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Detecting Lies in Veiled Witnesses

Journal article published in 2014 by Amy-May Leach, Nawal Ammar, D. Nicole England, Laura M. Remigio
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Preprint: policy unknown
Question mark in circle
Postprint: policy unknown
Question mark in circle
Published version: policy unknown

Abstract

Recently, judges in the UK and Canada have ruled that women must remove their niqabs when testifying in court (R. v. N.S., 2010; The Queen v. D[R], 2013). One argument was that all members of the Court must be able to see a witness’s face to assess her credibility (e.g., N.S. v. Her Majesty the Queen, et al., 2012); however, that contention has not been tested empirically. In this study, we examined how face-veiling affected decision-making. Women (N = 60) were randomly assigned to wear a niqab, a hijab, or no veil. Then, they were videotaped as they lied or told the truth about having witnessed a transgression. Laypersons (N = 90) viewed this footage and attempted to identify the lie- and truth-tellers. They were more likely to base their decisions on verbal cues when witnesses wore a niqab (vs. a hijab or no veil) However, veiling condition had no significant effect on lie detection accuracy or biases. Implications for the justice system are discussed.