Detecting deception In spontaneous versus rehearsed statements: Direct deception judgments for rehearsed truths fall short while affective character judgments endure

Detection deception in statements others make—whether directly or by an impression that something is off—is integral to everyday morality. Here we consider whether these statements are spontaneous or rehearsed. Participants (N = 147) watched spontaneous and rehearsed statements of liars and truth-tellers, and indicated whether they felt lied to as well as other impressions. Whereas during spontaneous statements liars came across more deceptive than truth-tellers, during rehearsed statements this distinction disappeared; rehearsed truths looked like lies. Furthermore, liars were liked less than truth-tellers irrespective of whether statements were rehearsed. This suggests that while direct veracity judgments no longer discriminate between liars and truth-tellers when statements are rehearsed, impressions of a person’s likeability remain valuable guides in social interaction.