Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling

J. Investig. Psych. Offender Profil. 5: 39–43 (2008)

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/jip.82

A Cognitive Load Approach to Lie Detection

ALDERT VRIJ1,*, RONALD FISHER2, SAMANTHA MANN1 and

SHARON LEAL1
1
Psychology Department, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
2
Psychology Department, Florida International University, Miami, USA

Abstract
We present two lie detection approaches based on cognitive theory. The first approach,
‘measuring cognitive load’, assumes that the mere act of lying generates observable signs
of cognitive load. This is the traditional cognitive lie detection approach formulated by
Zuckerman, DePaulo, & Rosenthal (1981). The second approach, ‘imposing cognitive
load’, was developed by us (Vrij, Fisher, Mann, & Leal, 2006) and goes one step further.
Here, the lie detector attempts to actively increase the differences between lying and truth
telling by introducing mentally taxing interventions. We assume that people require more
cognitive resources when they lie than when they tell the truth to produce their statements,
and therefore will have fewer cognitive resources left over to address these mentally taxing
interventions when they lie than when they tell the truth. This should result in more pro-
nounced differences between lying and truth telling in terms of displaying stronger signs
of cognitive load. We provide empirical support for this approach: Observers can dis-
criminate better between lying and truth telling when interviewers actively impose men-
tally taxing interventions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Key words: lie detection; cognitive load approach

A lie detection method can be effective only if it is based on sound theory about how
people respond when they lie or tell the truth. That is, when a theory can adequately predict
what differences will occur between lying and truth-telling, an effective method can be
designed to detect these differences. Furthermore, a sound theory also provides direction
to conducting future research in order to better understand the phenomenon of deception.
Currently, police manuals typically promote a ‘concern-based lie detection approach’ to
detect deception. This approach assumes that people are more concerned when they lie
than when they tell the truth, resulting in an increased likelihood to display nervous behav-
iour when lying. To clarify, in the Behavior Analysis Interview (a concern-based method),
one of the questions asked is the ‘you’ question: ‘Did you start that fire?’. It is assumed
that this direct question often catches the deceptive suspect off guard, resulting in nervous
*Correspondence to: Aldert Vrij, Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, King Henry Building,
King Henry 1 Street, Portsmouth PO1 2DY, UK.
E-mail: aldert.vrij@port.ac.uk

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

40 A. Vrij et al.

displays such as crossing the legs, shifting in the chair, or grooming behaviour (Inbau,
Reid, Buckley, & Jayne, 2001, pp. 175–176). We believe that this approach is limited
because, currently, there is no compelling theoretical explanation as to why suspects would
necessarily be concerned and display nervous behaviours when they lie to such questions.
Neither is it clear why they should necessarily be unconcerned and stay calm when telling
the truth whilst answering such questions. When the consequences of being disbelieved
are severe (often the case in criminal investigations), people may be concerned about being
disbelieved even when they tell the truth (National Research Council, 2003; Vrij, 2008).
We have developed an alternative, theory-driven approach to discriminate between
truth-telling and lying that is based on cognitive theory (Vrij, Fisher, Mann, & Leal, 2006,
in press; Vrij, Mann, Fisher, Leal, Milne, & Bull, 2007a; Vrij, Mann, Leal, & Fisher,
2007b). This approach is based on the assumption that lying is sometimes more cognitively
demanding than truth-telling. Several aspects of lying contribute to this increased mental
load. First, formulating the lie itself may be cognitively taxing. Second, people are typi-
cally less likely to take their credibility for granted when they lie than when they tell the
truth. As such, when lying, people will be more inclined to monitor and control their
demeanour—so that they will appear honest to the lie detector—than when telling the
truth, which is cognitively demanding. Third, because people do not take credibility for
granted when they lie, they may monitor the interviewer’s reactions more carefully in
order to assess whether they are getting away with their lie. Carefully monitoring the
interviewer also imposes cognitive load. Fourth, when people lie, they may be preoccupied
by the task of reminding themselves to act and role-play, which requires extra cognitive
effort. Fifth, people have to suppress the truth when they are lying and this is also cogni-
tively demanding. Finally, whereas activating the truth often happens automatically,
activating a lie is more intentional and deliberate, and thus requires mental effort.
The above-mentioned reasons as to why lying is more cognitively demanding could
give us insight into when it is more cognitively demanding. That is, lying is more cogni-
tively demanding to the degree that these six principles are in effect. For example, lying
is likely to be more demanding than truth-telling only when the interviewees are motivated
to be believed. Only under those circumstances can it be assumed that people take their
credibility less for granted when lying than when telling the truth, and hence will be more
inclined to monitor their own behaviour and/or the interviewer’s reactions when lying.
Second, for lying to be more cognitively demanding than truth-telling, people must be
able to recall their truthful activity easily when they lie and have a clear memory of it.
Only when their knowledge of the truth is easily and clearly accessed will it be difficult
for them to suppress the truth. On the other side of the equation, truth tellers also need to
have easy access to the truthful event for the task to be relatively undemanding. If people
have to think hard to remember the target event when they tell the truth (e.g. because it
was not distinctive or it occurred long ago and was either not meaningful or not rehearsed),
their cognitive demands may exceed the cognitive demands that is required for fabricating
a story.
There are two cognitive lie detection approaches described in the literature. In the first
approach, it is assumed that the mere act of lying generates observable signs of cognitive
load. For example, some researchers argue that increased cognitive load will result in
slower response times and recommend examining response times (Walczyk, Roper,
Seemann, & Humphrey, 2003; Walczyk, Schwartz, Clifton, Adams, Wei, & Zha, 2005).
Others suggest that increased cognitive load results in a decrease in movements and rec-
ommend observing hand, foot, and leg movements (Sporer & Schwandt, 2007). This is

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Investig. Psych. Offender Profil. 5: 39–43 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/jip
 Lie detection 41

the traditional cognitive lie detection approach and has its roots in the seminal paper
written by Zuckerman, DePaulo, and Rosenthal (1981). We will label this the ‘mere
cognitive load’ approach.
The second approach, developed by us, goes one step further. In this innovative approach,
additional cognitive demand is imposed on interviewees to enlarge the observable cogni-
tive differences between lying and truth-telling. The core of this approach is that lie detec-
tors could exploit the increase in cognitive load that people experience when they lie by
introducing mentally taxing interventions. People require more cognitive resources when
they lie than when they tell the truth to produce their statements, and therefore will have
fewer cognitive resources left over to address these mentally taxing interventions when
they lie than when they tell the truth. This should result in more pronounced differences
between lying and truth-telling in terms of displaying signs of cognitive load—e.g. more
stutters and pauses, slower speech, slower response times, less quality details, inconsisten-
cies, fewer movements—when these cognitively demanding interventions are introduced
than when such interventions are not introduced. We label this the ‘increasing cognitive
load’ approach.
One way to impose cognitive load on interviewees is by asking them to tell their stories
in reverse order. In our laboratory, we requested half of our liars and truth tellers to recall
their stories in reverse order, whereas no instruction was given to the other half of the
participants (Vrij et al., 2007a). More cues to deceit emerged in this reverse-order condi-
tion than in the control condition. More importantly, observers who watched these video-
taped interviews could distinguish between truths and lies better in the reverse-order
condition than in the control condition. In another experiment, we instructed half of our
liars and truth tellers to maintain eye contact with the interviewer, which is cognitively
demanding (Doherty-Sneddon, Bruce, Bonner, Longbotham, & Doyle, 2002), whereas no
instruction was given to the other half of the participants (Vrij et al., 2007b). Replicating
the findings of the reverse-order experiment, we again found that more cues to deceit
emerged in the eye contact condition than in the control condition, and that observers who
watched these videotaped interviews could discriminate between truths and lies only in
the eye contact condition (Vrij et al., 2007b).
Obviously, the real test for these techniques is whether they work outside the laboratory.
We have been told by several American investigators who used the reverse-order instruc-
tion when interviewing suspects that suspects frequently gave themselves away with
obviously non-credible stories that were replete with inconsistencies.
Another, yet untested, manner of imposing cognitive load on interviewees is asking
them to carry out a ‘secondary’ task at the same time as recalling their stories. For example,
interviewees could be asked to recall their stories whilst conducting a computer driving
simulation task at the same time.1 This would require interviewees to divide their attention
between the storytelling task (i.e. truth-telling/lying) and the driving task. Because of the
additional resources that are needed for telling the lie, people should find this dual tasking
more cognitively difficult when they lie than when they tell the truth, and as a result,
should perform worse when they lie. As a result of peoples’ keenness to be believed when
they lie (DePaulo, Lindsay, Malone, Muhlenbruck, Charlton, & Cooper, 2003), we expect
that people will focus their attention primarily on the storytelling task when they lie. As
a consequence, the predominant differences between truth-telling and lying will occur in
the driving task (i.e. ‘driving performance’ will suffer when people lie).

1
Safety considerations prevent us from recommending using this method with real-life driving.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Investig. Psych. Offender Profil. 5: 39–43 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/jip
42 A. Vrij et al.

CONCLUSION

We have proposed a theoretical cognitive load approach to discriminate between liars and
truth tellers. We argue that lying can be more mentally taxing than truth-telling, and that
this can be used to detect lies. We described two cognitive lie detection approaches. In the
first one, the mere cognitive load approach, it is assumed that the mere act of lying gener-
ates observable signs of cognitive load. This is the traditional cognitive load approach that
originated in the seminal paper written by Zuckerman, DePaulo, and Rosenthal (1981) and
has been promoted since. We also described an innovative, more active, increased cogni-
tive load approach in which lie detectors exploit the cognitive load experienced by
interviewees to improve upon the ability to detect deception. The aim is to magnify the
differences between lying and truth-telling in situations where lying is more cognitively
demanding than truth-telling by employing interventions that impose cognitive load on
interviewees during information-gathering interviews. To give an example to clarify the
difference between the two approaches, rather than examining inconsistencies per se
(traditional cognitive load approach), interviewers can elicit such inconsistencies in liars
by asking interviewees to recall their stories in reverse order (innovative cognitive
load approach). We have discussed several interventions that can magnify the differ-
ences between lying and truth-telling and, more importantly, can facilitate lie detectors’
ability to discriminate between the two. Based on our early success, we encourage other
researchers to explore the potential of this novel approach to detecting deception.
We believe that two types of research are needed: first, experimentally controlled labo-
ratory research that further tests our theoretical assumptions; and second, research that
tests our ideas outside the laboratory in real-life settings. Our approach can only be
employed when these two factors, motivation and ability to recall the event, are in place.
In forensic settings, we can reasonably assume that interviewees will be motivated to be
believed. We cannot assume, however, that interviewees will always be able to retrieve
the target event easily, as this will vary from one case to another. However, interviewers
could check this by telling suspects at the beginning of the interview about which time
period they wish to talk to them, and asking them to think what they did during that time.
Only when the suspects indicate to have a clear memory of that time should our lie
detection approach be employed.

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 Lie detection 43

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Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Investig. Psych. Offender Profil. 5: 39–43 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/jip