"Tell Me About Your Trip": Introducing the Enhanced Ghostwriter Lie Detection Tool

Asking interviewees to imagine talking to a ghostwriter results in more information and veracity cues than an instruction to be detailed (Leal et al., 2019). We examined reasons why the ghostwriter instruction worked: The ghostwriter determines (a) what to report/omit and (b) in which order to report the provided information. Taking away these decisions from the interviewee creates a more lenient output criterion for the interviewee of what to report. Participants discussed a trip they had made (truth tellers) or pretended to have made (lie tellers). Interviews took place under three conditions: control condition, ghostwriter condition where participants were asked to imagine talking to a ghostwriter, and enhanced ghostwriter condition where participants were also told what the benefits are of talking to a ghostwriter. The enhanced ghostwriter condition resulted in more information than the control condition. Most veracity cues emerged in the enhanced ghostwriter condition and fewest cues in the control condition.