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Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition xxx (2013) xxx– xxx

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition

jou rna l h om ep age: www.elsev ier .com/ locate / ja rmac

ow you lie affects what you remember�

athleen M. Vieira, Sean M. Lane ∗

epartment of Psychology, Louisiana State University, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o

rticle history:eceived 12 October 2012eceived in revised form 22 April 2013ccepted 26 May 2013

a b s t r a c t

We investigated how telling different types of lies may impact memory. Participants studied pictures ofobjects, and later lied and told the truth about these and new objects once or multiple times by describingthem or by denying they had seen them. Forty-eight hours later, participants were tested on their source

vailable online xxx

eywords:eceptionource memory

memory. Results revealed that participants had good memory for having falsely described a never-seenobject, but relatively poor memory for having falsely denied seeing a studied object. These results suggestthat telling certain types of lies may make a person more likely to forget having lied. In addition, repeatedtruthful denials of having seen a picture paradoxically increased false memories for having seen it. Thus,telling the truth does not always prevent the possibility of memory distortion.

© 2013 Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. Published by Elsevier Inc.

alse memory

“A liar should have a good memory.” Quintilian, Roman orator(1856/2006; Book 4, Chapter 2)

It takes effort to lie and escape detection (e.g., Vrij & Granhag,012), regardless of whether one is misleading a friend or fabricat-

ng an alibi during an interview to evade arrest. For both theoreticalnd applied reasons, researchers have been interested in the cogni-ive and social processes involved in constructing lies, particularlyhether these processes produce cues that might enable people toiscriminate lying from truth-telling (for reviews, see DePaulo et al.,003; Sporer & Schwandt, 2007; Vrij, Granhag, & Porter, 2010). Inther words, research has focused primarily on the extent to whichhe products of lying might be used as a tool to catch liars. Theseame constructive processes, however, can also influence the con-ent of liars’ memories for the occasions when they lied as well as

emories of the original experience (e.g., Johnson, Hashtroudi, &indsay, 1993). Importantly, the accessibility of this information atater points in time (e.g., during a second interview or upon encoun-ering a friend again) can affect whether a liar remembers lying,ith predictable consequences if he or she does not. In the follow-

ng study, we examine whether the way people lie or tell the truthbout a previous experience influences the accuracy with which

Please cite this article in press as: Vieira, K. M., & Lane, S.M. How you lie afCognition (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2013.05.005

hey can later remember what they did.Lying involves willfully generating false information in an

ttempt to deceive another (Zuckerman, DePaulo, & Rosenthal,

� We sincerely thank Jason Hicks and Robert Mathews for their comments anduggestions on an earlier version of this manuscript. K.V.’s work on this project wasunded by a Huel D. Perkins Fellowship awarded by Louisiana State University.∗ Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, 236 Audubon Hall,

ouisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70810, United States.E-mail address: slane@lsu.edu (S.M. Lane).

211-3681/$ – see front matter © 2013 Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2013.05.005

All rights reserved.

1981). Furthermore, the act of lying is rarely a one-time event. Forexample, it is common for suspects in forensic investigations tobe interviewed on multiple occasions (e.g., Kassin et al., 2007). Inaddition, people who are being deceitful may tell the truth aboutsome aspects of an event, lie about other aspects, and not talk atall about others (for an example, see Vrij & Mann, 2001). Thus,people who have lied often have a memory of the original eventas well as memories of subsequent occasions when they talkedabout it, truthfully or untruthfully. The ability of people to distin-guish the origin of different information in memory is called sourcemonitoring, and the processes involved in doing so have been arti-culated in the source monitoring framework (SMF, e.g., Johnsonet al., 1993). This framework posits that memories contain featuresthat represent the conditions under which they were encoded (e.g.,perceptual, contextual and affective details, cognitive operations).Different sources of information will typically have different asso-ciated features. For example, internally generated memories (e.g.,thoughts, images) will have more information about the cognitiveoperations involved in producing them, and externally generatedmemories (e.g., perceived events) will have more associated con-textual, sensory, and semantic details. These average differencescan be used to make a source decision. When people’s memories donot contain these characteristic features or a person fails to accessthem, source-monitoring errors can occur. For example, someonecan come to believe that an imagined event actually occurred ifhis or her memory contains vivid perceptual detail from the gen-erated image and little information about the cognitive operationsinvolved. Viewed through this lens, the act of lying may produce

fects what you remember. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and

features that both help and hinder accurate source monitoring andthis may vary according to the type of lie that is told. For example,invented stories require the generation of perceptual and contex-tual details to appear plausible. Although such features are shared

ition. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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ith memories of actual experiences, such a lie could also increaseemory for the cognitive operations involved or the intention to

ie. If these types of features are available at the time of a sourceonitoring judgment, one would expect improved memory for

ying.Although the research literature on factors affecting memory

rrors is vast (e.g., eyewitness suggestibility; Loftus, Miller, & Burns,978; Zaragoza & Lane, 1994; for a general review, see e.g., Schacter,999), relatively few studies have directly examined the effectf deliberate lying on memory (e.g., Pickel, 2004; Polage, 2004,012).1 For example, Polage (2004) examined how lying affected

udgments about the plausibility of autobiographical events. Par-icipants began by rating the likelihood of occurrence of varioushildhood events using the Life Events Inventory (LEI). From theseata, she identified two critical events that participants had rated asery unlikely to have happened, as well as other events participantsere confident had happened. Participants were instructed to lie

bout one of the critical events by creating a false description ando truthfully describe other events that did occur. After repeatedessions, participants took a final LEI. Polage found that lying about

false childhood event decreased confidence that the event hadappened, and that this was especially true for participants whoemembered lying (measured by a separate questionnaire).2 Thus,his finding suggests that lying creates features (e.g., cognitiveperations) that assist source-monitoring accuracy. This conclu-ion is further supported by later research (Polage, 2012; Exp. 2),hich showed that increasing the availability of cognitive opera-

ions information at test – by administering the LEI immediatelyfter lying instead of after a delay – decreased confidence that theabricated memory had occurred.

The current study extends previous research on the impact ofying on source monitoring (e.g., Polage, 2004, 2012) in a number of

ays. First, we manipulated the type of lie told by participants, suchhat they lied both by falsely describing some things they had noteen (as in past research) and by denying having seen other thingshey had actually viewed. Although lying is generally considered

ore cognitively demanding than telling the truth (see Vrij et al.,010 for review), some lies may be more cognitively demandingo produce than others (e.g., DePaulo et al., 2003; Vrij & Heaven,999). In the case of false descriptions, people are likely to relyeavily on executive processes and long-term memory in order to

Please cite this article in press as: Vieira, K. M., & Lane, S.M. How you lie afCognition (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2013.05.005

roduce a realistic characterization that is consistent with the con-traints of the situation (e.g., Sporer & Schwandt, 2007; Walczyk,oper, Seeman, & Humphrey, 2003). In contrast, lying by denial is

1 Research on forced fabrication (e.g., Ackil & Zaragoza, 1998; Chrobak & Zaragoza,008) is clearly related to our work, but differs in an important respect. In the fabri-ation paradigm, participants see an event and are later forced to answer questionshat are unanswerable (i.e., questions whose answers require knowledge of detailshat were never actually seen in the original event), and consequently must fabricateheir answers. On a later test, participants are more likely to misattribute their ownabricated details to the original event than control details (for a review see Chrobak

Zaragoza, 2008). In contrast, in studies on lying (e.g., Polage, 2004), participantseliberately produce false information in an attempt to deceive another person.

ntentional lying could lead participants to create more vivid or plausible descrip-ions. Furthermore, participants in forced fabrication research may not always beware that the responses they are providing are actually false.2 This finding seemingly contradicts the results of research on imagination infla-

ion (e.g., Garry, Manning, Loftus, & Sherman, 1996), which finds that false memoriesypically increase after repeated imagination. The difference appears to hinge on theact that Polage’s (2004) participants had very good memory for having lied about thearget event (relative to participants’ memory for having imagined events in imagi-ation inflation studies). Polage argued that lying repeatedly appeared to strengthenemory for the cognitive operations involves in producing the lie. Participants were

hus able to use this information to attribute any familiarity or other evidence ofrior experience (e.g., perceptual or contextual details) associated with the memorys having been the result of lying. Consistent with this interpretation, participantsith poor memory for lying were more likely to have increased confidence in the

ccurrence of lied-about memories.

PRESSn Memory and Cognition xxx (2013) xxx– xxx

less likely to tax these processes and would typically be less effort-ful to produce. This is particularly likely to be true when denials arebrief, a common situation when a suspect is exposed to accusatory-style interviewing (e.g., Vrij & Granhag, 2012). In the context ofSMF (Johnson et al., 1993), this suggests that falsely describing anitem one did not see would increase memory for lying because itenhances the availability of the cognitive operations involved inconstructing the description. However, if a person fails to remem-ber constructing the description, false memory could be increasedbecause the construction process enhances perceptual and contex-tual features consistent with the item’s actual presentation (forsimilar arguments about the impact of elaboration, see Lane &Zaragoza, 2007). Comparatively, denying that one had seen a pre-viously viewed item should result in a memory representation thatcontains less evidence of the cognitive operations involved, lead-ing to poorer memory for lying. Furthermore, the impact of falsedenials on memory for previously viewing an item should be rela-tively modest, as such denials do not require extensive reactivationof the original memory compared to truthful descriptions.3

Second, in contrast to Polage (2004, 2012), we explicitly manip-ulated the number of times participants lied or told the truth.One reason for doing so concerns the fact that repeated ques-tioning is common during forensic interrogations and interviews(Fisher, 1995). Furthermore, repetition has been shown to exert animportant influence in theoretical memory research (e.g., Zaragoza& Mitchell, 1996). According to SMF, repetition should increasesource accuracy for the rehearsal activity (describing or denying)because memory for cognitive operations should be enhanced.In contrast, the impact of repetition on attributions to the studyphase is less straightforward. There are two situations whereincreased errors could be observed. Repeated false descriptionscould increase false claims of having studied the item because theperceptual details generated during the descriptions could be takenas evidence of having seen the object (e.g., Zaragoza & Mitchell,1996) if participants do not recollect that the details were gener-ated as part of a false description. Repeated truthful denials areunlikely to lead to the generation of misleading perceptual details,but repetition is likely to increase the fluency or familiarity associ-ated with the item. If such fluency is not accompanied by memoryfor having denied seeing the item, this could increase erroneousclaims of having studied it (e.g., the illusory truth effect, Begg, Anas,& Farinacci, 1992). Because memory for denials is expected to bepoor in our study, we expect that false memories are more likely tobe increased by repeated denials than by repeated descriptions.

Third, the general design of our research examines the effects oflying on source memory more precisely than prior research (Polage,2004, 2012). For instance, our source-monitoring test explicitlyqueries participants about their memory for the original presen-tation and for the activities in a subsequent “interview,” whereasPolage evaluated memory for the event using LEI change scoresand memory for lying in a separate questionnaire. Explicit sourcetests generally enhance the degree to which participants systemat-ically evaluate their memory for source information (e.g., Zaragoza

fects what you remember. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and

& Lane, 1994). In addition, Polage (2004) examined source mem-ory for a single fabricated autobiographical event, and thus mayhave made it easier for participants to identify which event they

3 Other research suggests that denial could possibly impair memory for hav-ing seen the item (e.g., Anderson & Green, 2001; Christianson & Bylin, 1999; VanOorsouw & Merckelbach, 2004). For example, participants in simulated amnesiaresearch pretend that they do not remember details of an event and consequentlyshow worse memory for that event than participants who describe the event truth-fully (e.g., Van Oorsouw & Merckelbach, 2004; for related findings, see research usingthe think/no think paradigm, Anderson & Green, 2001). However, as will be seen,we did not find any evidence that false denials harmed memory for having studiedthe item relative to a no rehearsal control condition.

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ied about. In our design, participants lie and tell the truth aboutultiple items, with equal numbers of items in each category.In the current study, we compared the impact of telling differ-

nt types of lies (i.e., falsely describing unstudied items and falselyenying having seen studied items) and truths (i.e., truthfully deny-

ng seeing unstudied items and truthfully describing studied items)n source memory. We also assessed the impact of repetition.here were three phases: a study phase, a rehearsal phase, and

test phase. During the study phase, participants viewed a seriesf pictures of objects with object labels. In the rehearsal phase, allarticipants lied about some items and told the truth about oth-rs by describing the pictures or by denying they had seen them.tems were rehearsed (i.e., lied or told the truth about) once orhrice. Participants were videotaped while they provided their ver-al responses. Participants returned two days later and completed

source memory test for Session 1 information (i.e., whether itemsere studied or not, whether items were rehearsed or not, and if

ehearsed, how so). The test included a set of control items that didot appear during the rehearsal phase.

Consistent with the arguments of SMF (e.g., Johnson et al.,993), it was predicted that participants would be more likely toemember having lied by falsely describing an unstudied objecthan to remember having lied by falsely denying seeing a stud-ed object. This hypothesis is based on the assumption that lyingy describing involves greater effort and constructive processinguch that participants should have better memory for the cogni-ive operations involved than when they lie by denying. A secondypothesis is that repetition will increase source memory for theehearsal activity (describing or denying) because encoding of cog-itive operations should be enhanced. For the reasons articulatedbove, we also hypothesized that repetition of truthful denials (anderhaps repeated false descriptions) would increase false attribu-ions to the study phase.

. Method

.1. Participants

Twenty-four undergraduate students (19 females) participatedor course credit.

.2. Materials

Stimuli were pictures of simple objects (e.g., a teacup, Brady,onkle, Alvarez, & Oliva, 2008). A camcorder recorded participants’erbal responses during the rehearsal phase in Session 1.

.3. Design and procedure

The study was divided into three phases: study, rehearsal, andest. Participants were run individually across two sessions. Beforehe study phase, participants were told that they would view pic-ures on the computer screen and that they would be tested onhem later. They then viewed a series of 24 pictures (plus two pic-ures that were later used as practice items), each appearing for000 ms with a 1000 ms ISI. An item label (e.g., apple) appearednder each picture. Participants then immediately started theehearsal phase, which began with four practice trials. Participantsere told they would lie and tell the truth about a number of

bjects, including some they had just seen and others they hadot, while being video recorded. Their goal was to make theiresponses as believable as possible, as other people would later

Please cite this article in press as: Vieira, K. M., & Lane, S.M. How you lie afCognition (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2013.05.005

atch their video footage and the participant rated most believ-ble would earn a $50 award. More specifically, they were told that

series of labels would appear on the computer screen namingtems that had appeared in the study phase (studied items) and

PRESSn Memory and Cognition xxx (2013) xxx– xxx 3

items that had not appeared (unstudied items). Under each labelwere instructions to lie or tell the truth by describing the corre-sponding picture or by denying they had seen the correspondingpicture. Thus, participants would see the instructions on the com-puter screen for each item, and then turn directly to the camerato provide a response. During the rehearsal phase, each participantreceived eight studied truth-describe, studied lie-deny, unstudiedtruth-deny, and unstudied lie-describe items. Half of the items ofeach type appeared once during the rehearsal phase; the otherhalf appeared thrice. Participants were instructed to keep theirresponses consistent for these repeated items. There were also twotypes of control items that did not appear during the rehearsalphase but were on the final source test. These items had eitherbeen viewed in the study phase (studied no rehearsal items) orhad not been viewed (unstudied no rehearsal items). Across theexperiment, each item appeared equally often as each item type.After completing the rehearsal phase and answering post-sessionquestions (including rating the difficulty of responding for eachitem type, e.g., “On a scale of 1–7, how difficult was it to truthfullydescribe an item?”), participants were dismissed.

Forty-eight hours later participants returned for the test phase,during which they completed a 48-item source test. A series oflabels naming both studied and unstudied pictures appeared onthe screen. For each label, participants chose one of six responseoptions that best described their memory: (1) I studied this itembut falsely denied seeing it on camera, (2) I studied this item andtruthfully described it on camera, (3) I studied this item but did nottalk about it on camera, (4) I did not study this item and truthfullydenied seeing it on camera, (5) I did not study this item but falselydescribed it on camera, and (6) I did not study this item and didnot talk about it on camera. There were eight test items that cor-responded to each response option (i.e., “source”). Response timewas recorded. It was also emphasized that responses during Session2 should be completely truthful. After completing the source test,participants took a cued recall test. Because this measure does notconcern the primary focus of this paper, we do not report these datahere.

2. Results

2.1. Effects on rated difficulty

To test the assumption that it is more cognitively demandingto describe a picture than to deny having seen it, we had partic-ipants rate the difficulty of each type of response on a 1–7 scaleafter completing the rehearsal phase. A 2 (Veracity: Lie, Truth) × 2(Rehearsal Type: Deny, Describe) repeated measures ANOVA wasconducted on reported difficulty. There was a significant maineffect of Rehearsal Type, F(1, 23) = 23.10, p < .001, �2

p = .50. As pre-dicted, participants rated describing (M = 3.94, SE = .30) as moredifficult than denying (M = 2.10, SE = .26). No other effects weresignificant.

2.2. Effects on source memory

Source test responses were considered accurate if the partici-pant correctly categorized what happened with that item in boththe study and rehearsal phases (e.g., a studied lie-deny once itemthat was classified as “I studied this item but falsely denied seeing iton camera”). See the Appendix for descriptive statistics of accurateand inaccurate responses for each item type.

fects what you remember. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and

To compare source test accuracy for the different item types,a 2 (Veracity: Lie, Truth) × 2 (Rehearsal Type: Deny, Describe) × 2(Repetition: Once, Thrice) repeated measures ANOVA was con-ducted on the mean proportion of accurate source test responses

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Fig. 1. Mean proportion of correct source responses for each item type. Error barsrepresent mean standard errors.

Table 1Mean proportion of claimed studied responses for each item type.

Item type Mean SE

HitsStudied lie-deny once .74 .05Studied lie-deny thrice .75 .06Studied truth-describe once .90 .03Studied truth-describe thrice .89 .05Studied no rehearsal .53 .04

False alarmsUnstudied truth-deny once .11 .03Unstudied truth-deny thrice .28 .05Unstudied lie-describe once .13 .04Unstudied lie-describe thrice .10 .04Unstudied no rehearsal .09 .03

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ote. SE: standard error. “Studied” responses are collapsed across source attributionsbout the rehearsal phase (i.e., “I studied this item . . .but falsely denied seeing it”;and truthfully described it on camera”; or “but did not talk about it on camera”).

or all item types that were rehearsed. As shown in Fig. 1, thereas a main effect of Rehearsal Type, F(1, 23) = 243.98, p < .001,

2p = .91. Consistent with predictions, source accuracy was signif-

cantly higher for described items (M = .80, SE = .03) than deniedtems (M = .23, SE = .03). There was also a main effect of Repetition,(1, 23) = 8.06, p = .009, �2

p = .26. Accuracy was significantly higheror thrice rehearsed items (M = .59, SE = .04) than for once rehearsedtems (M = .45, SE = .03). The main effect of Veracity was not signifi-ant (M = .52 for both lies and truth-telling, F < 1, �2

p ≈ .0001).4 Nonef the interactions were statistically significant (All Fs < 1.94).

.3. Effects on memory for pictures

We also examined the impact of the manipulated variables onarticipants’ memory for having studied a picture, regardless ofheir memory for whether and how the item was later rehearsed.articipants’ responses were categorized as “studied” or “unstud-ed” by collapsing across source judgments about rehearsal (e.g.,esponses of “I studied this item but falsely denied seeing it onamera”, “I studied this item and truthfully described it on cam-

Please cite this article in press as: Vieira, K. M., & Lane, S.M. How you lie afCognition (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2013.05.005

ra”, and “I studied this item but did not talk about it on camera”ere collapsed into one “studied” response category). See Table 1

or descriptive statistics.

4 Although there was no effect of veracity on source accuracy, participantsere significantly slower to make decisions about items that had been lied about

M = 5821.16, SE = 292.13) than items that were truthfully rehearsed (M = 4878.69,E = 280.58), F(1, 23) = 25.33, p < .001, �2

p = .52.

PRESSn Memory and Cognition xxx (2013) xxx– xxx

We first examined the effect of rehearsal on recognition of stud-ied items (i.e., hits). A one-way repeated measures ANOVA wasconducted to compare the effect of each studied item type (studiedlie-deny once, studied lie-deny thrice, studied truth-describe once,studied truth-describe thrice, and studied no rehearsal items) onthe mean proportion of “studied” responses. There was a signifi-cant effect of item type, F(4, 92) = 13.35, p < .001, �2

p = .37. We thenconducted Bonferroni-corrected follow-up paired sample t-tests toanswer two questions. First, we compared performance in each ofthe four studied item types to studied no-rehearsal control itemsto determine if rehearsal enhanced recognition (see top sectionof Table 1). All comparisons were significant (p < .01), suggestingthat rehearsal (regardless of type) increased recognition of stud-ied items. Second, we examined the impact of type of rehearsalon memory for studied items by collapsing across repetition. Par-ticipants were more likely to remember studied items that werelater truthfully described (M = .89, SE = .03) than studied items thatwere later falsely denied (M = .74, SE = .05), t(23) = −3.34, p = .003.Thus, although denying having seen an object enhanced recogni-tion more than not rehearsing it, it benefited performance less thandescribing it. However, as detailed below, repeated truthful denialsalso increased false alarms.

We next examined the effect of rehearsal on false recognition ofunstudied items (i.e., false alarms). A one-way repeated measuresANOVA was conducted to compare the effect of each unstudieditem type on the mean proportion of “studied” responses. There wasa significant effect of Item Type,5 F(2.80, 64.36) = 4.97, p = .004, �2

p =.18. We again used Bonferroni-corrected comparisons to followup these findings. First, we compared performance for each of thefour rehearsed unstudied item types to the unstudied no-rehearsalcontrol items to determine if rehearsal increased false recognition(see bottom section of Table 1). Results revealed only one signif-icant comparison. False recognition was significantly greater forunstudied truth-deny thrice items (M = .28) than for unstudied no-rehearsal items (M = .09), t(23) = 3.20, p = .004. We also contrastedperformance in the unstudied truth-deny once and thrice items in afinal t-test to clarify the role of repetition. Participants were signif-icantly more likely to falsely recognize an unstudied item that hadbeen truthfully denied three times than when it had been truthfullydenied once (M = .11), t(23) = −4.00, p = .001. Thus, repeated truth-ful denials of having seen unstudied items paradoxically increasedfalse recognition 48-h later.

3. Discussion

When people lie about a previous experience, they can later befaced with a situation where they need to answer two questionsabout their memory to avoid discovery: What was my originalexperience? Did I lie or tell the truth about it previously? Theresults of the current study suggest that the type of lie that is toldcan affect the accuracy of these judgments. As predicted, lies thatinvolved participants denying seeing something they did see weremore poorly remembered than lies that involved describing some-thing they did not see. In accordance with SMF (e.g., Johnson et al.,1993), we argue that the constructive processes involved in fabri-cating descriptions resulted in greater evidence of these cognitiveoperations in memory than was the case for denials, and partic-ipants were able to use this information to accurately remember

fects what you remember. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and

lying despite the fact the descriptions also included potentially con-fusable perceptual details (see also Polage, 2012). These findings,along with other research examining different types of lies (e.g.,

5 Mauchly’s Test of Sphericity indicated that the assumption of sphericity hadbeen violated, �2(9) = 17.59, p = .041. Therefore, degrees of freedom were correctedusing Greenhouse–Geisser estimates of sphericity (ε = 0.7).

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anis, Morris, & Kosslyn, 2008; Vrij & Heaven, 1999), suggest thatesearchers should take into account the variability of lies whentudying deception.

Our results also revealed that repeated denials can affect mem-ry. In particular, we found that repeated truthful denials had thearadoxical impact of later increasing incorrect claims of havingeen the pictures. We believe our results suggest that repetitionncreased the fluency of the denied items which, paired with poor

emory for the source of this fluency, led to false recognition. Thisxplanation is consistent with the literature on fluency effects inemory (e.g., Begg et al., 1992; Jacoby, Woloshyn, & Kelley, 1989),

lthough it is possible that incidental imagery generated duringhe denial may also contribute to this finding (e.g., Zaragoza & Lane,994). In contrast, repeated false descriptions did not increase falseemories of the pictures. Although false descriptions might have

ncreased the availability of perceptual details in memory, this didot increase errors because participants also had good memory forenerating the false description after the retention interval used inhis study. Prior research suggests that a longer delay could leado greater forgetting of the cognitive operations involved in creat-ng the lie, and thus increase source misattributions (e.g., Manning,000; Polage, 2012).

.1. Practical applications

We acknowledge the differences between our experimental tasknd the complex, dynamic situations that occur in the interviewoom. Nevertheless, we believe there are some practical implica-ions. First, our manipulation of type of lying involves two poleslong a continuum – a brief denial versus a more elaborate falseescription. Brief denials are thought to be more common inccusatory interviews (e.g., Vrij & Granhag, 2012), and in such cases,

Please cite this article in press as: Vieira, K. M., & Lane, S.M. How you lie afCognition (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2013.05.005

ur results suggest that liars are more likely to forget their previousenials during subsequent interviews than to forget their fabri-ated descriptions. This forgetting may provide an opportunity for

Item type Response options

“I studied this itembut falsely deniedseeing it oncamera”

“I studied this itemand truthfullydescribed it oncamera”

“I studiebut did nabout it

Studied lie-deny once .18 (.03) .03 (.02) .53 (.05Studied lie-deny thrice .35 (.07) .05 (.03) .34 (.05Studied truth-describe once .04 (.02) .81 (.04) .04 (.02Studied truth-describe thrice .02 (.02) .85 (.06) .01 (.01Studied no rehearsal .02 (.01) .01 (.01) .51 (.04Unstudied truth-deny once .01 (.01) .00 (.00) .10 (.03Unstudied truth-deny thrice .06 (.03) .00 (.00) .22 (.06Unstudied lie-describe once .02 (.01) .05 (.02) .05 (.02Unstudied lie-describe thrice .03 (.02) .07 (.04) .00 (.00Unstudied no rehearsal .01 (.01) .01 (.01) .08 (.03

Note. Values for accurate source responses are in boldface type. Standard errors are in p

PRESSn Memory and Cognition xxx (2013) xxx– xxx 5

investigators to catch liars’ inconsistencies. Yet, denials will notalways be short and succinct. To the extent that the interviewerrequires elaboration of denials, our results suggest that memory forhaving lied should improve. One potential criticism of our proce-dure is that although participants were motivated to tell believablelies, these lies were not “high-stakes.” Although this could bean area for future research, we believe that although such con-sequences might enhance memory for lies more generally (e.g.,through heightened arousal), they are unlikely to do so differen-tially for false denials and descriptions. Second, our results suggestthe potential dangers of requiring repeated denials from truthfulinterviewees. In particular, these interviewees could end up devel-oping a false memory of a never-seen detail. Indeed, such a processmight contribute to false confessions in that someone might, overtime, begin to question whether he or she was involved in a crime(for a similar suggestion, see Henkel & Coffman, 2004). Thus, tellingthe truth does not always prevent memory distortion. Our resultsalso suggest this type of error would be most likely to occur ininterviews where brief denials are allowed.

3.2. Conclusion

Our results join those of other researchers in suggesting that theact of lying does indeed affect memory in consequential ways (e.g.,Pickel, 2004; Polage, 2004, 2012). However, the characteristics oflying in forensic and everyday situations vary quite dramaticallywith respect to content, type, context, and degree of consequence.Thus, more research is needed, for example, to understand thememorial effects of different types of lies (e.g., self-related versusother-related lies; see Ganis et al., 2008). Regardless of its earlystage, we believe that examining lying’s influence on memory cancontribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the cog-nitive processes that underlie lying, and help those tasked withdistinguishing liars from truth-tellers.

Appendix.

Mean proportion of source responses for each item type.

d this itemot talk

on camera”

“I did not study thisitem and truthfullydenied seeing it oncamera”

“I did not study thisitem but falselydescribed it oncamera”

“I did not study thisitem and did nottalk about it oncamera”

) .08 (.03) .02 (.01) .16 (.04)) .09 (.04) .00 (.00) .16 (.04)) .00 (.00) .09 (.03) .01 (.01)) .00 (.00) .08 (.04) .03 (.03)) .03 (.01) .03 (.01) .41 (.04)) .13 (.04) .00 (.00) .76 (.05)) .28 (.06) .02 (.01) .42 (.06)

fects what you remember. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and

) .06 (.03) .68 (.07) .14 (.05)) .01 (.01) .85 (.06) .03 (.03)) .04 (.02) .01 (.01) .86 (.04)

arentheses.

ING Model

J

6 earch i

R

A

A

B

B

C

C

D

F

G

G

H

J

J

K

L

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