and Woodall (1994)
posed a different, cognitive explanation: "Since nonverbal cues are not directly
indicative of deceptive intent... a receiver must make an inferential leap from
these perceptions to deceptive intent" (p. 276). In line with their observations, re-
searchers have found that the indicators receivers heed to make their credibility
judgments are not those that reliably distinguish between truthful and deceptive
communications (e.g., Ekman, 1989; Vrij & Winkel, 1993).
Miller and Stiff (1993) argued that there are several possible explanations for
receivers' inaccuracy. First, the deceptive situations used in the extant deception
experiments usually have been unfamiliar to receivers; this may have been detri-
mental to their accuracy (see also Stiff et al., 1989). Second, deception research
has normally used receivers who were unacquainted with the senders; the knowl-
edge of a sender's communication idiosyncracies favors detection (see, e.g.. Fee-
ley, deTurck, & Young, 1995). Finally, Miller and Stiff argued that detecting de-
ception might be dysfunctional at times, as detectors would learn things about
themselves and others that they would rather not know.
Vrij (2000) also offered a series of reasons to account for the low accuracy
of human perceivers in judging credibility: (a) in line with Stiff and Miller
(1993), Vrij maintains that people often do not want to know the truth; (b) there
is no behavior that in itself is indicative of deception (see the Burgoon et al.
[1994] explanation); (c) differences between liars and truthtellers are often very
small; (d) conversation rules prevent receivers from analyzing a potential liar
properly; (e) even if someone displays nervous behavior or cues indicative of
cognitive complexity, this does not necessarily mean that that person is lying (see
the Othello error; Ekman, 1992); (f) observers fail to take individual differences
in verbal and nonverbal behavior into account (see the Brokaw hazard; Ekman,
1992); and (g) a series of systematic errors and biases influence observers' cred-
ibility judgments. The truth bias is among them.
Although some of these explanations do not explain receivers' inaccuracy in
judging the credibility of written messages such as those used in the present ex-
periment, most of them do provide likely explanations. Systematic errors and bi-
ases might account for our results, as a truth bias was detected in our receivers'
answers. Looking at the wrong cues (perceived deception cues) is another factor
that indeed influenced our receivers' answers, because the purported senders' fa-
cial appearance (which is not a reliable deception cue) influenced the receivers'
judgments.
Hypothesis 2: Veracity Effect and Truth Bias
As predicted in the second hypothesis, a truth bias was apparent in our data.
More judgments of truthfulness were made than judgments of deceptiveness
(Hypothesis 2a). In addition, accuracy in judging honest statements was both sig-
nificantly greater than accuracy in judging deceptive statements (Hypothesis 2b)
and significantly greater than chance accuracy (Hypothesis 2c). Finally, respon-
dents' confidence in their judgments of truthfulness was greater than their confi-
dence in the judgments of deceptiveness (Hypothesis 2d).
Accuracy in Judging Truthful and Deceptive Statements
Levine at al. (1999) presented the truth bias in the following terms:
People's veracity judgments are often affected by a variety of systematic errors and
biases. Instead of actively scrutinizing another's behaviors for clues to deceit, re-
ceivers may instead rely on relatively mindless decision rules often labelled cogni-
tive heuristics. . . . The most well documented and commonly accepted of these bi-
ases is the so-called truth-bias, (p. 126)
When, in accordance with the observations of Levine et al. (1999), accuracy

was examined separately for truthful and deceptive statements, it was clear that,
when judging the former, accuracy was significantly above chance, whereas
when judging the latter it was slightly, although not significantly {p = .09), below
chance. This gave partial support to our prediction that accuracy would be above
chance when judging the truthful statements and below chance when judging the
deceptive statements.
In fact, in line with the veracity effect, the differences in accuracy in judging
honest and mendacious statements were indeed significant. This held true even
when all the variables of interest were entered in a stepwise backward hierarchical
loglinear analysis: The final model consisted of only the Value of Truth x Accuracy
(hit/miss) interaction, indicating that truthful statements were judged correctly more
often than deceptive ones. This supported Hypothesis 2b and suggested that a truth
bias"the tendency to judge more messages as truths than lies" (Levine et al.,
1999, p. 126)could be functioning.
This suggestion was supported when the frequency of judgments of truth-
fulness was compared with the frequency of judgments of deceptiveness: The
former was significantly greater than the latter. This effect was independent of
the original video sequence and the value of the truth of the statement (which,
again, points to chance accuracy). However, it was not independent of whether
or not any face had been presented. Analyses revealed that in the experimental
conditions evidence was found of truth bias, but this was not the case in the con-
trol or no-face condition.
The analysis of the effects of the facial features on the credibility judg-
ments questioned the unqualified support for the prediction that the frequency
of truthfulness judgments would be greater than the frequency of deceptive-
ness judgments. Although an examination of observed frequencies revealed
that the number of truthfulness judgments was greater than the number of de-
ceptiveness judgments in almost all facial conditions, these differences were
significant only when babyfaced adult or old faces were presented. This may
be accounted for by the convergence of two tendencies: the tendency to con-
sider that babyish individuals are truthful and the tendency to consider that
older individuals are less mendacious than children. Therefore, although a
trend toward a truth bias underlay our data, it only reached significance when
judgments of truthfulness were increased additionally by the facial character-
istics of the purported witness.
It is important to stress that, as was evident in the control condition
which was introduced to establish the no-face baselineif neither face had
been presented, no veracity bias would have emerged. This seriously calls into
question the existence of the truth bias phenomenon when written statements
are used instead of audiovisual presentations, because the factor accounting for
the tendency of our observers to make primarily judgments of truthfulness was
the stimulus person's facial appearance.^ Later, we shall discuss the effect of
facial appearances on credibility judgments.
Confidence in Judging Truthful and Deceptive Statements
As predicted in Hypothesis 2d, respondents' confidence in their judgments

of truthfulness was significantly greater than their confidence in their judg-
ments of deceptiveness. This is in accordance with previous research that, with
When examining the influence of the facial characteristics that had been manipulated on credibility
judgments, it was noticed that Hypothesis 2a was supported by the data only when babyish adult or
babyish old faces were presented. Therefore, it was essential to examine whether the same happened
with Hypotheses 2b and 2c. For Hypothesis 2b, it has already been stated in the text that the Baby-
ishness X Age X Value of Truth x Accuracy interaction was not in the fmal model of the stepwise
backward hierarchical loglinear analysis examining the associations of accuracy with the other vari-
ables. However, when examining the Value of Truth x Accuracy relationship separately for each com-
bination of the facial conditions (i.e., for each individual photograph), it was apparent that this rela-
tionship was significant only when babyish adult, x\\, N = 16) = 10.51, p < .01, and babyish old
faces, x^(\, N = 18) = \0.\\, p < .01, were presented. For Hypothesis 2c, we found that the detection
of truthful statements exceeded chance probability only when babyish adult, %^( 1, W = 37) = 7.81,;?
< .01, or babyish old faces, x\\, N = 39) = 1.4l,p < .0\, were presented. Furthermore, in these con-
ditions the accurate detection of deceptive statements was marginally below chance; in both cases,
X\\, N = 39) = 3.\0, p = .08. These effects did not approach significance for any of the remaining
faces (significance levels ranged from p = .15 to p = .87). It seems, therefore, that the overall truth
bias and veracity effect were actually apparent only when babyfaced noninfantile photographs were
presented.
a few exceptions (e.g., Littlepage & Pineault, 1981; Vrij, 1994), has found a
significant positive correlation between the tendency to judge the statements as
truthful and confidence (Anderson et al., 1997, as cited by DePaulo et al.,
1997; Fan et al., 1995; Kohnken, 1987; Levine & McCornack, 1992, 2001; Mc-
Comack & Parks, 1986). This correlation was explained by DePaulo et al. in
terms of McCornack and Parks's deception-detection model: Relational in-
volvement increases confidence, and confidence produces a tendency toward
judging statements as truthful. However, as we have argued, this explanation
can account only for the confidence-truth bias correlation within the context of
close relationships. Despite this, some researchers who used receivers who
were unacquainted with the senders have reported significant positive correla-
tions between truthfulness judgments and confidence (e.g.. Fan et al.;
Kohnken; Levine & McCornack, 1992).
In the present experiment, we used receivers who were unacquainted with
the senders. As regards the purported senders whose photographs were present-
ed, they were not even real people because the original pictures had been manip-
ulated to make the person more or less babyfaced. The genuine sender of the
original statements was a former psychology student who had graduated prior to
the experiment and was unacquainted with the receivers. These receivers, in turn,
did not know that the statements had been made by someone who was not the
person in the photograph. Also, unlike other experiments that have used video-
recorded or live presentations, in this study the statements were presented in their
written (purely verbal) form.
Despite all the particular characteristics of this study (unacquainted, even
nonexistent senders; written statements), the significant association between judg-
ments of truthfulness and confidence was also found. It is difficult to admit that,
in this case, this association can be accounted for by McComack and Parks's
(1986; Levine & McComack, 1992) model of deception detection among partners
involved in very close, often romantic relationships. Rather, this correlation seems
a more general and widespread phenomenon, which also happens when receivers
judge unacquainted senders, as well as when presentation modes other than the
typical audiovisual one are used. An altemative explanation for this effect might
rest on the truth bias: If receivers tend to judge the statements as truthful, when
they admit that the statements can be deceptive, they will do so with a certain cau-
tion; this caution will be reflected in rather moderate confidence ratings.
Conclusions About the Veracity Effect and Truth Bias
The second hypothesis was generally supported by the data, although some of
the predictions were influenced by the facial stimuli. We found an overall tendency
to judge the statements as truthful. The result was that accuracy in judging truthful
statements was higher than chance probability, unlike what happened with lie-de-
tection accuracy, which was marginally below chance. Furthermore, truthful state-
merits were accurately judged more often than the deceptive ones. However, when
taking into account the facial manipulations, and testing Hypothesis 2 separately for
each individual face, it became clear that these manipulations had influenced the re-
sults. Those results suggesting that a truth bias and a veracity effect were present
appear to have been caused by certain facial features of our stimulus photographs
(see Footnote 5). The reason behind our receivers' tendency to judge statements as
truthful was not, then, their cognitive biases, which would prevent them from pay-
ing attention to the information conveyed by the senders and would push them into
making irreflexive, heuristic judgments. Rather, our receivers' attention to the
wrong (facial) cues appears to account for their judgmental tendencies.
Finally, the receivers had more confidence in their judgments of truthfulness
than in their judgments of deceptiveness. This indicates that making judgments
of the former kind was easier for them than making judgments of the latter kind.
Hypotheses 3 and 4: Estimated Ability and Judgmental Confidence
The Relationship of Confidence and Estimated Ability With Accuracy
In accordance with the bulk of relevant empirical research (see DePaulo et al.,
1997), we found that the confidence-accuracy relationship was not significant.
Also, in line with the findings of Fkman and O'Sullivan (1991), Garrido et al. (in
press), and Porter et al. (2000), the correlation between the receivers' estimated
general ability to detect deception and their accuracy was almost null. In other
words, the judgments that were made very confidently were no more accurate than
those made without much confidence, and those receivers who viewed themselves
as good lie detectors did not perform better than those who did not have such a pos-
itive view of their lie-detection skills. Our third hypothesis was, therefore, sup-
ported by the data. The lack of a relationship between confidence and estimated
ability, on the one hand, and accuracy, on the other hand, has been confirmed when
written statements are used instead of audiovisual video-recorded presentations.
In their meta-analysis dealing with this issue, DePaulo et al. (1997) noted
that this lack of relationship between confidence and accuracy has also been
found in other domains, such as empathic accuracy (Ickes, 1993; see Thomas,
Fletcher, & Lange, 1997) and eyewitness testimony (e.g., Kassin, 1985). DePaulo
et al. provide some general explanations (adapted to the deception domain) as
well as some additional explanations more directly related to the deception area.
The paucity of feedback stands out among the general explanations. Because
social perceivers rarely state their suspicions and, when they do, targets rarely
confirm them, no actual knowledge about the cues indicative of deceit and the
processes to make accurate credibility judgments are provided (DePaulo et al.,
1997). Perceivers are thus blind with regard to how well they are doing in de-
tecting deceit and of how good they are in detecting lies in general. Some per-
ceivers may have a very positive view of themselves in terms of their detection
skills, but they may at the same time be very poor detectors; others may view
themselves as poor detectors but, at the same time, may be very accurate; still
others may have a view of themselves that coincides with their actual detection
ability and real judgmental accuracy. However, because individuals of all three
kinds are probably represented in samples normally used in detection experi-
ments, the overall correlation is normally negligible.
The explanations provided by DePaulo et al. (1997) that are more directly re-
lated to the deception area are of two kinds. The first considers the receivers' use of
the cues to deceit: (a) if receivers use erroneous cues to make their credibility judg-
ments (i.e., their perceived deception cues do not correspond to the actual cues),
then their confidence may increase, whereas their accuracy may decrease or remain
the same; (b) if receivers do not pay attention to the actual deception cues that the
sender might display, their confidence will not change, but their accuracy will de-
crease; and (c) if receivers notice and interpret accurately the actual cues to deceit
(i.e., the perceived deception cues correspond to the actual ones), both confidence
and accuracy will increase. As a result, "because the cues that perceivers use include
valid, invalid, and irrelevant ones, we think that there will be no significant overall
relation between confidence and accuracy" (DePaulo et al., p. 347).
The second kind of deception-specific explanations given by DePaulo et al.
(1997) to account for the lack of a relationship between confidence and accura-
cy is based on the idea that confidence and accuracy may follow from different
mechanisms and processes. For example, in their meta-analysis, they found that
the variables that correlated significantly with confidence were not the same as
those that correlated significantly with accuracy. In addition, Garrido et al. (in
press) discuss how processes such as the paucity of disconfirmatory feedback,
schema-consistent memory, reduction of cognitive dissonance, and positive illu-
sions may increase police officers' confidence and estimated ability while, at the
same time, may prevent the officers from increasing their accuracy. In summary,
confidence (together with estimated ability) and accuracy seem to stem from dif-
ferent processes; that is why they are unrelated.
The Relationship Between Estimated Ability and Confidence
Although confidence and accuracy, as well as esdmated ability and accura-

cy, may originate from different processes and mechanisms, observers' estimat-
ed ability and their confidence are strongly correlated. The obvious explanation
for this effect is that those people who, in general, perceive themselves as good
detectors apply this belief to specific credibility-judgment instances, thus plac-
ing a strong confidence in their judgments. This does not mean that certain situ-
ational factors other than those examined in the present study do not have any
effect on confidence. The receivers' familiarity with the sender and the situation,
their perceived alertness or concentration, the cues displayed by senders, and so
forth, are all variables that might influence judgment confidence. More research
is needed to examine these and other variables that may affect the receivers'
judgment confidence.
Other Variables
Aside from judgment (of truthfulness/of deceptiveness) and estimated ability,

in the present case confidence was unrelated to any other variable of this experiment.
Facial babyishness, stimulus person's age, original video sequence, and the value of
the truth of the statement had no impact on the receivers' judgment confidence.
This latter lack of a relationship departs from what might be expected after
the DePaulo et al. (1997) meta-analysis, in which a significant average correla-
tion across eight independent samples revealed that more confidence was placed
in judgments of the truths than in judgments of the lies. However, the variability
of the truth value-confidence correlation was very large in the studies analyzed
by DePaulo et al., ranging from .60 (Waxter, 1983) to -.55 (Allen & Atkinson,
1981) and including .00 (Kohnken, 1987). Therefore, trying to discern what vari-
ables may mediate this correlation seems imperative.
Hypotheses 5 and 6: The Effects of Facial Appearance

on Credihility Judgments
Two predictions were made concerning the effects of facial appearance on

judgments of credibility. They were based on the Masip et al. (in press) findings,
as well as on the research conducted by Diane Berry, Leslie Zebrowitz , and their
collaborators, who examined the influence of stimulus people's facial babyish-
ness on social perceivers' judgments of these people (e.g.. Berry & McArthur,
1986; McArthur & Apatow, 1983-1984; Montepare & Zebrowitz, 1998; Ze-
browitz, 1997; Zebrowitz et al., 1996). First, in accordance with the babyface
overgeneralization effect, the prediction was made that when accompanied by
babyish faces, the statements would primarily be judged as truthful, whereas
when accompanied by mature faces, they would primarily be judged as deceptive
(Hypothesis 6). Also, in view of the Masip et al. (in press) finding that, at least
in the behavioral-tendency scale, infantile faces were perceived as more menda-
cious than older faces, the prediction was made that when the statements were
accompanied by the photograph of a child, they would primarily be judged as de-
ceptive, whereas when the statements were accompanied by an older person's
photograph, they would primarily be judged as truthful (Hypothesis 5).
These hypotheses were supported only partially by the data, for they had an
interactive effect on credibility judgments. Thus, as regards/ac/a/ babyishness, the
predicted effects (Hypothesis 6) approached statistical significance only when non-
infantile faces were presented. In that case, judgments of truthfulness were pri-
marily made when babyfaced photographs were presented and not when mature-
faced photographs were presented. With regard to age (Hypothesis 5), despite the
significance of the Age x Judgment interaction in the loglinear analysis, the third-
order Babyishness x Age x Judgment effect indicates that the former interaction
held true only when babyish faces were presented, when the judgtnents made when
seeing the child's photograph were primarily of deceptiveness and not of truthful-
ness, whereas those made when older people's photographs were presented were
primarily judgments of truthfulness and not of deceptiveness. It is obvious that the
significance ofthe second-order Age x Judgment effect was due to the strong con-
tribution of the judgtnents made when babyfaced photographs were presented.
Actually, the Babyishness x Age x Judgment interaction seems to indicate
that, so to speak, the two facial variables supported each other. Thus, the predic-
tion had been made that with babyish faces judgments of truthfulness would be
made and that with nonchildren's faces judgments of truthfulness would be made
as well. However, the individual influence of each of these two variables (their
main effects) was not enough. As stated, judgments of truthfulness exceeded
those of deceptiveness only when the faces were babyfaced and, in addition,
were not of children. If one condition was present but not the other, then the pre-
dicted effect did not appear (especially as regards babyishness). It is important to
stress that this effect was independent of the statement characteristicsi.e., its
value of truth and the sequence on which it was based.
It may be relevant to note that departures from baseline credibility judg-
ments (no-face condition)wherein the proportion of judgments of truthfulness
was the same as that of judgments of deceptivenessalways consisted of an in-
crease in judgments of truthfulness, as follows from the discussion about the
truth bias. The tendency to judge the statements purportedly made by mature-
faced adults or mature-faced older individuals as deceptive is a relative one (see
observed frequencies in the bottom row of Table 5; see also Table 6). The same
can be said of the tendency to judge the statements of the child with a babyish
face as deceptive. In neither of these cases was the frequency of judgments of de-
ceptiveness significantly higher than the frequency of truthfulness judgments
(see chi-square tests in Table 6). It is not that someone with a mature-faced ap-
pearance is considered to be mendacious; rather, what happens is that someone
with a babyish facial appearance is considered to be truthful. Similarly, it is not
that children are considered to be deceptive; rather, what happens is that adults
and older individuals are considered to be truthful.
In any case, it is apparent that the sender's facial appearance has an influ-
ence not only on the judgments ofthe person, as found by Masip et al. (in press),
but also on the judgments of specific statements made by that person. Therefore,
facial babyishness and age may be static perceived cues to deceit that may ac-
count, at least to some extent, for the demeanor bias.
It is unquestionable that this bias may have undesirable serious consequences
in settings such as the legal one. However, these negative consequences would be
of less consideration if observers' perceptions of unacquainted witnesses' sinceri-
ty based on these witnesses' facial appearance were accuratethat is, if truthful-
looking individuals were actually more truthful than their deceptive-looking fel-
lows. Bond, Berry, and Omar (1994) conducted a study to examine this question.
They found positive correlations between perceivers' impressions of the stimulus
persons' honesty and their actual sincerity. However, an extended rephcation of
their study conducted by Masip and Garrido (2001) using Spanish participants
found near-zero correlations. It is obvious that this topic is awaiting further re-
search to clarify these contradictory findings.
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Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs.

2003, /29(3), 269-311

Facial Appearance and Judgments

Key words: age, babyfacedness, credibility, detection of deception, truth bias

WITHIN THE DECEPTION-DETECTION FIELD, three maiti areas of inquiry

Observers' Accuracy in Detecting Truthful and Deceptive Accounts

A number of reviews and meta-analyses of the deception literature have

Judgmental Confidence, Estimated Detection Ability,

Research into respondents' accuracy in detecting truthful and deceptive mes-

Facial Appearance Items as Likely Perceived Static Deception Cues

The Babyface Overgeneralization Effect

As the human being grows, it undergoes certain anatomical changes. Some of

social perception, these very characteristics specify environmental affordances. For

Babyfacedness and Impressions of Truthfulness

Drawing on some research that suggests that babyfacedness may be related

The Present Experiment

Hypothesis 3. In view of the reviewed evidence, we predicted that the receivers'

Hypothesis 4. Although judgmental confidence is likely to be influenced by sit-

Participants and Procedure

A sample of 270 undergraduate students of psychology at a Spanish univer-

Overview and Study Design

We presented participants written statements accompanied by the photograph

The 28 cells were, therefore, numbered, and 14 groups of participants were

Creating the Stimulus Photographs

lations. We needed a babyfaced version and a mature-faced version of each of the

Obtaining the Statements

All students enrolled in a social psychology module were offered the

We collected data during practical psychology lectures. Participants entered

Examination of Extraneous Variables

The proportion of male and female participants who judged Sequence

Accuracy ratings, expressed as percentages of correct judgments, are given

Comparing Accuracy Rates With Chance Probability

To test Hypotheses 1 (which predicted that detection accuracy would be poor

TABLE 1. Accuracy Rates as Percentage Df Correct Judgments

Comparing Accuracy Rates Between Conditions

Control (no-face) group versus the treatment groups. No significant differences

Comparisons among the experimental conditions. We then excluded the no-face

Judgmental Confidence and Estimated Ability to Detect Deception

In addition to making the credibility judgments, participants expressed their

The Relationship Between Confidence and Judgment

Hypothesis 2d predicted that respondents' confidence in their judgments of

The Relationship Between Estimated Ability and Judgment

Because estimated ability does not depend on a specific judgment, we ex-

The Relationship Between Confidence and Accuracy

We performed a Student's t test to examine whether the participants' confi-

The Relationship Between Estimated Ability and Accuracy

We conducted a Student's t test on participants' estimated ability to detect

The Relationship Between Estimated Ability and Confidence

The Influence of Other Variables on Judgmental Confidence

Because we found that the participants' confidence was influenced by a sit-

Conclusions About Judgmental Confidence and Estimated Ability

Confidence and accuracy corretated significantly: Those who viewed them-

Judgment (of Truthfulness/of Deceptiveness)

Exploratory Preliminary Analyses

Judgment. The frequency of judgments of truthfulness (n - 310) was signifi-

Value of truth. The Value of Truth x Judgment chi-square revealed a nonsignifi-

Eacial babyishness. The analyses examining the relationship between facial

elli:f t h e ! andardi zed res

Joint Analysis of the Effect of All Variables

To replicate the results of these separate analyses, as well as to examine

In the present experiment, the respondents received truthful or deceptive

Hypothesis 1 predicted that overall accuracy in identifying truthful and decep-

Hypothesis 2: Veracity Effect and Truth Bias