The effects of spatial and temporal video distortion on lie detection performance

In various types of interactions, individuals may attempt to determine whether their communication partners are being honest or deceptive. Judgments of honesty rely, in part, on assessments of nonverbal behavior. With the increased use of videoconferencing technology, many traditionally face-to-face interactions now take place over sub-optimal video connections. In these connections, reduced spatial and temporal video quality may affect the ability to detect whether others are lying or telling the truth. In the current study we examined the effects of varying levels of temporal and spacial distortion on lie detection performance. Consistent with earlier work, we found that a slight distortion of video signal impaired lie detection performance. Surprisingly, performance improved when the video was severely spatially degraded.