Can you see me lying? Investigating the role of deception on gaze behavior

Abstract

Throughout the early part of this century, and especially during the peak of the global pandemic of 2020, the world has come to rely increasingly on computer-mediated communication (CMC). The study of computer-based media and their role in mediating communication has long been a part of the academic study of information systems. Unfortunately, human communication, regardless of the medium over which it occurs, involves deception. Despite the growing reliance on CMC for communication, a limited amount of work has considered deception and its detection in mediated environments. The study reported here investigates the communication issues associated with cue restrictions in CMC, specifically videoconferencing, and with how these restrictions affect deception detection success. We employed eye tracking technology to analyze the visual behavior of veracity judges and how it influenced their assessments. We found that the visual foci of the judges varied as a result of the message veracity. Judges fixated longer on the mouth and torso of speakers when messages were deceptive and focused longer on the hands of the speakers when messages were truthful. We also found that fixating longer on the mouth and torso of the speakers was associated with less credible assessment of the speakers. Last, longer gaze fixations on the torso and left hand of the speakers resulted in less accurate deception detection performance.