ASIO REPORT

Detecting Deception in Human Intelligence Targets

[BACKGROUND]
Deception has always been a part of everyday human communication, this peculiar
behaviour exhibited by just about anyone, remains a complex topic of interest to the legal,
public and corporate sphere. Within the context of intelligence work, its importance to
national security, high-profile crimes, terrorism and foreign espionage is of reasonable
concern. This report details the scientific contributions towards verified knowledge of
deception detection from psychological research, supported by decades of experimental
evidence. Overall, there is a vast literature of studies on deception detection, that is
comprised of mixed evidence on the effectiveness of relevant techniques and varied
successes in training programs. Conflicting findings in research will be resolved by a
collection of meta-analyses, which also summarizes comparable findings. A meta-analysis is
a statistical analysis of a combined pool of data derived from multiple scientific studies, to
assess the significance of the effects found. Guidelines on methodologies and its respective
strengths and weaknesses will be explored in detail. Recommendations are justified and
outlined at the end of the report, along with additional research not practical in face-to-face
conversational context.

[PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH]
There exist different approaches to deception detection, it may be:

• Behavioural-based
• Physiological-based
• Cognitive-based
• Brain-based
As the specified objectives in the brief is situational to interviews and undercover
conversations with the target, brain-imaging tests would not be practical, as with
physiological methods such as Polygraphs and Voice Stress Analysis (as these need special
equipment and preparation time). This leaves just the option of interpreting cues from
behaviour and analysis of how impacting cognition can influence changes in behaviour. In
this context, cues are indicators and signs that strongly correlate with instances of
deception. These procedures are evaluated in the following pages.

Behavioural Approach
Certain behavioural cues have a greater likelihood of being displayed only under
circumstances involving deception. There is evidence to support this assumption. A meta-
analysis (Sporer & Schwandt, 2006; 2007) summarises the results from a few studies in
regard to inferring deception from verbal and nonverbal cues.
It has been hypothesised that signs of stress should be more obvious in non-verbal
behaviours (body language) when the individual is lying than telling the truth. As lying is a
difficult mental operation, when people are engaged in complex cognitive tasks, it is
expected that they would exhibit differences in nonverbal behaviours. This may
consequently result in more speech errors, increased stutter and averting gaze, etc. Body
language is known to be hard to control as there is a subconscious aspect to it. Thus, if a liar
notices that their own demeanour could be interpreted as deception cues, they may make
attempts to control their own behaviour to avoid suspicion.
But this can work in the favour of the judge (the one discerning truth from lies), as usually
those attempts would be overdone, leading to behaviours that seems rehearsed. As such,
there are methods to expose whether the exhibited behaviours are characteristic of lying or
telling the truth. There is one method appropriate to interview scenarios.

“Statement Validity Assessment” (Vrij, 2005):

• This involves analysing messages from the target with 19 criterions, consisting of 3
aspects in a semi-structured interview. It is also applicable to written statements.
• The Criteria-based Content Analysis (CBCA) is used to distinguish statements that are
true from those that are fabricated in accordance to the total number of criterions
met. However, the absence of criterion does not necessarily mean it is fabricated.
• It is based on the logic that, invented statements differ in quality and content than
those originated from memory of actual experiences.
• The steps to carrying out this technique is to first produce a transcript from the
target’s written or verbal messages, followed by using the check-list* {see appendix},
to tally up the CBCA score
The same meta-analysis reviewed 37 studies on CBCA and found that criterion 3, 4 and 6
were the most supported. With criterion 3 (quality of details), being the strongest indicator,
as truth-tellers included more details in 80% of studies. In 69% of studies, truth-tellers also
had more contextual embedding and messages could be repeated easily. It has been
established by 92% of those studies, that truth-tellers have higher CBCA scores than liars.
Hence, this implies that CBCA is a truth-verifying method, that could be used to infer that
the target is telling the truth by confirming the veracity of their statements.

Limitations:

• Not a direct lie-detecting technique

• No formal decision rules for profiling truth or lie
• Not always useful in real situations, as you need to know what the truth is
• Different types of lies that ranges from small to big, may affect CBCA result
• Even with extensive training, it may not improve accuracy and inter-rater
reliability (very similar judgements from different judges) can be low (Akehurst et
al., 2004)
Cognitive Approach
The logic of this approach shares the same premise, as previously mentioned in the
behavioural approach, that “lying is a difficult mental operation”. But aside from this
similarity, the major deviation between these approaches, is concerned with the reliability
issue that detecting lies from the standalone observations of behaviour, as well as analysing
speech is inadequate. It is difficult to ask questions that would only increase fear in liars and
not in truth tellers. A proposed alternative, is to increase the cognitive load (Vrij, 2011),
which is the mental effort in working memory, used for reasoning, problem-solving and
decision-making. For liars, they would have to invent plausible stories that aligns with
known facts, accurately recall consistent details of their story, while also attempting to
suppress useful information and paying attention to their own body language. Therefore,
increasing the cognitive load is effective, because since lying is already more cognitively
demanding than telling the truth, then it is expected that a greater impact could be induced
on to the liars than truth tellers during interrogations.
A few ways that cognitive load can be increased include, providing instructions to maintain
eye contact, and telling the story backwards. It has been found that when either of these
were performed by the interviewees, the judges were better at distinguishing lies from
truths (Vrij, 2011). There are more techniques that are useful to both interviews, as well as
during undercover face-to-face operations.
Strategic-Questioning Approach (Vrij et al., 2009):

• The logic behind this, is that planned responses would lead to a reduced number of
cues to deception, thus giving unanticipated questions could raise the likelihood of
spotting lies.
• An example would be, if the alibi given by the target was ‘watching tv at home’, ask
the target unexpected questions such as which advertisements were on
It’s been found that the change from only using anticipated questions to using unanticipated
questions increased correct identification up to 80% of time, from 50/50 chance level.

Devil’s Advocate Approach (Leal et al., 2010):

• This requires eliciting expression of opinions, instead of spotting behavioural

changes from lying
• The target needs to be asked questions that can be answered with an opinion, then
ask them to argue against their own view
• Truth tellers should find the devil’s advocate question difficult and subsequently,
struggle to give much of a response
It’s been found that the difference in answers given by truth tellers, were longer than their
devil’s advocate answer, whereas no difference is found for liars. Which allowed a 75%
correct identification rate.
Strategic Use of Evidence (Hartwig et al., 2006):

• The objective of a liar differs from that of a truth-teller, in that truth-tellers are more
concerned with convincing the interviewer that they are being truthful, while for
liars, it would be desirable to say less. The fact is that liars possess secretive
knowledge and prioritize concealing the truth by using either denial or avoidance
strategies.
• This can be counteracted by asking open-ended questions rather than specific
questions, without revealing that there is evidence to confirm or reject their claims.
• It is expected that the truth tellers would deny questions, particularly if they are not
aware of the existence of evidence
It’s been found that there is around a 30% difference in judgement accuracy of deception in
untrained vs trained interviewers using this technique.

Limitations shared by all 3 techniques:

• If the liars have prepared an alibi, then this could eliminate the effectiveness of
techniques based on cognitive loading (Foester et al., 2017)

Training Programs Effectiveness

As important as the validity, accuracy and reliability of deception detection techniques are,
it is also crucial to account for the operators and agents’ skill and experience in applying
such methods. Thus, it is necessary to evaluate how well training programs improve the
judgements of lies from truth. A major issue to bring to attention is that deception detection
training is argued to be the most effective in high stakes situations for both the participant
liars and participant judges, which is not the case in current and past experimental designs.
Since the lies given were not linked to huge consequences and strong motivations. Hence,
there is scepticism that deception detection training may not work well in real-world
settings, as the evidence from research supporting it are based on tests in a laboratory
setting. This affects the extent of generalizability from the findings (“training transfer”) to
real-life situations, which is called “ecological validity”.

A meta-analysis was conducted for 16 studies (Driskell, 2012) and its findings addressed the
question of training effectiveness, but not training transfer. It revealed that the training
programs implemented are of significant efficacy and works to a medium extent in
increasing judgement accuracy. The effectiveness varied and depended upon on the type of
implemented training, type of lie, training context and the expertise of trainee. The best
type of program was combined intervention, which incorporated training involving
information, practice and feedback, being 2 times more effective than training with
information only. Furthermore, while effectiveness differed across types of training, all of
them were shown to be helpful, compared to no training. There was a significant advantage
for training that informed deception cues that were associated with more fidgeting, making
less logical sense and reduced fluency in speech patterns.
Contrasting training with nonverbal cues to verbal ones, verbal content training was more
effective. An alarming discovered made, is that training were more effective for naïve
laypeople than experienced professionals, explained by strong misconceptions harboured
for cues to deception (Vrij, 2000). The problem is that the most stereotypical indicators of
deception happen to be uncorrelated with lying (DePaulo et al., 2003). Not only that, but
training programs used in the real-world teaches this flawed information, rendering it
counterproductive (Mann et al., 2004). Lastly, there is publication bias in the psychological
literature.

[SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE AND RECOMMENDATIONS]

Conclusions to be drawn are:
❖ There are no perfectly reliable methods of detecting lies.
➢ There exist countless methods with claims of it working, however through vigorous
evaluation from research, only some of them have good successes.
➢ Valid and practical techniques have been suggested in this report, along with its
limitations.
❖ Generalizability remains questionable, as the findings from all deception detection
training studies are based on laboratory environments.
➢ Cues to deception may be more apparent and easier to identify in high-stakes
situations, as it is moderated by greater consequences and motivation.
➢ Under realistic circumstances, sometimes communication cannot be judged unless
there is certainty about the truth.
➢ As such, it is challenging for researchers to design training programs that simulate
the real-world setting as close as possible.
❖ Interestingly, training is still more useful than having none, despite some evidence that
fails to support that it improves accuracy for specific methods.
❖ Despite controversy on what behavioural cues are considered reliable, optimism can be
expected with further future research into dissembling the complexity of this behaviour.

Suggestions for operational strategies:

• Deploy a combination of techniques from different approaches, while taking the

possibility of false positives and false negatives into consideration
▪ CBCA information can be obtained by audio recording conversations.
• Use training programs that involves combined interventions and focuses on analysing
verbal content
• When training those who had previous deception detection training, focus efforts on
overcoming ingrained stereotypical misconceptions
[APPENDIX]

CBCA Checklist Criterions:

General Characteristics
1. Logical structure
2. Unstructured production
3. Quantity of details

Specific Contents
4. Contextual embedding
5. Descriptions of interactions
6. Reproductions of conversation
7. Unexpected complications during the incident
8. Unusual details
9. Superfluous details
10. Accurately reported details misunderstood
11. Related external associations
12. Accounts of subjective mental state
13. Attribution of perpetrator’s mental state

Motivation-Related Content
14. Spontaneous corrections
15. Admitting lack of memory
16. Raising doubts about testimony
17. Self-deprecation
18. Pardoning the perpetrator

Offence-Specific Elements
19. Detailed characteristic of the offence
[ADDITIONAL RESEARCH]

Physiological Approach
❖ Polygraphs are used to detect changes in physiological reactions, which could be used to
make inferences regarding veracity.
➢ It works best with the Control Question Test and Guilty Knowledge Test. Using it by
itself should be avoided due to high chance of type I errors
➢ However, it does not conclusively determine truth from lies
❖ Ekson’s 1979 FACS (Facial Action Coding System) – Micro-expressions
➢ Anatomical based system for measuring all observable facial movements
➢ masking vs simulating the expression of pain (Craig, Hyde & Patric, 1991)
➢ Identification of false expressions (Galin & Thorn, 1993)
➢ Improved and renamed into Micro-expressions Self-instructional training
➢ FACS training leads to 70% success rate in detecting lies via analysing emotional
expressions (Matsumoto, Hwang, Skinner, & Frank, 2011).
➢ However, evidence for this is weak, due to inconsistent cases of emotional
expressions not matching internal state occurs in all participants at least once
(Porter, Brinke, 2008)
❖ Voice Stress Analysis (VSA) involves measuring fluctuations in physiology of
microtremors (low amplitude oscillation of reflex mechanism found in muscles) in the
vocal chords used for speech
➢ Microtremors shifts in frequency when stress is increased, which is transferred from
the muscles in the vocal tract, evident by the voice produced
➢ Comparative study revealed that compared to polygraph testing, VSA technology
identified emotional stress better (Patil, Nayak, and Saxena, 2013)
➢ Considered a suitable method of detecting false statements by some
➢ However, its effectiveness is controversial and is heavily debated, with some studies
finding it inferior to polygraphs, with low inter-rater reliability
▪ Its weakness is that it can be beaten by practicing specific breathing techniques
to reduce stress, voice therapy that relaxes throat and other known ways
▪ There also seems to be financial competition drama involving studies not being
independent, but bias towards the companies manufacturing the devices for,
have a negative influence on the legitimacy of it

Brain-imaging Approach
Brain fingerprinting (EEG), EEG (electroencephalograph), PET, fMRI:
❖ Brain fingerprinting relies on the theory that the brain processes known information
(such as details of the crime) in a different way than to the processing of unknown
information, such that this distinction can be revealed by specific EEG wave patterns
(Farwell & Donchin, 1991).
 ➢ In both real-life applications, as well as in laboratory research, the error rate is
reported to be less than 1% (Farwell & Donchin, 1991; Farwell & Richardson, 2006;
Farwell & Smith, 2001; Farwell, 2012)
➢ Disadvantages:
▪ Relies on the assumption that the suspect’s knowledge about the crime came
from personal experiences or direct involvement, it is possible that they may
possess information due to wide-spread media coverage without being guilty
▪ Making judgements about lying from EEG patterns requires a sufficient amount
of information about relevant events and the suspect
▪ More expensive, time-consuming and need more preparation than standard
polygraph testing
❖ Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Positron Emission Topography uses
graphical brain imaging techniques that focus on the activities of the central nervous
system.
➢ Cluster of significant changes were found in localized regions of the brain (right
anterior cingulate gyrus to the right superior frontal gyrus) in those that are lying,
compared with those that are telling the truth (Langleben et al., 2002)
▪ 18 students were subjected to a BOLD fMRI test + GKT with playing cards
▪ This cluster is associated with response conflict and emotional processing
➢ The brain’s neural activity in 3 conditions (truth, spontaneous lies and memorized
lies), showed differences in activation (Ganis et al., 2003)
▪ Both types of lies lead to more activation in the anterior prefrontal cortices
bilaterally (involving in retrieving memories)
▪ Spontaneous lies activated anterior cingulate cortex, while memorized lies didn’t.
(This is consistent with Langleben’s (2002) findings, related to the conflicts
associated with inhibiting the truth)
❖ Limitations
➢ But Monteleone et al’s (2009) analyses revealed that no aspects of the cerebral
cortex could be used for accurate lie detection for individuals.
➢ Koukolik (2011) also noted that brain-based imaging evidence from experiments only
answers the regions of brain that are active when an individual is lying, as the
experimenters possess knowledge on who it does not specifically determine if they
are telling the truth or a lie.
➢ A big drawback of fMRI studies on lie detection, is that, most of them involved young
adults that were healthy. It has been found by (Buckner et al., 2000; D’Esposito, et
al., 2003), that BOLD activity can vary depending on the age. Furthermore,
differences are also found in individuals that have cardiovascular diseases (Pineiro,
Pendlebury, Johansen-Berg, & Matthews 2002; Röther et al.,2002), and are suffering
from abuse (Levin et al., 1998; Sell et al., 1997).
➢ While other studies that have examined brain functions revealed that the results
obtainable through these methods are not satisfactory in providing precision and
they lack a strong empirical validity (Greely & Illes, 2007; Porter, ten Brinke, &
Gustaw, 2010; Spence, 2008; Wolpe et al., 2005 as cited in Vrij, Mann, & Leal, 2013).
Some criticism raised included that brain activity during deception can be different
depending on the situation, problems replicating findings, big individual differences
 (attitudes of individuals and the type of lie they give matters)and the brain regions
associated with truth telling has not bee established.
➢ An alarming discovery Koukolik (2011) has brought to attention is a self-defence
technique that could counter the efforts of brain-imaging methods of deception
detection. It is the limitation of the human brain, in that while neural changes can be
recorded with fMRI and polygraphs, it is also possible to hide these activities if the
brain is occupied with other cognitive tasks such as mathematical calculations.
➢ Another limitation is the generalizability of findings from laboratory settings to a
more diverse population. Participants from experiments are usually university
students from psychology or medicine.
➢ Also, the experimenters’ lies are not considered as a spontaneous lie, since they are
asked to deceive.
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