Deception detection: State of the art and future prospects

Background: Deception detection has been a longstanding concern throughout human history. It has also interested scientists, who have explored psychological and behavioral differences between liars and truth tellers, as well as ways to improve detection accuracy. Method: In recent years, substantial advances have been made in the field. Some of these advances are briefly reviewed in the current article. Results: A description is provided of (a) research and contemporary theories on how people (try to) detect deception; (b) recent advances on strategic interviewing to detect deception; (c) the integrative findings of recent meta-analyses on systematic verbal lie detection approaches; and (d) several important aspects concerning psychophysiological detection of deception. Also, some emerging trends and research needs for the future are outlined at the end of the article. Conclusions: Deception detection research is a lively and dynamic area of applied psychology that has experienced substantial developments in recent times. Much (though not all) of these research efforts have focused on developing empirically-based lie-detection procedures to be used by practitioners (e.g., the police) in applied settings. A number of new topics are just starting to be examined. These novel research avenues will surely yield interesting new findings in the future.