Deception Detection in a Computer-Mediated Environment: Gender, Trust, and Training Issues

摘要

The Department of Defense is increasingly relying on computer- mediated communications to conduct business. This reliance introduces an amplified vulnerability to strategic information manipulation, or deception. This research draws on communication and deception literature to develop a conceptual model proposing relationships between deception detection abilities in a computer-mediated environment, gender, trust, and training. An experiment was conducted with 119 communications personnel to test the proposed hypotheses. No relationship between gender or trust and deception detection accuracy was found. Partial support was found showing that training improves deception detection accuracy. The most significant finding was that individuals deception detection abilities deteriorate in lean media environments. The results showed significant differences in deception detection abilities across media types; indicating lower accuracy rates in the lean media environments (i.e. audio and text). This suggests that deception detection is more difficult when the deceptive message is presented in a lean medium such as a text only online chat, than when delivered in richer medium. Future research should be conducted to further explore this finding.