The DOI matches its Crossref record; 43 of the 43 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Cognitive mechanisms underlying lying to questions: response time as a cue to deception
Abstract
In this article, a model of the cognitive processes involved in generating deceptive answers to questions is proposed. Partly based on recent accounts of discourse processing, it posits two central processes. One is the decision to lie followed by the construction of a lie. Each should add to response time compared to answering honestly. In Experiment 1, the construction component was assessed; 92 adults were randomly assigned to one of two conditions where they answered personal questions either deceptively or truthfully. Constructing a lie added reliably to response time. Think‐aloud and correlational data support features of the model. In Experiment 2, 121 adults were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: either to tell the truth, lie, or lie when asked a question that probed sensitive information. Replicating and extending Experiment 1, the decision to lie added reliably to response time in the case of open‐ended questions (questions that elicit more than two possible answers). Based on between‐ and within‐subjects comparisons, results suggest that response time is a cue to deception. Recommendations are made for future research. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
James, W. (1913) · Henry Holt and Company eBooks · doi:10.1037/11059-000 · Cited by 25,226
Statistical Methods for Psychology.
Gudgeon, A. C., & Howell, D. C. (1994) · The Statistician · doi:10.2307/2348956 · Cited by 8,278
Baddeley, A. (1992) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1736359 · Cited by 5,258
(1998) · Cited by 4,875
Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic memory.
Tulving, E., & Thomson, D. M. (1973) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/h0020071 · Cited by 4,540
Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data
Venkatesan, M., Ericsson, K. A., & Simon, H. A. (1986) · Journal of Marketing Research · doi:10.2307/3151491 · Cited by 4,347
(1904) · The American Journal of Psychology · doi:10.2307/1412635 · Cited by 4,187
Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data
Ericsson, K. A., & Simon, H. A. (1993) · doi:10.7551/mitpress/5657.001.0001 · Cited by 3,537
Ericsson, K. A., & Kintsch, W. (1995) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.102.2.211 · Cited by 3,498
Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1991) · Cited by 2,339
Cited by
Pitfalls and Opportunities in Nonverbal and Verbal Lie Detection
Vrij, A., Granhag, P. A., & Porter, S. (2010) · Psychological Science in the Public Interest · doi:10.1177/1529100610390861 · Cited by 522
Vrij, A., Mann, S. A., Fisher, R. P., Leal, S., Milne, R., & Bull, R. (2008) · Law and Human Behavior · doi:10.1007/s10979-007-9103-y · Cited by 498
Deception and Cognitive Load: Expanding Our Horizon with a Working Memory Model
Sporer, S. L. (2016) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00420 · Cited by 107
Theory of mind, executive function, and lying in children: a meta‐analysis
Sai, L., Shang, S., Tay, C., Liu, X., Sheng, T., Fu, G., Ding, X. P., & Lee, K. (2021) · Developmental Science · doi:10.1111/desc.13096 · Cited by 74
Metadata
- Authors
- Walczyk, J. J., Roper, K. S., Seemann, E., & Humphrey, A. M.
- Venue
- Applied Cognitive Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2003-11
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 755-774
- ISSN
- 0888-4080 (ISSN-L)
- 1099-0720
- OpenAlex
- W2003632881
- Cited by
- 335
- References
- 43
- FWCI
- 4.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Cognitive mechanisms underlying lying to questions: response time as a cue to deception. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1002/acp.914
- The paper
- Walczyk, J. J., Roper, K. S., Seemann, E., & Humphrey, A. M. (2003). Cognitive mechanisms underlying lying to questions: response time as a cue to deception. Applied Cognitive Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.914
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
