The Brand New World of Lying

Deception is a significant and pervasive social phenomenon. At the same time, technologies have suffused almost all aspects of human communication. The intersection between deception and information technology gives rise to many questions about deception in the digital age. How does communication technology change the way we lie? Why and how do people lie in online relationships? Can people detect if they are being lied to in an email? Can computer programs identify word patterns that reveal whether someone is lying or not? This talk will examine these questions and describe some recent research that may shed some light on the answers.

Speaker Bios

Jeff Hancock is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and in the Faculty of Computing and Information Science, and co-Director of Cognitive Science at Cornell University. His work is concerned with how information technologies – such as email, instant messaging, and social networking sites – affect the way we understand and relate to one another, with a particular emphasis on deception. His research is supported by funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense, and his work on lying online has been featured in the New York Times, CNN, NPR, BBC and ABC News and the CBC documentary The Truth About Lying. Dr. Hancock earned his PhD in cognitive psychology at Dalhousie University, Canada, and joined Cornell in 2002.