Special Issue: Deception Detection: Advances in Forensic Psychology
Original Articles and Reviews
Preventing Future Crimes
Identifying Markers of True and False Intent
Pär Anders Granhag1,2 and Erik Mac Giolla1
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1
University of Gothenburg, Sweden, 2Norwegian Police University College, Oslo, Norway
Abstract. This review paper examines the growing body of research on the psycholegal study of true and false intentions – a typically neglected area within the field of
deception detection. The extant studies are thematically grouped into four main
topics: (i) physiological measures; (ii) implicit measures; (iii) strategic interviewing; and
(iv) studies examining episodic future thought (EFT) and mental images. The benefits
and limitations, and underlying theory of the respective approaches are discussed. The
paper also provides a note on relevant theory, specific for intention research, and
recommendations for future research directions. Findings from experimental research
are related to the applied context.
Keywords: true and false intent, deception detection, strategic interviewing, episodic
future thought (EFT)
PreCrime in Washington, DC is a specialized police unit
which apprehends criminals before executing their attacks.
This highly successful unit acts on reports based on psychics’ foreknowledge of criminals’ intentions. This sounds
too good to be true, and it is. Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi classic, Minority Report, is set in the year 2054 and until then
(if not longer) we need to look in other directions for
knowledge on how to stop crimes before they are
committed.
Here we present a review of the empirical research
which has examined the psycho-legal study of true and
false intentions. True and false intentions have been
addressed in related areas of research including economical
modeling (Crawford, 2003) and military studies (Donald &
Herbig, 1981). However, despite the popularity of deception detection in forensic research, it is only in recent years
that focus has turned to statements concerning future, rather
than past, events. This is quite remarkable considering the
societal value of being able to distinguish between true
and false intent. In brief, such capabilities offer a means
of crime prevention not typically associated with deception
research. Consider for example the ‘‘liquid bomb plot,’’ an
extensive undercover operation in 2006 that resulted in the
apprehension of over 20 men in and around London. The
men were accused of having planned to use liquid bombs
– hidden in soft drink bottles – to attack seven airliners
bound from Heathrow Airport to cities in North America.
Intent was at the core of this case: First, during the surveillance operation (e.g., which intentions could be predicted
from the men’s planning activities?); and second, during
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the lengthy judicial process that followed the arrests (e.g.,
how to assess whether the intentions stated by the suspects
in court were truthful or deceptive? Needless to say, the
intentions stated by the suspects differed from the intentions
claimed by the prosecuting team). This example clearly
highlights potential areas where research on true and false
intent is of crucial value. With that said, the question of
how to approach this topic remains open, especially when
one considers that a term like intentions has many definitions and many important relationships to legal contexts.
The first wave of studies on true and false intentions has
largely followed the research guidelines set out by Granhag
(2010). Granhag acknowledges the possible depth and
breadth of a fully fledged research program on intentions,
but recommends a more modest starting point. First, a definition of intent and its key variants bearing forensic relevance must be provided. Second, an initial delineation of
the research agenda, in order to create a coherent manageable starting point, should be outlined.
Research in social psychology defines an intention as
an actor’s mental state preceding a corresponding action
(Malle, Moses, & Baldwin, 2001). Unlike desires, intentions
are inherently accompanied by a commitment to perform the
action and intended acts are often preceded by some degree of
planning. Granhag (2010) further delineates this definition to
account for situations when the what, where, and when has
been decided upon. This of course is a strict definition of
an intention, and forensically relevant intentions that are
not accounted for by this definition can easily be thought
of. Nonetheless, this stricter account still has considerable
European Psychologist 2014; Vol. 19(3):195–206
DOI: 10.1027/1016-9040/a000202
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P. A. Granhag & E. Mac Giolla: True and False Intentions
relevance for security and intelligence purposes, and a stricter
definition, it is argued, is warranted for the aforementioned
coherent starting point for the project as a whole. In an
interview context it can therefore be summarized that a true
intention is a suspect statement about their own future actions
which they truly intend to carry out. A false intention, in
contrast, is a stated intention which the actor does not intend
to carry out. In many instances of forensic relevance a false
intention is synonymous with a ‘‘cover story,’’ often designed
to conceal an actor’s real intention. Concealed intentions,
which in this context are often of a criminal kind (i.e., criminal intentions) represent another area of interest in the
psycho-legal study of intentions (see, e.g., Burgoon et al.,
2009). This, however, will not be the focus of the current
review.
This brings us to the second issue of delineation.
Granhag suggested that the seminal research in this field
should concern identifying markers of true and false intentions. Concealed intentions and criminal intentions were not
a focus of the first wave because of difficulties associated
with ground truth. That is, when examining true and false
intent only the ground truth of the stated intention needs
to be established. However, when examining concealed
intentions, the ground truth of the stated intention and the
concealed real intention both need to be established. An
obvious shortcoming of this approach is that it will only
be possible to judge the veracity of the stated intention.
That is, if a statement is correctly classified as deceptive,
the question of the individual’s true intention remains.
The study of concealed and criminal intentions therefore
marks a relevant area for future research.
The Portsmouth design, first employed by Vrij,
Granhag, Mann, and Leal (2011) is, in many ways, more
straightforward. In brief, travelers (e.g., passengers at an
airport) are asked to either lie or tell the truth about their
upcoming trip. To establish ground truth all participants
are first asked to answer truthfully some basic questions
(e.g., where are you going to fly today?). In a subsequent
interview participants are told to either lie or tell the truth
to the posed questions.
The two designs have respective merits and shortcomings. The Gothenburg design, unlike the Portsmouth design,
has no issues of ground truth as the tasks and their planning
are experimentally controlled. The Gothenburg design also
produces true and false statements which are directly comparable – since they are on the same theme. In contrast, the
Portsmouth design is more easily employed and more ecologically valid with regard to the setting and the participant
sample. Furthermore, truth tellers in the Portsmouth design
are likely to be more realistic truth tellers, as their motivation for their intention comes from a more legitimate
source. With that said, there are unlikely to be major differences in motivation for liars between the two designs, since,
in both cases, they are explicitly instructed by an experimenter to lie. A further benefit of the Portsmouth design
is that the degree of truth telling can easily be manipulated.
For instance, participants can be readily instructed to give
partially true statements (e.g., tell the truth about destination, but lie about purpose), which is more reflective of
real-life circumstances. Although the Gothenburg design
by no means prohibits the use of embedded lies it is perhaps
more difficult to experimentally manipulate such a variable
with this approach.
A Note on Design
Two distinct experimental designs dominate the first wave
of research on true and false intentions: the ‘‘Gothenburg
design’’ and the ‘‘Portsmouth design’’ (for exceptions see
Agosta, Castiello, Rigoni, Lionetti, & Sartori, 2011; Meijer,
Verschuere, & Merckelbach, 2010; Meixner & Rosenfeld,
2011; Suchotzki, Verschuere, Crombez, & De Houwer,
2013; Vrij, Leal, Mann, & Granhag, 2011). The Gothenburg
design, proposed by Granhag (2010) and fine-tuned, and first
employed, by Granhag and Knieps (2011), divides
participants into truth tellers and liars. Truth tellers are given
a non-criminal activity to plan and perform (e.g., to buy a gift
for a friend). Liars are given a mock crime to plan and
perform. In addition, liars are told to prepare a cover story
to be used in case they are apprehended when trying to carry
out their task. The cover story, which is the liars’
false intention, is structurally similar to the task which truth
tellers are given. All participants are then given time and
relevant equipment to plan their respective tasks. After the
planning phase, but before they can commence their tasks,
participants are apprehended and interviewed. This means
that in the interview all participants speak about the same
future acts (i.e., buying a gift for a friend), differing only with
regard to the veracity of the statement.
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First Studies
The first empirical studies on true and false intentions
examined differences in content on a range of basic measures including plausibility, length, detail, and how they
compared to true and false statements about past events
(Vrij, Granhag, et al., 2011; Vrij, Leal, et al., 2011). Both
studies showed that statements about true intentions were
more plausible than statements about false intentions.
However, length and detail of statements about intentions
were not influenced by veracity. Furthermore, both studies
showed a discrimination accuracy of 70%. These latter
findings show a possible difference between statements
about intentions and statements about past events. For
past events, lies are typically less detailed and shorter,
and have an approximate discrimination accuracy of 54%
(Bond & DePaulo, 2006). Such findings were replicated
by Vrij, Leal, et al. (2011) where statements about past
events were less detailed for liars, and showed a reduced
discrimination accuracy of about 55%. This finding supports the need for an independent research agenda on
true and false intentions, as it shows that they differ on
some discernible level to statements about past activities.
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P. A. Granhag & E. Mac Giolla: True and False Intentions
With that said, this first round of studies offered little guidance with regard to theory or practical recommendations.
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Physiological Measures
A number of studies have examined the use of physiological measurement techniques to distinguish between true and
false intentions. The different techniques examined include
thermal imaging (Warmelink et al., 2011), eye-tracking
(Mann, Vrij, Leal, et al., 2012; Mann, Vrij, Nasholm,
et al., 2012), skin conductance and ERP measures, the latter
two methods being examined with an amended Concealed Information Test (CIT; e.g., Meijer, Smulders, &
Merckelbach, 2010).
Thermal Imaging
Pavlidis, Eberhardt, and Levine (2002) proposed that thermal imaging could be an appropriate method for fast and
reliable security screening of people’s intentions. This proposal was based on the claim that liars, due to a mediation
of a fright/flight response, should show instantaneous
warming around the eyes to a higher degree than truth tellers. Availing of the Portsmouth design, Warmelink et al.
(2011) sought to empirically test this claim in an ecologically valid situation – namely through the screening of travelers at an airport. In line with the underlying assumption
liars’ skin temperature increased significantly during the
interview, while truth tellers’ did not. With that said, simple
veracity judgments made by the interviewer outperformed
the thermal imaging technique with regard to correct classification rates of both liars and truth tellers. Warmelink
et al. concluded that due to the modest accuracy rates
(64% for truth tellers; and 69% for liars; cf. Vrij, Granhag,
et al., 2011; Vrij, Leal, et al. 2011) the thermal imaging
technique, in its current form, is unlikely to be suitable
for an applied setting.
Eye Tracking
Mann, Vrij, Nasholm, et al. (2012; Experiment 1), tested
the popular belief derived from ‘‘neuro-linguistic programming’’ that liars eyes are drawn to the right, as the lie is created on this side of the brain. Again, the Portsmouth design
was used to create true and false intentions. The results, in
brief, found no support for the claim. Although, participants
looked to the right significantly more when they were lying,
the likelihood of looking in this direction was so low (only
6.5% of lying participants did so) that the technique is unlikely to be of any use on a case for case basis.
A different question was examined by Mann, Vrij, Leal,
et al. (2012) in a second study on eye movements and intentions. The researchers again availed of the Portsmouth
design and examined how much eye contact truth tellers
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and liars engaged in. The popular belief that liars will avoid
eye contact has not received support in meta-analyses (e.g.,
DePaulo et al., 2003). Mann and colleagues, however, proposed that liars, in breach of this popular belief, would in
fact engage in more and not less eye contact with an interviewer. Their hypothesis was built on the claim that liars,
unlike truth tellers, do not take their credibility for granted.
Liars would therefore monitor the interviewers more closely in order to assess whether they were being believed.
Coders rated the degree of deliberate eye contact on a
five-point scale (1 = does not occur at all; 5 = occurs very
strongly). In line with the predictions liars engaged in significantly more deliberate eye contact than truth tellers. In
agreement with previous research there was no significant
difference between truth tellers and liars regarding gaze
aversion (measured as the percentage of time looking away
from the interviewer). For this study no measure of discrimination accuracy was included at the individual level: differences were only examined at a group level. It is
therefore difficult to interpret how such results can be translated to the applied setting.
Concealed Information Test and Intentions
Meijer, Verschuere, and Merckelbach (2010; see also
Meijer Smulders & Merckelbach, 2010; Noordraven &
Verschuere, 2013) successfully extended the CTT (also
known as the Guilty Knowledge Test; Lykken, 1959) to
an intent situation. The CIT has a long history in the area
of deception detection. Furthermore, of all the approaches
covered in this article the CIT has had the largest impact
on police practice (e.g., it is used on a daily basis by the
Japanese police; Osuigi, 2011). The purpose of the CIT is
to distinguish between the absence and presence of information in a suspects long term memory (see Verschuere
& Meijer, 2014). In a typical CIT situation, a suspect is presented with a list of items (e.g., a list of possible murder
weapons) but only one of those items is relevant to the specific case. Guilty suspects are expected to react differently
to the relevant items compared to the irrelevant items. Specifically, they are expected to show an orienting response
for relevant items, evidenced through heightened physiological arousal. In contrast, innocent suspects, as they have
no knowledge of the crime (e.g., do not know the actual
murder weapon) should show similar responses for all listed
items. From a theoretical level the CIT is supported by
research on the human orienting reflex (Sokolov, 1963).
Such research shows that orienting responses are produced
by stimuli which have significance for an individual
(e.g., orienting responses are shown to our own names,
Verschuere, Crombez, De Clercq, & Koster, 2004).
In their study, Meijer, Smulders, and Merckelbach
(2010) compared individuals who committed a mock crime,
individuals who intended to commit a mock crime, innocent individuals informed about the crime, and innocent
individuals who were uninformed about the crime. Suspects
were asked questions relating to the case (e.g., the type of
safe that they had/had planned to open), and were given a
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P. A. Granhag & E. Mac Giolla: True and False Intentions
list of six possible answers with only one answer being correct. Skin conductance was the primary dependent variable.
The results were promising: The intent group differed from
the uninformed innocent group but did not differ from the
guilty group. Caution, however, was warned as the
informed innocent group did not differ from the intent
group. Considering the unlikelihood of innocent informed
suspects this finding may not be of major concern. Nonetheless it highlights that stringent measures must be taken
to insure that innocent suspects could not have come across
the critical information in other ways.
ERP-based CITs (Rosenfeld et al., 1988), known more
specifically as P300 based CITs, have also been extended
to intentions with promising results (Meixner & Rosenfeld,
2011). A perfect classification rate was found in this study
with 12/12 guilty suspects being identified as possessing
knowledge about a planned mock terrorist act, with no false
alarms for the 12 innocent suspects. These results align closely with past research on P300 based CITs where the accuracy of correctly detecting guilty participants typically
ranges from 80% to 95%, with a typical false positive rate
of 0%–10% (Meixner & Rosenfeld, 2011; but see Mertens
& Allen, 2008, who found guilty detection rates around
50%). To date equivocal results exist with regard to countermeasures. On this regard some studies highlight weaknesses of the P300 based CITs (e.g., Mertens & Allen,
2008; Rosenfeld, Soskins, Bosh, & Ryan, 2004), while others suggest P300 based CITs can be designed so as to
increase their resistance to countermeasure (Meixner &
Rosenfeld, 2010; Rosenfeld et al., 2008). Countermeasure
studies in an explicit intentions scenario are of crucial value
to allow for practical recommendations. From an applied
perspective, a notable shortcoming of P300 based CITs is
the considerable expense, time, and expertise required to
conduct such tests. This limits its value in many applied
contexts (e.g., border control or airport security, where fast
and easy methods are more applicable in order to address
the sheer volume of veracity judgments to be made).
Implicit Measures
Autobiographical Implicit Association Test
(aIAT)
The aIAT is an amended version of the IAT focusing on
memories of autobiographical events rather than on attitudes (Agosta, Castiello, et al., 2011). Research shows that
the aIAT can successfully distinguish between two contrasting autobiographical statements, where one is true (e.g.,
I am innocent of crime X) and the other is false (e.g.,
I am guilty of crime X). The aIAT consists in pairing such
unknown contrasting statements with known true or false
statements. Faster response times (RTs) should be shown
for congruent pairings (e.g., true known statement/true
unknown statement), than for incongruent pairings (e.g.,
true known statement/false unknown statement). A series
of forensically relevant experiments support this claim
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(Sartori, Agosta, Zogmaister, Ferrara, & Catiello, 2008).
For instance in one experiment (Sartori et al., 2008, Experiment 2) guilty participants completed a mock crime where
they entered a room and stole a CD with an exam on it.
Innocent participants entered the room, but did not steal
anything. In the subsequent aIAT guilty statements (e.g.,
‘‘I stole the exam’’) and innocent statements (e.g., ‘‘I did
not steal the exam’’) were paired with true and false known
autobiographical statements. Based on the participants RTs
all 15 guilty participants were correctly identified as guilty,
and 13 of the 15 innocent participants were correctly identified as innocent.
Agosta, Castiello, et al. (2011) extended the aIAT to the
field of intentions rather than past actions. The design was
identical to the typical aIAT except that the unknown contrasting statements concerned future rather than past actions.
One of the unknown statements was true (e.g., I plan to sleep
in Padua tonight), and the other was false (e.g., I plan to sleep
in Milan tonight), and can therefore be seen as participants’
true or false intentions. Again, the unknown statements were
paired with either known true statements (e.g., I am in front
of a computer) or known false statements (e.g., I am at the
beach). As predicted, RTs were faster in congruent
(vs. incongruent) trials. Based on RTs all of the participant
intentions were correctly identified in Experiment 1 (22/
22) and 18 of 25 intentions were correctly identified in
Experiment 3. In addition, through the use of event-related
potentials Agosta, Castiello, et al. (Experiment 3) demonstrated the neural basis of intention related aIATs.
Although the studies on aIATs and intentions lack a
direct forensic element (cf. Sartori et al., 2008), it is possible to envisage potential applications of this approach. The
authors mention its possible utility in cases where issues of
mens rea are of concern: That is, in cases where the intentionality of a person’s actions is undetermined. In such situations it may be possible to pair unknown true/false
statements of intent (e.g., I intended/did not intend to do
commit the crime) with known true/false statements of
intent (e.g., I intend/do not intend to eat lunch), in order
to determine the intentionality of the act. Future research
should investigate whether the aIAT can be translated to
such forensically relevant situations.
An important qualifier comes from research on faking
IATs. Early research suggested that the IAT (the basis of
the aIAT) was quite resistant to faking, at least when people
were uninformed about the basic principles of the test
(Banse, Seise, & Zerbes, 2001; Egloff & Schmukle,
2002). However, more recent studies, cast doubt on the universality of these initial findings, showing that simple
instructions are sufficient to allow for successful faking
(Fiedler & Bluemke, 2005; Wallaert, Ward, & Mann,
2010). For instance, Fiedler and Bluemke found that
9 out of 19 participants successfully faked their responses
to the IAT when following the simple instruction ‘‘Please
reflect ahead of each block on how to influence your reaction times to avoid the inference that you are prejudiced.’’
Importantly, similar findings have also been demonstrated
for the aIAT, showing that informed fakers are capable of
speeding up their responses to incongruent pairs (Hu,
Rosenfeld, & Bodenhausen, 2012) and slowing down their
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responses to congruent pairs (Verschuere, Prati, &
De Houwer, 2009). Mitigating these results, Agosta,
Ghirardi, Zogmaister, Castiello, and Sartori (2011) found
that, in situations when fakers were successful in manipulating the aIAT in a desired direction, simple algorithms
– based on fakers response patterns – could be developed
to distinguish fakers from non-fakers (a ROC analysis
yielded an area under the curve of 0.87, significantly better
than chance at 0.50). As of yet, no study has directly
assessed faking with regard to aIATs designed for intentions, limiting the confidence with which we can speak of
practical recommendations.
Evaluative Priming Tasks and Goal-Directed
Behavior
Goals influence how we engage and interact with our environment (Ferguson & Porter, 2009; Moskowitz, 2002;
Rothermund, 2003). Many of these influences are distinct
from non-motivational constructs. Of note, for the current
purposes, is that objects are automatically evaluated based
on their utility for an active goal (Fçrster, Liberman, &
Friedman, 2007). That is, goals create a propensity to automatically evaluate goal-facilitative stimuli as positive and
goal-inhibiting stimuli as negative (Custers, 2009). This
has been demonstrated with implicit evaluation measures
such as the evaluative priming task, where only those with
an active goal evaluated the – otherwise neutral stimuli – in
a goal-consistent manner (e.g., Ferguson & Bargh, 2004;
Fishbach, Zhang, & Trope, 2010).
Linking intentions and goals, Ask, Granhag, Juhlin, and
Vrij (2013) developed a novel approach to the study of true
and false intentions based on the aforementioned research
on goal-directed behavior. They explain that since a true
intention involves the desire and commitment to perform
a future action (see above; Malle et al., 2001), a true intention involves the activation of a behavioral goal. False
intentions, however, are not genuinely meant to be carried
out. There is no commitment to perform the future action.
Therefore no behavioral goal should be created. Consequently, individuals with a true intention should evaluate
objects based on the behavioral goal activated by the stated
intention. Liars’ evaluations, in contrast, should not be
influenced by their stated intentions (semantic and/or exposure effects notwithstanding).
Based on this reasoning an experiment using the
Gothenburg design was conducted. Participants performed
an evaluative priming task where the prime words were
positively related to the participants’ stated intentions. In
line with predictions, truth tellers showed a positive implicit
evaluation of the prime words. Liars’ on the other hand
showed no priming effects (i.e., a neutral implicit evaluation of the prime words). With that said, in its current form
this approach is unlikely to provide a reliable tool to distinguish between truth tellers and liars. First, the results of the
ROC analysis were, though significant, quite modest, yielding an area under the curve of 0.67 (where chance is 0.50).
Second, EPTs are vulnerable to faking, with a number of
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studies demonstrating the controllability of such tests
(Degner, 2009; Klauer & Teige-Mocigemba, 2007; TeigeMocigemba & Klauer, 2008; but see Bar-Anan, 2010).
The value of the study, however, lies not in the test of a specific deception detection tool but in turning our focus to
goals and the many consequences of goal-directed behavior. In other words, the value of the study lies in highlighting a novel direction for research on true and false intent.
Sheffield Lie Test
A final study availing of an RT-based implicit approach
extended the Sheffield Lie Test (SLT; Spence et al.,
2001) to the field of intentions (Suchotzki et al., 2013). Like
most RT-based implicit measures the SLT involves a
manipulation of stimulus-response compatibility, where
compatible trials result in faster RTs and incompatible trials
result in slower RTs. Suchotzki et al.’s primary aim was to
compare the efficacy of the test when the incompatibility
was produced either by a task-relevant feature (a feature
that needs to be processed in order to perform the task)
or a task-irrelevant feature (a feature that does not need
to be processed in order to perform the task). In deception
detection studies a manipulation related to truth telling or
lying can be regarded as task-relevant, while a task-irrelevant feature can be any unrelated feature that does not need
to be processed (e.g., color discrimination).
In their study participants first planned and performed a
mock crime (past act). Following this, they planned for a
second mock crime but were apprehended before they were
able to execute it (intended act). Participants subsequently
performed a task-relevant SLT and a task-irrelevant SLT,
both of which were tailored to the two mock crimes. The
SLTs consisted in presenting yes/no questions related to
the crime (e.g., will you steal a USB stick) in two different
colors. The presentation color informs participants on how
to answer. Answers were given by hitting the designated
yes/no keys on a keyboard. RTs and error rates were the
primary dependent variable.
In the task-relevant SLT the presentation color of the
question determined whether the participants’ response
should be true or false (Experiments 1 and 2). In compatible
trials participants answered truthfully (i.e., responded yes to
true statements and no to false statements). In incompatible
trials participants gave false responses (i.e., responded yes
to false questions and no to true questions). Two taskirrelevant versions of the SLT were used. In the first
(Experiment 1) the color presentation of the question
directly determined whether the participant should press
the yes or the no key (i.e., gray = yes; purple = no). In
the second version (Experiment 2) questions that included
a person required a yes response and questions that
included a room required a no response. In the taskirrelevant SLTs compatible trials were when the participant
responded truthfully (i.e., responded yes when the true
answer was yes) and incompatible trials were when the participant lied (i.e., responded no when the true answer was
yes).
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Results showed that task-relevant SLTs consistently
produced larger compatibility effects than the taskirrelevant SLTs. Of particular interest, compatibility effects
were produced for both the past crime and the intended
crime, in fact, compatibility effects were stronger for questions on the intended crime (possibly due to the strict and
detailed instructions given for the intended act). With that
said, a clear limitation is that no separate innocent condition
was included making it difficult to determine whether the
approach can be used to reliably distinguish between guilty
and innocent suspects. Taken together, although it is too
early to make any practical recommendations, the results
imply that task-relevant compatibility effect tests are a
promising direction for future research on true and false
intentions.
Strategic Interviewing
Strategic interviewing provides a viable alternative to the
physiological and implicit measures discussed so far. Arguments in favor of strategic interviewing build on the growing body of empirical support highlighting the difficulties
associated with behavioral approaches (e.g., DePaulo
et al., 2003; Hartwig & Bond, 2011). The emerging consensus from such meta-analyses is that behavioral cues are
faint and largely unreliable indicators of deception.
Researchers have therefore proposed more active interviewing or strategic methods: Here the goal is to strengthen the
otherwise weak cues to deception or to elicit new cues to
deception (Hartwig & Bond, 2011; Vrij, 2014; Vrij &
Granhag, 2012). Existing research, focusing on past actions,
speaks to the merits of strategic interviewing as an
approach to lie detection (e.g., Hartwig, Granhag,
Strçmwall, & Kronkvist, 2006; for a review see Vrij,
2014). In recent years strategic interviewing methods have
also been applied to true and false intentions with promising results. To date, two methods have been assessed: the
Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) technique; and the unanticipated questions approach.
The Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE)
Technique and Intentions
The SUE-technique builds on suspects’ counter-interrogation strategies. Specifically, truth tellers will be forthcoming during an interview while liars will be more cautious,
choosing more evasive strategies such as withholding information. Based on these empirically supported assumptions
(e.g., Hartwig, Granhag, & Strçmwall, 2007; Granhag,
Mac Giolla, Strçmwall, & Rangmar, 2013; Strçmwall,
Hartwig, & Granhag, 2006) the SUE approach advocates
strategic disclosure of evidence throughout an interview
(e.g., in its simplest form, a late, rather than an early
disclosure of evidence, can cause liars, due to their tendency to withhold information, to produce statements
European Psychologist 2014; Vol. 19(3):195–206
which are inconsistent with the available evidence, i.e.,
statement-evidence inconsistencies) (Granhag & Hartwig,
2008; for more sophisticated forms of evidence disclosure
see Granhag, Strçmwall, Willn, & Hartwig, 2013). For a
recent systematic review of the empirical findings on the
SUE-technique, including the first meta-analysis of the
technique see Hartwig, Granhag, and Luke (2014), and
for a conceptualization of the SUE-technique see Granhag
and Hartwig (in press).
Clemens, Granhag, and Strçmwall (2011) extended the
SUE-technique to the study of true and false intentions. The
study used an amended version of the Gothenburg design
where certain bits of information (i.e., evidence) were made
available to the interviewers. Two versions of the
SUE-technique were compared to a control condition
(where evidence was disclosed at the outset of the interview). Results showed that the SUE-techniques produced
more inconsistent statements from liars compared to the
control interview.
Classification measures were not included in this study
making it difficult to estimate a case specific efficacy rate
for the SUE-technique on intentions. However, previous
studies on the SUE-technique have favorable discrimination
accuracies (e.g., 85%; Hartwig et al., 2006), and based on
the results of Clemens et al. (2011), no reason can be
thought of why this finding would not generalize to intentions. With that said, the SUE-technique has certain practical limitations. The most pertinent of these is that the
interviewer needs some evidence against the suspect (on
the other hand, for most suspect interviews there is typically
some evidence pointing in the direction of the suspect). The
unanticipated questions approach describes an interviewing
technique where prior evidence is not required.
Unanticipated Questions Approach
Liars often prepare for expected questions in upcoming
interviews. This finding has been suggested as a possible
reason for liars’ ability to perform well in interviews. The
unanticipated questions approach is designed to ask questions which an interviewee is unlikely to have planned
for. More specifically, such questions are designed so that
truth tellers can rely on their memory to simply recall an
answer, while liars need to fabricate answers on-the-spot
(Vrij et al., 2009; Sooniste, Granhag, Knieps, & Vrij,
2013; Vrij, 2014). The goal is to increase the cognitive
demand for liars (but not for truth tellers), which it is hoped,
will enhance differences between truth tellers and liars
statements. The approach of asking unanticipated questions
has received empirical support when used on statements
concerning past events (e.g., Lancaster, Vrij, Hope, &
Waller, 2012; Sooniste, Granhag, Knieps, & Vrij, 2013;
Vrij et al., 2009). Clemens, Granhag, and Strçmwall
(2012) examined suspect’s counter-interrogation strategies
to questions about their intentions. They found that a common strategy for liars was to ‘‘stick to a cover story.’’ Taking this result into account the unanticipated questions
approach, when applied to intentions, is designed to ask
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P. A. Granhag & E. Mac Giolla: True and False Intentions
questions whose answers will not typically be addressed by
a cover story.
A primary focus of the completed studies has been the
theme of planning. As noted, planning is an inherent part of
many intentions (Malle et al., 2001). It is therefore assumed
that individuals with true intentions will have engaged in
some degree of planning for their stated intention. In contrast, it is less likely that liars’ cover stories will be detailed
enough to cover a planning phase. It follows that truth tellers will be able to draw on their memory and simply recall
answers to questions about planning, while liars will be
forced to think of answers on the spot.
Using the Gothenburg design this hypothesis was
empirically tested on both individual suspects (Sooniste,
Granhag, Knieps, & Vrij, 2013) and groups of suspects
(Sooniste, Granhag, Strçmwall, & Vrij, 2013). Results
showed that liars were as capable as truth tellers at answering the anticipated questions on intentions. In contrast, for
the unanticipated questions on planning truth tellers provided both longer and more detailed answers. Similarly,
in the study on groups of suspects, between suspect consistency was comparable for both truth tellers and liars for the
anticipated questions. For the unanticipated questions, however, truth tellers’ statements were significantly more consistent than liars’. With that said, no classification
measure was used, limiting the possibility to provide practical recommendations.
Availing of an amended version of the Portsmouth
design Warmelink, Vrij, Mann, Jundi, and Granhag
(2012) compared the effectiveness of a number of different
unanticipated questions. In this study suspects were asked
general questions about an upcoming trip (anticipated),
and three different unanticipated questions: on the core
event of the trip; the transportation that would be used during the trip; and on the planning of the trip. Results provided general support for the unanticipated questions
approach. However, though trends were shown, only the
questions on transportation provided significant differences
between truth tellers and liars. Another unexpected finding
was that for the anticipated questions liars provided more
detail than truth tellers. Taking these results together
Warmelink and colleagues concluded that if an interviewer
wishes to avail of the intuitive ‘‘less detail indicates deceit’’
decision rule, it is better to assess answers given to unanticipated questions.
Subtle Prompts
Though only in its infancy, an interesting addition to the
strategic interviewing methods consists in the use of subtle
prompts. Such prompts are strategically phrased questions
that are designed to encourage tendencies which are more
inherent for truth tellers than liars. For example, based on
research demonstrating that truthful statements contain
more temporal information (e.g., Masip, Sporer, Garrido,
& Herrero, 2005), Warmelink, Vrij, Mann, and Granhag
(2013, Experiment 2; see also Vrij, Mann, Jundi, Hope,
& Leal, 2012, who examined how undercover interviewing
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can be employed to distinguish between true and false
intentions) analyzed if a subtle prompt designed to bring
focus on specific times would encourage truth tellers, more
so than liars, to mention these. The prompt ‘‘Please describe
in as much detail as possible what your time-table is for
today at your destination?,’’ was compared to the control
question ‘‘Please describe in as much detail what you are
going to do today at your destination?’’ For the prompt,
but not the control question, truth tellers mentioned significantly more specific times than liars. In addition, discrimination accuracy based on specific times for the prompt
condition at 61.9% was significantly better than chance,
while accuracy for the control condition at 54.8% was
not better than chance. Although this discrimination ability
is quite low, it should be noted that the analysis was made
solely on the brief statements given to a single question,
and that the manipulation employed was ostensibly quite
trivial. Considering the ease in which subtle prompts can
be initiated they can readily be incorporated within other
interview techniques. In this sense, subtle prompts may
be better thought of as a complement to a more developed
interviewing technique rather than as a fully fledged technique in itself.
Episodic Future Thought and Mental
Images
According to the concept of the ‘‘prospective brain,’’ stored
information in the brain can be used to imagine, simulate,
and predict possible future events (Schacter, Addis, &
Buckner, 2007). This is thought to be an important functional attribute of the brain, allowing, for instance, for better
adaption to future situations. Episodic future thought (EFT),
a closely related, yet distinct, concept, refers to our ability
to mentally simulate hypothetical future scenarios, with a
strong focus on the accompanying mental images (Szpunar,
2010). Just as with the prospective brain, it is thought that
EFTs are primarily constructed by units of information
taken from episodic memory, a claim supported by selfreport (Szpunar & McDermott, 2009) and neuroimaging
studies (Addis, Wong, & Schacter, 2007).
Importantly, EFT is closely linked to intentions (Schacter,
Addis, & Buckner 2008). EFTs are thought to be a typical
concomitant of planning – specifically the planning of future
events to be carried out by oneself – and planning, as noted
above, is considered an inherent part of many (true) intentions. Granhag and Knieps (2011) therefore proposed that
the formation of true intentions should be accompanied to a
greater extent by EFTs compared to the formation of false
intentions.
To date four full studies have been carried out on the
topic of EFT and true and false intentions (Granhag &
Knieps, 2011; Knieps, Granhag, & Vrij, 2013a, 2013b,
in press). Using the Gothenburg design, these studies largely supported the hypothesis of the project. The primary
focus was on the extent that mental images were activated
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202
P. A. Granhag & E. Mac Giolla: True and False Intentions
during the planning phase of a true intention compared to
the planning of a cover story (a false intention). Results
focused on (1) truth tellers’ and liars’ (honest) subjective
ratings relating to mental images formed during the planning phase, and (2) on participants’ answers to questions
during a police styled interview about their mental image.
The former measure was intended to give a deeper understanding of how EFTs relate to true and false intentions.
The latter measure was an assessment of the practical possibilities of this approach.
Subjective measures showed that truth tellers were more
likely to have a mental image of their intention than liars.
This was reflected during the interview where truth tellers
(96%–100%) reported having a mental image more often
than liars (66%–83%). Furthermore, truth tellers generally
had a clearer and stronger mental image, especially for spatial details. These findings, however, did not consistently
result in measurable differences based on statements
obtained during the interview, with the exception of truth
tellers generally producing longer descriptions of their
images (Granhag & Knieps, 2011; Knieps et al., 2013a).
This result questions the applied value of asking about
EFTs during an interview. The authors maintained, however, that finer measures could likely be developed to capture the evident differences in the subjective ratings, in the
interview setting (cf. D’Argembeau & Mathy, 2011).
Warmelink et al. (2013) provide some support for this
claim. Their study, which used an amended Portsmouth
design, examined mental images through the use of specified follow up questions. That is, once it was established
that suspects had a mental image of their trip, rather than
simply ask a general question more specific questions were
deployed (e.g., In your picture, where are you?; Who else is
there?; Please tell me in as much detail as possible what
you can see, hear, smell, taste, and feel?). With this
approach Warmelink et al. obtained more spatial and temporal details from truth tellers than liars, something that
Knieps et al. (2013a, in press), who examined statements
to more general questions, were unable to show.
As with a number of the newer approaches discussed in
this article, the research conducted on EFT is best seen as
basic research on the topic of true and false intent. That
is, it is not investigating the efficacy of a specific technique,
but rather exploring avenues where applied techniques may
one day be developed.
Theory Building
The review of the extant psycho-legal research on true and
false intentions shows an array of approaches distinguishable at a theoretical level. A greater understanding at this
level is of utmost importance for both the development of
new topics of research and for eventual implementation
procedures. Of course, of specific interest are theoretical
perspectives distinct for the study of true and false intentions (rather than past actions). At least three such perspectives are addressed in the review above: goal-directed
behavior, planning, and EFT. All of these topics represent
European Psychologist 2014; Vol. 19(3):195–206
active research fields in their own right. Our aim here is
to examine where and how these topics might overlap with
regard to the specific field of true and false intentions.
Consider planning, where research has focused on,
among other things, what makes good or bad plans (for a
review see Mumford, Schultz, & Van Doorn, 2001). Making the reasonable claim that those with a true, compared to
a false, intention make better plans for the stated intention,
it follows that research on successful planning behavior can
offer new insights into true and false intentions. For example, successful planners attend more to possible contingencies or restrictions, and develop alternative plans to account
for these. Therefore, those with a true intention may focus
on possible restrictions to a higher degree than liars. Preliminary support already exists for this claim: In one study,
truth tellers were more likely than liars to speak of potential
problems that may emerge (Mac Giolla, Granhag, &
Liu-Jçnsson, 2013), in another truth tellers were more likely
than liars to answer that they had made a ‘‘Plan B’’ to use if
their primary plan fell through (Granhag, Sooniste,
Strçmwall, & Liu-Jçnsson, 2012). Planning can also be
linked to other topics mentioned. It is during the planning
phase that one spontaneously engages in EFT and forms
mental images of intentions. Indeed, degree of planning is
likely to moderate the degree of engagement in EFT.
Research on goals provides at least two directions for
studies on intentions. The first, discussed above, concerns
the distinct markers of goal-directed behavior and how
intentions activate behavioral goals (e.g., Ask et al.,
2013). The second approach concerns research on goal
attainment that has focused on the so called intentionbehavior gap. Gollwitzer makes the distinction between
‘‘goal intentions’’ and ‘‘implementation intentions’’
(Gollwitzer, 1999). Goal intentions are general intentions
referring to a desired end point: Goal intentions concern
the what. Implementation intentions are more specific, usually containing an if-then plan where the when, where, and
how of goal attainment is specified. Research has demonstrated that implementation intentions increase the likelihood of goal attainment. To this end implementation
intentions can also be seen as more detailed plans which
are associated with better planning behavior – making a
direct link between the theme of goals and the aforementioned theme of planning.
A current line of study gives an apt example for how
theory development can aid research in true and false intentions. The starting point was the finding that implementation intentions are less likely to be formed when one has
no relating goal intention (Sheeran, Milne, Webb, &
Gollwitzer, 2005). This lead Sooniste, Granhag, Strçmwall,
and Vrij (2013) to examine whether the existence of implementation intentions could be used as a marker of veracity:
that is, as only truth tellers have a goal intention, they
should be more likely than liars to form implementation
intentions. To this end, the authors proposed that truth
tellers’ statements would be marked, more so than liars,
by implementation intention related utterings. In the study
by Sooniste and colleagues, participants’ instructions
include the what, where and when of their respective true
intentions or cover stories. For this reason it was thought
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P. A. Granhag & E. Mac Giolla: True and False Intentions
Table 1. Classifying true and false statements of intent
Stated intention
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Criminal
Lawful
True intention
False intention
(A) Threat
(C) Lawful activity
(B) Bluff
(D) Cover story
that implementation intention related utterances would be
marked by how statements (i.e., how the stated intention
is to be achieved). Their results show that truth tellers
had a significantly higher proportion of how related utterings compared to the statements of liars (these findings
have since been replicated; see Mac Giolla et al., 2013).
This new direction of research demonstrates how a deeper
understanding at the theoretical level can shed light on new
directions for future research.
Future Directions
To date, the primary focus of research within this new
strand has been to find ways to discriminate between (a)
statements truthfully describing a noncriminal future activity and (b) statements describing a lawful activity masking
a future criminal action. That is, for Table 1, to compare
cell C and cell D. Importantly, much of the work carried
out by security services around the world relates to assessing explicit threats or warning signals (Meloy & Hoffman,
2014). Here the task often boils down to deciding if an
expressed threat (or warning signal) should be taken seriously or not. Differently put, the task is to assess if the
threat is based on a genuine intention, a so-called true
threat, or if it is unfounded (a bluff). That is, the task is
to compare cell A and cell B in Table 1.
Future work in this domain might profit from examining
to what extent the knowledge gained on statements belonging to cell C and D, can be used for separating genuine and
unfounded threats. That is, to examine (i) to what extent the
trademarks of statements expressing true lawful intentions
(e.g., utterances related to how) hold for threats intended
to be carried out, and (ii) to what extent the trademarks
of statements expressing false intentions (e.g., utterances
related to why) hold for unfounded threats.
Conclusions
The current review demonstrates the array of research being
conducted on true and false intentions. With that said, with
only a few years of systematized research, the field is still
in its infancy and we therefore feel it inappropriate to make
any concrete recommendations for practitioners.
The fact that the empirical corpus is meager has not
hindered the launching of several programs aimed at detecting false intent (malintent) in security screening settings,
such as airports (Wallace, 2013). For example, the
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203
American-based Transportation Security Administration’s
(TSA) Screening Passengers through Observational Techniques (SPOT) program, a security system based on human
observation of suspicious behaviors (US Department of
Homeland Security, 2008). SPOT is now present in 100+
airports, and the many SPOT officers seek to identify passengers who hold criminal intentions (e.g., to engage in acts
of terrorism). SPOT relies on an emotional approach,
assuming that criminally inclined individuals will experience emotions related to the planned action (Ekman &
O’Sullivan, 2006). In brief, fear and anxiety will ‘‘leak’’
via various nonverbal channels. To date, however, there
is no published research supporting this claim; a claim upon
which SPOT rests (US Government Accountability Office,
2013; Wallace, 2013).
Our view is to move a bit slower and a bit more
thoughtfully, but we also believe that certain issues can
be clarified already at this early stage. We envisage that
the main area of application of the current body of work
is at an early phase of the legal system. Specifically, we
believe the research findings can be useful both in the
pre-investigative screening phase (e.g., to orient investigators’ attentions and resources), as well in the investigative
phase (e.g., for building theoretically sound and effective
interview protocols). It might also be that some of the
reviewed methods could be combined in a step-wise fashion. For example, a ‘‘hit’’ from an initial CIT test, could
be followed up by investigative efforts that might produce
critical background information (e.g., on planning activities). This information could in turn be used strategically
in a SUE-inspired interview (see above).
It is important to note that the research on true and false
intent is unlikely to lead to diagnostic tools with perfect discrimination abilities. Rather, the goal is to produce evidence-based methods which can be incorporated into
relevant practical settings. A relevant example can be taken
from a study by Warmelink et al. (2012). In the concluding
lines of the article the authors reminisce about their own
experience of traveling through airport security. The
authors note that they are typically solely asked direct questions about their respective intentions: questions which, on
their own, their study suggests have limited value for
deception cues. The purpose of this example is twofold:
first, it demonstrates how the current line of research can
highlight limitations of accepted procedure; second, it can
suggest, albeit only cautiously at this early stage, evidence-based alternatives or complements to accepted procedure. This more modest approach for the application of
research is unlikely to produce techniques for making
unequivocal veracity judgments, but it can increase the
likelihood of making correct assessments. This in turn
should increase the overall quality of security operations
with significant long term benefits.
Acknowledgments
This research was financially supported by a grant from
The Swedish Research Council to the first author.
European Psychologist 2014; Vol. 19(3):195–206
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P. A. Granhag & E. Mac Giolla: True and False Intentions
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Received April 12, 2013
Accepted February 18, 2014
Published online July 24, 2014
About the authors
Pr Anders Granhag is a professor of
psychology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He is the founding director
of the research unit for Criminal, Legal,
and Investigative Psychology (CLIP). He
has conducted psycho-legal research for
25 years and published 200+ scientific
reports. His main research interests are
investigative interviewing, deception
detection, and eyewitness memory.
Erik Mac Giolla is a PhD student at the
University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He
has a broad interest in legal psychology.
His dissertation project is on true and false
intent.
Erik Mac Giolla
Department of Psychology
University of Gothenburg
P.O. Box 500
405 30, Gothenburg
Sweden
Tel. +46 31 786-1647
Fax +46 31 786-4628
E-mail [email protected]
Ó 2014 Hogrefe Publishing