Discriminating deceptive from truthful statements using the verifiability approach: A meta-analysis

The Verifiability Approach predicts that truth tellers will include details that can be verified by the interviewer, whereas liars will refrain from providing such details. A meta-analysis revealed that truth tellers indeed provided more verifiable details (k = 28, d = 0.49, 95% CI [0.25; 0.74], BF₁₀ = 93.28), and a higher proportion of verifiable details (k = 26, d = 0.49 95% CI: 0.25, 0.74, p <.001, BF₁₀ = 81.49) than liars. We found no evidence that liars would include more unverifiable details than truth tellers (k = 20, d = −0.31, 95% CI [−0.02; 0.64], BF₁₀ = 1.12) Moderator analysis revealed the verifiable detail effect was substantially larger when the statement is the suspect's alibi, but smaller when an incentive to appear credible was used. Our findings support the main prediction behind the Verifiability Approach, but also stress the need for larger sample sizes and independent replications.