The production of audiovisual cues when feigning knowledge

Abstract

This paper describes 2 exploratory experiments aimed at creating a profile of audiovisual behaviours for a sub-type of deception, feigned knowledge. In Experiment 1, students were interviewed on camera about their own degree topic and a foreign degree topic. Interviewees were more likely to produce filled pauses, gaze left, gaze down, avert their gaze away in any direction, and produce self-adaptive hand gestures, and less likely to produce illustrative hand gestures when feigning knowledge. Experiment 2 found that an audience could judge a participant from Experiment 1 as less confident in their answer even when the participant was trying to mask this, using only audiovisual prosody. The implications of the findings of these exploratory studies are discussed, and suggestions for future research that builds on these findings are made.