Lyndsay R.

Woolridge , Amy-May Leach,

Chelsea Blake, and Elizabeth Elliott

Do Accents Speak Louder Than Words? Perceptions of Linguistic Speech

Characteristics on Deception Detection

Journal of Language and Social Psychology

DOI: 10.1177/0261927X231209428

ISSN: 0261-927X | Online ISSN: 1552-6526

Abstract
Using videotaped interviews of beginner, intermediate, and native English speakers,
we examined whether observers’ perceptions of linguistic measures of
accentedness, temporal fluency, lexicogrammar, and comprehensibility influenced
their deception detection. We found that observers could detect differences in speech
characteristics between proficiency levels, and that they were less able to detect
deception among beginner speakers compared to intermediate and native speakers.
Beginner speakers
were also afforded more of a truth bias compared to intermediate, but not native
speakers. Interestingly, observers’ backgrounds, including prior exposure to non-
native speech, did not influence their judgments. Rather, observers’ discrimination
and response bias appeared to be most affected by speakers’ fluency and comprehen-
sibility, respectively. This study is one of the first to separate and directly compare
perceptions of linguistic characteristics and their role in deception detection.
Findings raise questions about equitable deception detection in legal settings.

Keywords

deception, deception detection, language proficiency, non-native speakers, bias

 2 Journal of Language and Social Psychology

Introduction
Over the past several decades, the proportion of the United States population that uses a
language other than English has grown substantially. In 2019, 67.8 million people—
over one-fifth of the population—reported speaking a language other than English at
home (Dietrich & Hernandez, 2022). Along with this increase comes a greater likeli-
hood that legal decision-makers such as customs officers, police officers, judges, and
jurors will be tasked with observing, interviewing, and making deception
detection decisions about people who speak English with varying levels of
proficiency. Of those who use a language other than English at home, many report
speaking English very well (62.4%), while the remaining one third speak English
either well (18.5%), not well (13.3%), or not at all (5.8%; Dietrich & Hernandez,
2022). Despite the volume of speakers with limited English proficiency, relatively
little is known about
how observers’ impressions of these speakers’ linguistic competencies influence
deception detection.
Veracity judgments can be based on factors such as how plausible information
sounds (DePaulo et al., 2003) or how credible a person appears (e.g., Miller &
Hewgill, 1964). Linguistic characteristics, and attitudes toward them, can also
strongly influence observers’ perceptions of speakers (Dragojevic et al., 2021;
Hansen et al., 2017) and contribute substantially to impression formation (Vrij &
Winkel, 1994).
As such, it is possible that some variations in accent, speech fluency, vocabulary,
grammar, and comprehensibility that are often associated with non-native speech
could similarly affect deception detection. In fact, there is evidence that observers
are less likely to believe non-native speakers than native speakers (e.g., Castillo et
al., 2014; Da Silva & Leach, 2013; Evans & Michael, 2014). We examined whether
information in the speech signals of limited proficiency English speakers affected
observers’ impressions and could account for the disadvantageous proficiency effect.

Accentedness
Accented speech has received significant empirical attention regarding its impact on
impressions of others. Observers can detect nonstandard speech characteristics that
indicate a foreign accent in as little as 30 ms, suggesting that accents are instrumental
to impression formation (Baus et al., 2019; Flege, 1984; Flege & Hammond, 1982).
From as early as five months of age, children exhibit sensitivity toward dialectal dif-
ferences (Nazzi et al., 2000). By 5 years, their evaluations of accentedness can be
more sensitive than those of race (Kinzler et al., 2009). Accents can alert listeners to
the presence of geographic or social outsiders (Lippi-Green, 1994) and are
sometimes associated with negative qualities (e.g., Fuertes et al., 2012; Gluszek &
Dovidio, 2010; Mai & Hoffmann, 2014). In English-speaking countries, accents have
been shown to encourage stereotypes and discrimination against non-native speakers
(Bouchard Ryan & Bulik, 1982). Perceptions of stronger accents have also been
associated with nega- tive attitudes (Callan et al., 1983; Lev-Ari & Keysar, 2010),
distraction, and annoyance (Fayer & Krasinski, 1987). A preference toward native
over non-native accents has
 Woolridge et 3

been demonstrated across diverse linguistic backgrounds (DeJesus et al., 2017;

Scales et al., 2006; Tsurutani & Selvanathan, 2013) and even in children as young as
5 years old (DeJesus et al., 2017; Souza et al., 2013).
It has been suggested that the negative qualities ascribed to non-native accented
speakers may contribute to biases (Brennan & Brennan, 1981; Romero-Rivas et al.,
2021). For instance, stereotypes based on accented speech can lead to evaluations of
lower trustworthiness (Bouchard Ryan et al., 1977). Speakers with accents can also
be perceived as less accurate and credible than native speakers (Frumkin, 2007; Lev-
Ari & Keysar, 2010). In mock trials, speaking English with an accent has been
associated with increased guilty verdicts (Kurinec & Weaver, 2019) and harsher sen-
tences (Romero-Rivas et al., 2021). Importantly, the relationship between accent and
comprehension may be bidirectional (Kennedy & Trofimovich, 2008): speakers may
be perceived as more accented if observers find their messages confusing or as less
credible if their accents render them difficult to understand. Overall, speaking with
an accent may negatively impact the perceived credibility of people who do not
speak English as a native language.

Fluency
If perceptions of accentedness can affect credibility ratings, so might perceptions of
other speech qualities. For instance, there exists a negative correlation between
accent and speech fluency, such that the stronger the perceived accent, the lower the
ratings of speech fluency (e.g., Anderson-Hsieh & Koehler, 1988; Derwing et al.,
2004; Munro & Derwing, 1998, 2001). Speech fluency is commonly operationalized
in terms of the temporal aspects of speech production (e.g., speech rate, pauses,
repetitions, hesitations, false starts, and spontaneous corrections; Derwing et al.,
2004; Kormos & Dénes, 2004; Lennon, 1990). When observers judge speakers with
varying levels of lan- guage proficiency, reduced speech fluency may create
processing difficulties for the
observer (Lev-Ari, 2015) and, thus, influence their impressions. For example, Buller
et al. (1992) demonstrated that speech rate could affect perceptions of a speaker’s
char- acter. Similarly, when observers experience difficulty processing a message, they
assign lower truthfulness ratings to that message (Reber & Schwarz, 1999).
Temporal speech fluency characteristics such as fewer spontaneous corrections,
more repetitions and hesitations, decreased response length, and increased response
latency have also been associated with deception, irrespective of language
proficiency (Boltz et al., 2010; DePaulo et al., 2003; Zuckerman et al., 1981).
Observers may also
interpret the presence of some characteristics, such as fillers (e.g., “uh”) and pauses,
as deceptive (Global Deception Research Team, 2006). As a result, if non-native
speakers
exhibit disfluencies, observers may be prone to labeling them as lie-tellers.

Lexicogrammar
A speaker’s use of lexis (i.e., vocabulary) and grammar may also affect observers’
veracity judgments. Vocabulary errors can undermine observer comprehension (e.g.,
4 Journal of Language and Social Psychology

Politzer, 1978; Trofimovich & Isaacs, 2012)—which affects perceived truthfulness—

as well as grammatical accuracy (e.g., Crowther et al., 2015; Munro & Derwing,
1995; Rossiter, 2009). Grammatical errors occur more frequently in deceptive
accounts than
truthful ones (Sporer & Schwandt, 2006), whereas first-person pronoun use is associ-
ated with honesty (Hancock et al., 2007; Moberley & Villar, 2016; Newman et al.,
2003; but see Matsumoto & Hwang, 2015). In addition, observers use the ease of
lexical retrieval as a metacognitive cue to truthfulness (Newman et al., 2015).
Again, this might be disadvantageous for non-native speakers: they can make
speech errors when the inhibition of their native language vocabulary and grammar
fails (Guo et al., 2011), which may impact their lexical retrieval. These lexical or gram-
matical errors may be interpreted as deceptive by observers, which could explain
why less proficient speakers are often less likely to be judged as truthful than native
speakers.

Comprehensibility
Observers’ attitudes towards non-native speech are related to their overall ability to
understand the speaker’s message (Anderson-Hsieh & Koehler, 1988; Bresnahan
et al., 2002). Researchers have linked accentedness (specifically, prosodic patterns
of intonation and stress), temporal fluency, and lexicogrammar to the ability to compre-
hend non-native speech (Hansson, 1985; Saito et al., 2016a; Saito et al., 2016b).
Indeed, in legal settings, testimony delivered with an accent can hinder
comprehension (Wingstedt & Schulman, 1984). This phenomenon has been
explained in terms of
observers’ processing fluency (i.e., the ease of processing information; Alter &
Oppenheimer, 2009). Specifically, the fluency principle states that the ease with
which observers process speech is used as a metacognitive cue to language attitudes,
such that disruptions in observers’ processing fluency (e.g., due to a speaker’s
accent) can negatively bias their attitudes toward speakers (Dragojevic et al., 2017).
The impact of certain linguistic variables on comprehensibility has also been
found to vary based on the speaker’s proficiency level. For example, among beginner
speak- ers, speech rate, prosody, and vocabulary were the strongest correlates,
whereas seg- mental accuracy, prosody, and grammar were the most important for
intermediate and advanced speakers (Saito et al., 2016a).
Comprehensibility has also been linked to deception. In one study, low
comprehen- sibility led to low credibility ratings (Hansson, 1985). In another, low
comprehensibil- ity reduced observers’ ability to detect deception accurately
(Burgoon et al., 2016).
Thus, observers’ perceptions of how well they understand native and non-native speak-
ers may contribute to their biases and the accuracy of their judgments.

Observers’ Linguistic Backgrounds

Observers’ perceptions of non-native speech may also depend on their own linguistic
backgrounds. Early speech perception work suggested that familiarity with accented
speech could improve its comprehensibility (e.g., Gass & Varonis, 1984); however,
 Woolridge et 5

subsequent research yielded mixed results. Some have found that exposure enhances
comprehensibility (Tauroza & Luk, 1997; Tsurutani & Selvanathan, 2013), while
others have not (Babel & Russell, 2015; Munro et al., 2006; Powers et al., 1999).
However, observers can perceive accents differently depending on their language
teaching history (Kang et al., 2016). In some studies, lay observers rated non-native
speech more harshly than trained language assessors (Barnwell, 1989) and language
teachers (Kang & Rubin, 2009); in others, language teachers felt more lenient than
did non-teachers when rating non-native speech (Huang, 2013). Therefore, observer
factors should be considered when examining the influence of language proficiency
on social processes such as deception detection.

The Present Research

Do observers’ impressions of speech characteristics affect deception detection?
Evidence across multiple fields suggests that they might; however, the roles of each
component have not been tested explicitly. We synthesized work from the deception
detection and linguistics literatures to investigate how observers’ perceptions of speak-
ers’ accentedness, temporal fluency, lexicogrammar, and comprehensibility affected
their veracity judgments. First, we collected videotaped interviews of a diverse
sample of native and non-native English speakers who were asked to lie or tell the
truth about witnessing a scene. Second, we showed the video clips to native English-
speaking observers who made deception and speech perception judgments about the
speakers. We aimed to replicate previous findings (e.g., Elliott & Leach, 2016)
regarding how proficiency levels, as determined by standardized language pro-
ficiency assessments, affected deception detection. Then, we examined the ability of
speech dimensions to predict observers’ ability to discriminate between lie- and truth-
tellers, as well as their response bias.

Hypotheses
Discrimination. In line with previous studies (e.g., Akehurst et al., 2018; Da Silva &
Leach, 2013), we hypothesized that discrimination between lie- and truth-tellers
would be poorer when observers judged beginner English speakers compared to any
other proficiency group.
Response bias. There is a tendency to afford a truth bias to native speakers—that
is, to judge them as honest—but not non-native speakers (e.g., Akehurst et al., 2018.
We expected the same result here. By extension, we also hypothesized that
observers
would judge non-native speakers less positively than native speakers.
Perceptions and decision-making. Because observers assign lower truthfulness
ratings to less comprehensible stimuli (e.g., Lev-Ari & Keysar, 2010; Reber &
Schwarz, 1999), we hypothesized that perceptions of non-native speech could
predict deception detection. We expected that ratings of heightened speaker accent-
edness, decreased temporal fluency, decreased comprehensibility, and increased
lexicogrammatical errors would be associated with reduced discriminability
6 Journal of Language and Social Psychology

between lie- and truth-tellers. Additionally, given that perceived accentedness can
predict competence ratings (Rubin & Smith, 1990), we hypothesized that speakers
who were perceived to be more accented, less fluent, less lexicogrammatically
correct, and less comprehensible would be viewed less positively (i.e., less likely
to be labeled truth-tellers).
Observers’ linguistic backgrounds. Observers’ language histories can affect their
perception and evaluation of native and non-native speech (e.g., Gass & Varonis,
1984; Kang et al., 2016; Tsurutani & Selvanathan, 2013). We expected that
observers’ lack of familiarity with other languages would be associated with
lower perceived
speaker comprehensibility ratings. We also conducted exploratory analyses to
address the possibilities that: (1) experience with teaching English as a second or
foreign language would influence observers’ ratings of perceived accentedness, tempo-
ral fluency, and lexicogrammatical correctness; and (2) English teaching experience
would encourage an increased truth bias toward non-native speakers.

Method
Phase 1: Speakers’ Lie and Truth Production
A 2 (Veracity: lie vs. truth) × 3 (Proficiency: beginner vs. intermediate vs. native
English) between-subjects design was used. Speakers from three proficiency groups
were randomly assigned to lie or tell the truth in English.
Participants. We built upon an existing database of native and non-native
English-speaking interviewees created by Elliott and Leach (2016). Forty-eight
speak- ers collected by those researchers were included in the present sample, along
with 60 additional speakers. These 108 speakers comprised a heterogeneous sample
of 36 speakers from each proficiency group, matched for demographic
characteristics. Each group consisted of an equal number of lie- and truth-tellers.
In other words, we yoked speakers in terms of not only veracity but also age,
gender, and ethnicity, where possible.
Non-native English speakers were recruited from the Ontario Tech University
English Language Center and other language training centers in the area that participate
in Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) or English as a Second
Language (ESL) programs. These programs use standardized English testing known
as the Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB; Centre for Canadian Language
Benchmarks, 2012). Thus, all non-native speakers’ proficiencies were determined by
their language instructors’ assessments. Non-native English speakers from the
University’s language center were awarded 3% credit toward their weekly Language
Workshops in exchange for participation, and speakers from other language centers
were paid $15 as compensation. Native English speakers were recruited from the
psy- chology participant pool at Ontario Tech University and received course credit
in exchange for participation.
The speaker sample was predominantly female (64.81%), and the mean age was
23.06 years (SD = 6.84). Speakers self-identified as Latin American (28.70%),
 Woolridge et 7

Chinese (18.52%), Black (14.81%), Arab/West Asian (10.19%), South Asian

(10.19%), Southeast Asian (5.55%), White (3.70%), Filipino (2.78%), Hispanic
(1.85%), Japanese (0.93%), and Other (2.78%). Within this sample, beginner
speakers were mainly female (66.67%) with a mean age of 23.42 (SD = 5.77), and self-
identified as Latin American (44.44%), Chinese (22.22%), Black (11.11%),
Arab/West Asian (8.33%), South Asian (5.56%), Southeast Asian (5.56%), and
Hispanic (2.78%). Intermediate speakers were also mostly female (61.11%), with a
mean age of 25.53 (SD = 9.30), and self-identified as Latin American (36.11%),
Chinese (22.22%), Arab/West Asian (16.66%), Black (11.11%), South Asian
(5.56%), Southeast Asian (2.78%), Hispanic (2.78%), and Japanese (2.78%). The
native speaker sample was similarly female (66.67%), though slightly younger than
the intermedi- ate sample with a mean age of 20.25 (SD = 2.98), and somewhat more
ethnically diverse than the non-native groups. Native speakers self-identified as
Black (22.22%), South Asian (19.45%), Chinese (11.11%), White (11.11%),
Southeast
Asian (8.33%), Filipino (8.33%), Latin American (5.56%), Arab/West Asian
(5.56%), and Other (8.33%).

Materials. Stimuli. Previous research has shown that deception detection performance
does not significantly differ when observers are presented with audiovisual or audio-
only stimuli (e.g., Akehurst et al., 2018; Bond & DePaulo, 2006; George et al.,
2018). Thus, to maximize ecological validity, we selected an audiovisual paradigm
for our speaker video stimuli. In the suspicious event paradigm, speakers watched
one of two videotaped events: the Innocuous or Suspicious event. The videos for
both events displayed a computer desk with various office supplies and personal
belongings. The camera zoomed in on various areas of the desk and wall, revealing
pictures, newspaper clippings, a map, and a calendar. In the Innocuous event, these
items were meant to replicate a standard office setting; in the Suspicious event, the
items indicated a potential bomb plot. Each video event showed an equal number of
items, with the critical Suspicious items (e.g., bomb-making instruction manual)
substituted with comparable Innocuous items (e.g., exhaust vent installation
manual). The Suspicious and Innocuous event videos were 53 and 60 s long,
respectively.
Interview questions. Speakers were asked open- and closed-ended questions about
what they saw in the video that grew increasingly specific throughout the interview
(e.g., “What did you see on the wall?”, “Where was the gun?”).
Demographics questionnaire. Speakers were asked to provide their age, gender,
race, and English language proficiency (e.g., “What language[s] do you consider
your native [or first] language[s]?”, “How many years have you been speaking
English?”).
Experimental questionnaire.1 Speakers completed a 19-item questionnaire that
assessed cognitive load, emotionality, and motivation. In addition, speakers indicated
whether they thought that the interviewer believed their account and whether they
would prefer to be interviewed in their native language or their non-native language
8 Journal of Language and Social Psychology

(i.e., English). Finally, speakers completed an attention check to ensure that they
attended to the critical items in each video.
Procedure. Sessions were conducted in a private testing room at the University or
language center. Speakers were individually greeted by a female experimenter who
was blind to condition and then seated at a computer. After the experimenter
explained the requirements of the study, she began the MediaLab program (Jarvis,
2014, 2018), entered a randomly assigned participant number, and left the room.
Speakers were ran- domly assigned to watch either the Innocuous or Suspicious
video. They were given on-screen instructions to testify that they viewed a typical
office scene. That is, half of the speakers were asked to tell the truth, as they had
seen the Innocuous video, and half were asked to lie, as they had seen the
Suspicious video. The instructions stated that if the participant convinced the
experimenter about what they had seen, they would be entered into a draw to win
$50. In fact, all speakers were entered into the draw. After 2 min, the experimenter
returned to conduct the interview. Then, the speaker completed the demographics
and experimental questionnaires. The entire
experiment lasted between 30 and 60 min, depending on the speaker’s level of
English proficiency.
Attention check. To ensure that speakers attended to the videos, we conducted a
one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), with proficiency as the independent
variable, on the number of critical items that speakers correctly identified as present in
the video. There was a significant proficiency effect, F(2, 105) = 5.07, p = .008, ηp² =
.09, 95% CI [.01, .19]. Pairwise comparisons using a Bonferroni correction
revealed that native
speakers performed slightly better than intermediate speakers, p = .006, d = .72,
95% CI [.05, 1.39]. There were no differences between beginner speakers (M =
4.44, SD
= 1.05) and intermediate (M = 4.08, SD = 1.13), p = .560, d = .33, 95% CI [−.33,
−.99] or native speakers (M = 4.94, SD = 1.26), p = .272, d = −.43, 95% CI [−1.09,
.23].

Phase 2: Observers’ Deception Detection

As in Phase 1, we used a 2 (Veracity: lie vs. truth) × 3 (Proficiency: beginner vs.
intermediate vs. native English) mixed-factors design, with veracity as the within-
participants measure. Observers were randomly assigned to watch a series of 12
videotaped interviews of truth- and lie-tellers from one of the three proficiency
groups.
Participants. An effect size of η2 p= 0.11 from Elliott and Leach (2016) was used to
conduct an a priori power analysis using G*Power 3.1.9.2 (Faul et al., 2007). The
power analysis revealed that 108 observers were required to achieve 90% power. In
total, 211 observers were recruited from the undergraduate psychology participant
pool at Ontario Tech University. Observers were compensated with course credit in
exchange for their participation in the study.
The observer sample was limited to participants who had no history of a hearing
or speech disorder, identified English as their first and native language, and rated
their English proficiency, including listening and speaking abilities, as the highest
possible
Woolridge et 9

on a prescreen measure (i.e., 5 out of 5). Those who failed to meet these criteria (n = 77) were excluded from analyses, as were
those who did not adhere to instructions during the experiment (n = 8) or experienced technical errors (n = 4). After exclusions, data
from 122 observers were analyzed. Because the participant pool requires students to sign up for sessions in advance, all
registered students were permitted to participate as per ethical guidelines, and our final sample size was slightly larger than that
spec- ified by the power analysis.
Observers were predominantly female (61.48%), and their mean age was 20.40 years (SD = 4.43). Observers self-identified as
White (49.18%), South Asian (16.39%), Black (11.48%), Multiracial (6.56%), Arab/West Asian (4.92%),
Southeast Asian (3.28%), Indigenous (2.46%), West Indian (2.46%), Chinese
(0.82%), and Latin American (0.82%), and Other (0.82%).

Materials. Speaker videos. The 108 videotaped interview clips from Phase 1 were used to generate nine randomized sets of 12 clips
(six truth-tellers and six lie-tellers), with three sets per English proficiency category. The video sets ranged from 31 min and 26 s to
55 min and 47 s. Speakers were matched for demographic characteristics across pro- ficiency categories where possible, rather
than by clip length, so the length of the video
sets differed from one another, Welch’s F(8, 40.96) = 3.89, p = .002, est. ω² = .18. Notably, the mean clip length (in seconds) for
one of the intermediate speaker sets
(M = 157.17, SD = 58.89) was significantly shorter than one of the other intermediate sets (M = 263.08, SD = 127.12), p = .034, as
well as one of the beginner sets (M = 278.92, SD = 109.46), p = .007. One native speaker set (M = 160.50, SD = 37.56)
was also significantly shorter than the beginner set. There were no other differences
in length between the remaining sets of clips.
Deception detection. After watching each video clip, observers were asked whether they believed the speaker was lying or
telling the truth. They were also asked to indi- cate their confidence in each judgment (0% = not at all confident, 100% = extremely
confident).2
Speech ratings. Observers were asked to rate their perceptions of each speaker on four speech dimensions. Using 9-point
Likert-type scales (1 = not at all, 9 = very), observers were asked, “How strong was the speaker’s accent?”, “How fluid
was the speaker’s speech?”, “How correct was the speaker’s use of vocabulary
and grammar?”, and “How easy was it for you to understand the speaker?”. Preliminary analyses revealed that these four
speech variables demonstrated high
multicollinearity (see Table 1). This was unsurprising, as previous work established that these variables are related (Derwing &
Munro, 1997; Kang, 2010; Munro & Derwing, 1995). Thus, we created a composite dependent variable of overall speech
 score, representing the mean of all scores assigned to a speaker by observers who viewed that speaker.
1

Demographics questionnaire. Observers completed the same questions as in Phase 1.

Language experience questionnaire. We asked observers to indicate any experience teaching English, its duration, and the native
language(s) of the learners. Finally, we
 Woolridge et 1

asked how often observers used another language with native or non-native speakers of that
language (1 = daily, 2 = several days a week, 3 = weekly, 4 = bi-weekly, 5 = monthly, 6 =
every few months,; 7 = once or twice a year, 8 = less than once or twice a year).
Procedure. Observers were seated at computer stations in the lab. A female exper-
imenter explained the study, entered randomly assigned participant and condition
numbers into MediaLab (Jarvis, 2014), and began the program. Next, on-screen
instructions were presented. Then, each observer watched 12 videos (i.e., six truth-
tellers and six lie-tellers from one proficiency category). After each video, observers
made a dichotomous deception judgment and four speech ratings about the speaker.
The task order was counterbalanced. Finally, observers completed the demographics
questionnaire. The study took approximately 1.5 h to complete.

Results
Preliminary analyses included observers’ age, gender, and race as potential covariates.
These variables have been non-significant in previous research examining
proficiency and deception detection (e.g., Elliott & Leach, 2016; Leach et al.,
2017), and we
expected the same pattern here. For all analyses but one, demographic variables
were non-significant; however, gender appeared to affect discrimination. The follow-
ing results include gender in analyses conducted on discrimination, and data are col-
lapsed across age, race, and gender for all other analyses.

Signal Detection Analyses

Signal detection theory (Green & Swets, 1966) allows deception detection accuracy
to be separated into measures of discrimination (i.e., d′) and response bias (i.e.,
criterion c). Discrimination is the ability to correctly detect the presence of a signal
(e.g., a lie) and reject the absence of the signal (e.g., the truth),3 whereas bias is
the tendency to select one response over another (e.g., those who select truth
more often than
lie would be said to show a ‘truth bias’).4 Per Macmillan and Creelman (2005),
discrimination was calculated as d′ z(Hit) z(False Alarm) and bias as
c 1 =
[z(Hit) z(False Alarm)]. We performed a−standard correction on hit and
= −2 +
false alarm rates of 1 or 0 using a strategy recommended by Macmillan and
Creelman, in which values of 0 and 1 are converted to 1/(2N ) and 1–1/(2N ), respec-
tively, where N equals the number of trials on which the proportion is based (i.e.,
the number of lures).
Task order. We considered the possibility that demand characteristics could have
affected observers’ responses when asked to render deception and perception judg-
ments within a single trial. To determine whether such effects existed, we conducted
a two-way ANOVA on discrimination with task order (deception detection first vs.
speech ratings first) and gender as the independent variables. Task order had no
signif-
icant effect on discrimination, F(1, 118) = 2.10, p = .150, ηp² = .02, 95% CI [0.00,
0.09]. There was a significant effect of gender on discrimination, F(1, 118) =
4.14,
 1 Journal of Language and Social Psychology

p = .044, ηp² = 0.03, 95% CI [0.00, 0.12], but no significant interaction between task
order and gender, F(1, 118) = 0.22, p = .637, ηp² = 0.002, 95% CI [0.000, 0.05]. We
then conducted a one-way ANOVA with task order as the independent variable on
bias, which was not significant, F(1, 120) = 0.00, p = .993, ηp² = 0.00, 95% CI [0.00,
0.00]. We also performed a MANOVA to examine whether task order influenced
observers’ perceptions of accentedness, fluency, lexicogrammar, and
comprehensibil- ity. Because there were no significant effects on the dependent
variables, F(4, 117) = 1.30, p = .276, ηp² = 0.04, 95% CI [0.00, 0.10], we combined data
from the two task orders in subsequent analyses.
Discrimination. We conducted a two-way ANOVA on discrimination, with profi-
ciency and gender as the independent variables. The ANOVA revealed a significant
effect of proficiency, F(2, 116) = 6.07, p = .003, ηp² = 0.09, 95% CI [0.01, 0.20].
Pairwise comparisons using the Bonferroni correction revealed that discrimination
was poorer when observers judged beginner English speakers (M = 0.38, SD = 0.70)
compared to intermediate speakers (M = 0.80, SD = 0.64), p = .041, d = 0.63,
95%
CI [0.19, 1.07], and native speakers (M = 1.03, SD = 0.84), p = .003, d = .85, 95%
CI [0.39, 1.30]. There were no significant differences between observers’ discrimina-
tion ability when viewing intermediate speakers compared to native speakers, p =
1.000, d = 0.31, 95% CI [−0.14, 0.75]. There was also a significant effect of
gender,
F(1, 116) = 4.29, p = .040, ηp² = .04, 95% CI [0.00, 0.12], such that female observers
(M = 0.84, SD = 0.80) were better able to discriminate between truth- and lie-tellers
than were male observers (M = 0.56, SD = 0.70). There was no significant interaction
between proficiency and gender, F(2, 116) = 1.43, p = .245, ηp² = 0.02, 95% CI
[0.00,
0.09].
One-sample t-tests were also conducted to compare d′ to 0 (i.e., no sensitivity) to
determine whether discrimination ability differed from chance. Observers’ discrimina-
tion was above chance for beginner, t(41) = 3.51, p < .001, d = 0.54., 95% CI
[0.22,
0.86], intermediate, t(40) = 7.97, p < .001, d = 1.24, 95% CI [0.83, 1.65], and native
speakers, t(38) = 7.69, p < .001, d = 1.23, 95% CI [0.81, 1.64].
Response bias. We performed a one-way ANOVA, with proficiency as the inde-
pendent variable, on observer bias. There was a significant effect of proficiency,
F(2, 119) = 4.00, p = .021, ηp² = .06, 95% CI [0.001, 0.15]. Pairwise comparisons
using the Bonferroni correction indicated that observers’ biases varied with profi-
ciency level. Intermediate speakers (M = 0.09, SD = 0.48) elicited less of a truth
bias than did beginner speakers (M = 0.38, SD = 0.48), p = .031, d = 0.59, 95% CI
[0.15, 1.03], but there was no significant difference in truth bias between interme-
diate and native speakers (M = 0.13, SD = 0.53), p = 1.000, d = 0.07, 95%
CI
[−0.36, 0.51] or beginner and native speakers, p = .081, d = −0.49, 95% CI
[−0.93, −0.05].
Using one-sample t-tests, we compared c to 0 (i.e., no bias). Observers exhibited a
significant truth bias when viewing beginner speakers, t(41) = 5.10, p < .001, d = 0.79,
95% CI [0.44, 1.13], and no bias when viewing intermediate speakers, t(40) =
1.22,
p = .229, d = 0.19., 95% CI [−0.12, 0.50] or native speakers, t(38) = 1.52, p = .138,
 Woolridge et 1

d = 0.243., 95% CI [−0.08, 0.56].

1 Journal of Language and Social Psychology

Speakers’ Linguistic Differences

We examined whether observers reported perceptible differences in speakers’
accent- edness, fluency, lexicogrammar, comprehensibility, and overall speech
scores across proficiency levels. Accentedness scores were reverse coded so that,
for all variables,
a score of 1 indicated the least native-like characteristic and 9 represented the most
native-like characteristic. Proficiency had a significant effect on how observers per-
ceived speakers’ accentedness, F(2, 104) = 322.03, p < .001, ηp² = .86, 95% CI
[0.81,
0.89], fluency, Welch’s F(2, 66.69) = 109.46, p < .001, ηp² = .77, 95% CI [.66, .82],
lexicogrammar, F(2, 65.02) = 194.95, p < .001, ηp² = .86, 95% CI [.79, .89], compre-
hensibility, F(2, 61.77) = 159.82, p < .001, ηp² = 0.84, 95% CI [0.75, 0.88], and
overall speech score, F(2, 64.41) = 249.99, p < .001, ηp² = 0.88, 95% CI [0.83, 0.91].
Significant differences between beginner and intermediate speakers, intermediate
and native speakers, and beginner and native speakers were found across all
categories except beginner and intermediate speakers’ accentedness (Figure 1).
Standardized proficiency levels (i.e., assignment to proficiency level using Centre
for Canadian Language Benchmarks [2012]) captured some, but not all, of the variabil-
ity in linguistic speech characteristics. Thus, we chose to explore the effects of the char-
acteristics independently rather than artificially constraining the data by examining
characteristics within each proficiency level. The speech variables demonstrated
high multicollinearity, and two had variance inflation factors that exceeded 10
(Shrestha, 2020). As such, we used ridge regression (Hoerl & Kennard, 1970) to
examine the unique variance in observers’ discrimination and response bias that
could be accounted for by perceptions of speakers’ accentedness, fluency, lexicogram-
mar, and comprehensibility (see Table 1 for descriptives and intercorrelations). We
split the dataset into random training (70%) and test groups (30%). Two ridge regres-
sions were run on discrimination and bias, respectively. Using the glmnet package in
R, a regularization parameter was selected using cv.glmnet(), the built-in 10-
fold
 Woolridge et 1

Table 2. Model Coefficient Estimates of Speech Characteristics and Gender for Discrimination
and Bias.

cross-validation function designed to find the optimal value of the penalty term (λ) cor-
responding to the lowest test mean squared error. We searched an array of 10,000
values from 0.01 to 100 in increments of 0.01. Models were fit on the training data
and evaluated on test data for each dependent variable.
Discrimination. We examined the ability of observers’ perceptions to predict their
discrimination performance. Cross-validation identified an optimal λ of 1.470.
Perceptions of accentedness, lexicogrammar, fluency, and comprehensibility, as well
as observer gender, were positive predictors of discrimination ability (Table 2). In
this model, gender had the strongest effect in terms of absolute change in d′, as indi-
cated by B values. Of the linguistic variables, each predictor had a positive
relationship with discrimination, meaning that discrimination ability increased with
each one-unit
increase in the predictors. The strongest predictor was fluency, followed by lexicog-
rammar, then accentedness and comprehensibility. A similar pattern was observed
for β, but fluency had a larger coefficient than gender, suggesting that the former
had a stronger relationship with discrimination.
The ridge trace plots are shown in Figure 2. These plots visualize how β estimates
change with increasing λ, such that the faster a coefficient shrinks toward 0, the less
important it is in predicting the outcome. In the discrimination model, the coefficient
for lexicogrammar shrunk the fastest, despite having a larger B coefficient.
Lexicogrammar was followed by comprehensibility, then accentedness. The
strongest linguistic predictor was fluency. Overall, the slowest shrinking, or strongest
predictor in the model, was gender.
The R2 value and root mean squared error (RMSE) for the training data were
0.099 and 0.718, respectively. Thus, the model did not fit the data particularly well:
slightly less than 10% of the variance in discrimination was explained by observers’
percep-
tions of speakers’ linguistic characteristics. Comparatively, the test data R2 and
RMSE were 0.051 and 0.771. Ideally, the test RMSE should be lower than the training
RMSE, which would suggest that the model generalized well from the training data
to the test data. However, it increased, indicating poor model fit. The test RMSE was
lower than the SD of d′ (0.80), indicating that the model’s predictions were slightly
1 Journal of Language and Social Psychology
 Woolridge et 1

more accurate than a naïve prediction based on the mean of d′. Overall, the pattern of
results for the coefficient estimates showed support for our hypotheses. When observ-
ers perceived greater temporal fluency, more lexicogrammatical correctness, less
accentedness, and more comprehensible speech, they could better discriminate
between lie- and truth-tellers. However, the relative size of the coefficients for
gender combined with the overall weak model fit suggest that linguistic facets of
speech were not especially strong predictors of deception detection.
Response bias. We also tested the predictability of observers’ response bias using
their perceptions of speakers’ linguistic characteristics. The optimal λ was 44.52,
and coefficients are presented in Table 2. In this model, the four factors were negatively
associated with response bias. This means that for each one-unit change in the
predic- tors, response bias marginally decreased toward a lie bias. The effect of
comprehensi- bility was strongest, followed by accentedness, lexicogrammar, and
fluency. The ridge trace plot (Figure 2) showed that the coefficient for accentedness
shrunk the slowest toward 0, confirming it as the strongest predictor in this model.
Compared to the B
values, the β estimates indicated that comprehensibility and fluency had stronger rela-
tionships with bias than did lexicogrammar.
In the bias model, the R2 and RMSE values for the training data were 0.001 and
0.506, respectively. This means that the model could only explain a meager 0.1% of
the variance in response bias. The test values were −0.067 and 0.524. A negative R2
value and a test RMSE greater than the SD (0.51) indicate that the predictions made
by the model were less accurate than one based on the mean of criterion c. Overall,
the poor model fit did not support the hypothesis that perceptions of speakers would
predict observers’ degree of response bias.

Observers’ Linguistic Backgrounds

We included three predictors from the language experience questionnaire in a
multiple regression on observers’ ratings of speakers’ comprehensibility: degree of
exposure to non-native English, familiarity with non-native English speakers, and
experience speaking a non-native language with other native speakers of that
language. Responses for each variable were recoded into three equal-sized bins (i.e.,
1 = low, 2
= medium, 3 = high). The regression model was not significant, F(3, 118) = 0.042, p
= .988, ηp² = 0.001, 95% CI [0.00, 0.01].
We also conducted an exploratory analysis examining the influence of prior
English teaching experience on observers’ perceptions. We performed a one-way
MANOVA, with experience teaching English as a second or foreign language as the
independent variable, on observers’ perceptions of speakers on the four dimensions of
accentedness, temporal fluency, lexicogrammar, and comprehensibility. The results
only approached significance, F(4, 117) = 1.80, p = 0.058, Wilks’ Λ = 0.942, ηp² =
0.06, 95% CI [0.00,
0.13].
Finally, ANOVAs were performed on observers’ discrimination and bias. First, a
two-way ANOVA was conducted, with gender and English teaching experience as
the independent variables, on discrimination. As expected, the effect of English
1 Journal of Language and Social Psychology

teaching experience on discrimination was not significant, F(1, 118) = 0.594, p =

.442, ηp² = 0.005, 95% CI [0.00, 0.06]. The effect of gender was also not significant,
F(1,118) = 3.64, p = .059, ηp² = 0.03, 95% CI [0.00, 0.11], and there was no signifi-
cant interaction, F(1,118) = 0.37, p = .545, ηp² = 0.003, 95% CI [0.000, 0.05].
Contrary to expectation, neither was the effect on bias, F(1, 120) = 1.08, p = .301,
ηp² = 0.01, 95% CI [0.00, 0.07].

Discussion
We explored whether observers’ perceptions of speakers’ linguistic characteristics
could account for the proficiency bias disadvantage that non-native speakers
often experience during deception detection. Observers readily perceived differences
between all proficiency groups on measures of temporal fluency, lexicogrammar,
and comprehensibility. They also detected differences between native and non-native
speakers in terms of accentedness. This suggests that these elements of non-native
speech characteristics can be identified not only by using specialized equipment or
coding but also by untrained laypeople in real time.
Indeed, as we predicted, there was a significant decrease in observers’ discrimina-
tion ability when viewing beginner compared to intermediate and native speakers.
Interestingly, discrimination was above chance for all proficiency groups. While past
research has shown that observers can perform above chance when judging low-
proficiency speakers (Evans et al., 2017) or native and intermediate speakers (e.g.,
Elliott & Leach, 2016), it is unusual for observers to exceed chance for all
proficiency levels in a single study. That said, our results showed that observers
discriminated between intermediate and native speakers equally well but were less
able to detect
beginner speakers’ deception, demonstrating that proficiency differences did affect
detectability.
Several possibilities have been proposed. First, the negative qualities ascribed to
people who speak with a stronger accent may contribute to why they are perceived
less fairly than those who do not (Brennan & Brennan, 1981). Our results, however,
suggest that observers did not perceive a difference in accent between beginner and
intermediate speakers, despite exhibiting differences in discrimination ability. In
other words, it is unlikely that accent alone accounted for observers’ reduced discrim-
ination when judging beginner speakers. Second, observers might have struggled to
accurately judge stimuli that were more difficult to understand (e.g., Lev-Ari &
Keysar, 2010; Podlipský et al., 2016). It is possible that, upon encountering compre-
hension difficulties, observers misattributed them to deception rather than standard
non-native speech production (which would be less salient to a native speaker).
Third, according to the cognitive complexity theory, lying is more cognitively demand-
ing than telling the truth (Vrij et al., 2008). Speaking in one’s non-native (vs. native)
language also uses more cognitive resources (e.g., Perani & Abutalebi, 2005; Service
et al., 2002; Ullman, 2001). Given that performing two cognitively demanding tasks
at once can increase cognitive load (Broadbent, 1957), it is possible that
simultaneously
 Woolridge et 1

speaking in a non-native language and lying may have created cognitive overload
that affected beginner speakers’ ability to deceive.
Contrary to our hypotheses, however, observers showed a more significant truth
bias toward beginner English speakers compared to intermediate speakers but not
native speakers. In other words, beginner English speakers were judged differently
rel- ative to their more proficient counterparts. Although we expected native
observers to judge native speakers more favorably, our results partially replicated
Bond and Atoum (2000) and Elliott and Leach (2022), who found that observers
demonstrated a truth bias toward non-native speakers. Bond and Atoum attributed
this finding to observers automatically giving low-proficiency speakers the benefit of
the doubt, resulting in lower discrimination ability. Indeed, this explanation aligns
with our finding that discrimination was poorest among beginner speakers.
Because observers associate native accents with trustworthiness (Fuertes et al.,
2012), find non-native accents and decreased fluency distracting (Fayer & Krasinski,
1987), and associate perceived disfluency with decreased competence (Dragojevic &
Giles, 2016), it stood to reason that perceptions of speakers’ linguistic characteristics
would influence their judgments. Although the combined linguistic characteristics
did not predict bias in our study, they did weakly predict discrimination: the more
speakers’ speech reflected native-like ability, the more observers’ discrimination
ability increased.
Our findings suggest that it was not merely the presence of an accent but the asso-
ciated lack of temporal fluency and comprehensibility that affected deception detec-
tion. While all predictors were positively associated with discrimination and
negatively associated with bias, lower perceived temporal fluency was most strongly
associated with poor discrimination. This is consistent with Akehurst et al. (2018),
who found that when auditory information was available to observers (vs. visual
infor-
mation only or transcript only), they were less able to detect non-native (vs. native)
speakers’ deception, suggesting that aspects of the speech signal can interfere with
deception detection. Low comprehensibility was most strongly associated with a
diminished truth bias, which is in line with the theory that when processing fluency
is hindered (e.g., by speakers’ strong accents, low temporal fluency, or incorrect lex-
icogrammar), observers may experience negative attitudes toward speakers (e.g.,
Dragojevic et al., 2017). However, the poor fit of our bias model precludes us from
drawing conclusions about this relationship relative to proficiency categories here.
We also examined whether observers’ linguistic backgrounds affected their judg-
ments. Surprisingly, perceptions of speaker comprehensibility were neither affected
by the frequency with which observers were exposed to non-native English, their
degree of familiarity with non-native English speakers, nor their experience using a
language other than English with other native speakers of that language. Although
our prediction was informed by the literature, the null finding is also supported by
several studies. For example, Powers et al. (1999) found no effect of observers’ linguis-
tic background on their understanding of non-native speech, and Munro et al. (2006)
found that observers provide similar judgments of accentedness and
comprehensibility
2 Journal of Language and Social Psychology

irrespective of observer background. Most recently, Wetzel et al. (2021) found that
accent familiarity did not affect observers’ ratings of speaker credibility.
One aspect of observers’ linguistic backgrounds that might have affected their
ratings of speech characteristics was their experience teaching English. Our results
only approached significance. It is unclear whether that was because teaching
English did not afford sufficient opportunities to learn how to identify nonstandard
speech characteristics as separate from cues to deception, or their knowledge was
spe- cific to the characteristics of the native language group they taught and did not
gener- alize to speakers in this study (who spoke a variety of native languages). Kang
(2012)
did find that experience as a language teacher accounted for some of the variance in
observers’ ratings of speaker performance, but less so than the linguistic factor of
speaker prosody. This may explain why variables other than observer characteristics
were more impactful here.

Limitations and Future Directions

Although there is a tendency in the deception detection literature to equate language
proficiency with nonoverlapping category membership, assessing linguistic compe-
tence is incredibly complex. We took a novel approach by examining perceived accent-
edness, temporal fluency, lexicogrammar, and comprehensibility. Each of these
components, however, has a multifaceted composition. Because our models did not
fit the data particularly well, there may be complex relationships or interactions
between variables requiring the inclusion of more relevant features. For instance,
fluency can be separated further into breakdown fluency (e.g., hesitation
phenomena), speed fluency (e.g., speech rate), and repair fluency (e.g., false starts,
spontaneous cor- rections; Skehan, 2003; Tavakoli & Skehan, 2005). It is also
possible that the relation-
ship between observers’ perceptions of speech is mediated, directly or indirectly, by
comprehensibility or the related concept of processing fluency (see Dragojevic,
2020). Conversely, there may be a moderated mediation path (i.e., from linguistic
speech characteristics to response bias mediated by comprehensibility and moderated
by level of proficiency). Because the factors that facilitate or impede processing
fluency could exert opposing influences on observers’ judgments, future work
should incorporate quantitative measures of individual linguistic variables and
compare the various models to explore these possibilities.
An unexpected finding was a gender difference in discrimination. Limited
research has found that female observers with higher emotional intelligence are
better able to detect deception (Wojciechowski et al., 2014); our findings are
consistent with this suggestion. Yet, gender effects are uncommon within the deception
detection literature (Aamodt & Custer, 2006; Lloyd et al., 2018; Vrij, 2008). This may
be because many studies do not incorporate signal detection to examine the effects of
gender on discrim- ination and bias separately. Additional research may be required
to determine whether the gender effect is replicable or an idiosyncrasy of our study.
We also noted that our native speaker sample was somewhat younger and more
eth- nically diverse than our non-native speaker samples. We endeavored to match
speakers
 Woolridge et 2

across demographic characteristics as much as possible; however, native speakers were

recruited from an undergraduate participant pool and tended to be younger than
speak- ers recruited elsewhere. Given that we found a significant difference in observers’
dis- crimination ability between beginner and native speakers, there is a possibility
that observers responded differently to the native speakers because they were more
diverse or younger in age. However, most research has shown that detection
accuracy is comparable across speakers, irrespective of age (Aamodt & Custer,
2006) and race or ethnicity (Bond & Atoum, 2000; Bond & DePaulo, 2006;
Matsumoto et al., 2015). Thus, it is more probable that observers were influenced by
speakers’ linguistic differ- ences between proficiency levels than their demographic
characteristics. Future work would benefit from exploring observers’ affective
reactions toward speakers’ accents, and whether perceived solidarity or accent
prestige influences deception judg- ments (e.g., Dragojevic, 2020; Dragojevic et al.,
2021).
Finally, the results of the attention check suggest that intermediate speakers performed
differently on this task than native speakers. While statistically significant, this difference
was less than one item and may not be meaningful. Although there is no clear explanation
for why this happened, speakers in all groups identified four items correctly.

Implications
Our work indicates that speech characteristics contribute to observers’ decreased
sen- sitivity to non-native (vs. native) speakers’ deception. To date, researchers have
explored several explanations for proficiency effects, including speakers’ cognitive
demands (e.g., Evans et al., 2013) and emotionality (e.g., Elliott & Leach, 2016),
and observers’ language histories (e.g., Leach et al., 2017). However, none have con-
sistently accounted for differences in judgments of native and non-native speakers.
We
argue here that it may be the information contained in speech that affects deception
detection. There has been limited prior work on the topic, and it primarily focused
on speakers’ accents only (e.g., Lev-Ari & Keysar, 2010). Our study is the first to
examine and compare multiple types of linguistic information, including temporal
fluency, lexicogrammar, and comprehensibility, in addition to accentedness. More
importantly, it suggests that these characteristics are highly related, and it is not
solely accentedness but the entirety of the speech signal and its overall coherence
that likely contributes to performance.
The existence of some proficiency effects in our study raises questions about
legal decision-makers’ abilities to detect deception fairly. Our findings suggest
that non-native speakers may be systematically disadvantaged. In the laboratory,
observers made incorrect attributions, partly because their lack of understanding
impeded their ability to reach appropriate conclusions. The same is likely to
occur in legal settings, where the consequences of errors are profound.
Approaches are urgently needed to restore equity by correcting misattributions of
non-standard characteristics, improving familiarity with non-native accents, and
facilitating overall comprehensibility (e.g., Bradlow & Bent, 2008; Gass &
Varonis, 1984; Tauroza & Luk, 1997).
2 Journal of Language and Social Psychology

Conclusion
We compared how native and non-native speech characteristics were evaluated by
observers and the extent to which observers’ perceptions influenced their abilities to
detect deception. Observers tended to perceive beginner non-native English speakers
differently than native speakers: they experienced more difficulty detecting their decep-
tion and were more likely to assume they were telling the truth. Considering the
diver-
sity of our speaker sample, this appeared to be a cross-linguistic phenomenon
whereby judgments toward low-proficiency non-native speakers were less accurate
when observers rated speakers based on linguistic speech characteristics, including
accent, fluency, lexicogrammar, and comprehensibility.
Understanding the challenges involved in making decisions about non-native
speakers is vital to improving precision when assessing non-native speakers’ decep-
tion. By examining the speech characteristics underlying language proficiency and
how they are interpreted by observers in a forensic context, this study has important
implications for identifying, interpreting, and accommodating language differences
within and outside the legal system. This work not only contributes to growing
exper- imental research on language and deception detection but also emphasizes how
linguis- tic differences can contribute to disparity within the justice system.