Information-processing in French adults practicing deception

Abstract

Background. Experiences which people have and perceive personally (Skowronski et al., 1991) are interpreted in a subjective way (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) and stored in autobiographical memory along with information related to their lifetime periods, general events, and event-specific knowledge (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000; Larsen & Thompson, 1995). These three specific knowledge-types are intertwined and come up together when an individual is recalling memories (Conway, 1996). Objective. The aim of our study is to investigate how French adults process information in deceptive speech. We observed the information-types used in the three knowledge-types of autobiographical memory in monologs and answers to questions. Method. Our data comes from videotaped spontaneous oral speeches produced by 17 French adults. The participants were given the task of producing a fake opinion paradigm on their favorite sport. Result. Our results show discrepancies in the frequency of the three knowledge-types of autobiographical memory used in the true and deceptive speech of practitioners and viewers. We also found that certain informationtypes are linguistic-context-dependent while others are systemic. The findings highlight the fact that some information is missing and/or replaced, and other information is nuanced in deception compared to truthful speech. Conclusion. This study can contribute to a better understanding of deceivers' cognitive processing, as well as demonstrating the close relationship between language and cognition.