TY - JOUR
T1 - Less is more? Detecting lies in veiled witnesses
AU - Leach, Amy May
AU - Ammar, Nawal
AU - England, D. Nicole
AU - Remigio, Laura M.
AU - Kleinberg, Bennett
AU - Verschuere, Bruno J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant 430-2011-0407 to Amy-May Leach and Nawal Ammar. We also thank Brian Cutler for his comments on the manuscript.
PY - 2016/8/1
Y1 - 2016/8/1
N2 - Judges in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada have ruled that witnesses may not wear the niqab - a type of face veil - when testifying, in part because they believed that it was necessary to see a person's face to detect deception (Muhammad v. Enterprise Rent-A-Car, 2006; R. v. N. S., 2010; The Queen v. D(R), 2013). In two studies, we used conventional research methods and safeguards to empirically examine the assumption that niqabs interfere with lie detection. Female witnesses were randomly assigned to lie or tell the truth while remaining unveiled or while wearing a hijab (i.e., a head veil) or a niqab (i.e., a face veil). In Study 1, laypersons in Canada (N = 232) were more accurate at detecting deception in witnesses who wore niqabs or hijabs than in those who did not wear veils. Concealing portions of witnesses' faces led laypersons to change their decision-making strategies without eliciting negative biases. Lie detection results were partially replicated in Study 2, with laypersons in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands (N = 291): observers' performance was better when witnesses wore either niqabs or hijabs than when witnesses did not wear veils. These findings suggest that, contrary to judicial opinion, niqabs do not interfere with - and may, in fact, improve - the ability to detect deception.
AB - Judges in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada have ruled that witnesses may not wear the niqab - a type of face veil - when testifying, in part because they believed that it was necessary to see a person's face to detect deception (Muhammad v. Enterprise Rent-A-Car, 2006; R. v. N. S., 2010; The Queen v. D(R), 2013). In two studies, we used conventional research methods and safeguards to empirically examine the assumption that niqabs interfere with lie detection. Female witnesses were randomly assigned to lie or tell the truth while remaining unveiled or while wearing a hijab (i.e., a head veil) or a niqab (i.e., a face veil). In Study 1, laypersons in Canada (N = 232) were more accurate at detecting deception in witnesses who wore niqabs or hijabs than in those who did not wear veils. Concealing portions of witnesses' faces led laypersons to change their decision-making strategies without eliciting negative biases. Lie detection results were partially replicated in Study 2, with laypersons in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands (N = 291): observers' performance was better when witnesses wore either niqabs or hijabs than when witnesses did not wear veils. These findings suggest that, contrary to judicial opinion, niqabs do not interfere with - and may, in fact, improve - the ability to detect deception.
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U2 - 10.1037/lhb0000189
DO - 10.1037/lhb0000189
M3 - Article
C2 - 27348716
AN - SCOPUS:84975767864
VL - 40
SP - 401
EP - 410
JO - Law and Human Behavior
JF - Law and Human Behavior
SN - 0147-7307
IS - 4
ER -