On deception and deception detection: Content analysis of computer‐mediated stated beliefs

Abstract Deception in computer‐mediated communication is defined as a message knowingly and intentionally transmitted by a sender to foster a false belief or conclusion by the perceiver. Stated beliefs about deception and deceptive messages or incidents are content analyzed in a sample of 324 computer‐mediated communications. Relevant stated beliefs are obtained through systematic sampling and querying of the blogosphere based on 80 English words commonly used to describe deceptive incidents. Deception is conceptualized broader than lying and includes a variety of deceptive strategies: falsification, concealment (omitting material facts) and equivocation (dodging or skirting issues). The stated beliefs are argued to be valuable toward the creation of a unified multi‐faceted ontology of deception, stratified along several classificatory facets such as (1) contextual domain (e.g., personal relations, politics, finances & insurance), (2) deception content (e.g., events, time, place, abstract notions), (3) message format (e.g., a complaint: they lied to us , a victim story: I was lied to or tricked , or a direct accusation: you're lying ), and (4) deception variety, each tied to particular verbal cues (e.g., misinforming, scheming, misrepresenting, or cheating). The paper positions automated deception detection within the field of library and information science (LIS), as a feasible natural language processing (NLP) task. Key findings and important constructs in deception research from interpersonal communication, psychology, criminology, and language technology studies are synthesized into an overview. Deception research is juxtaposed to several benevolent constructs in LIS research: trust, credibility, certainty, and authority.