Liar, liar, IM on fire: Deceptive language-action cues in spontaneous online communication

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Abstract

With an increasing number of online users, the potential danger of online deception grows accordingly – as does the importance of better understanding human behavior online to mitigate these risks. One critical element to address such online threat is to identify intentional deception in spontaneous online communication. For this study, we designed an interactive online game that creates player scenarios to encourage deception. Data was collected and analyzed in October 2014 to identify certain deceptive cues. Players’ interactive dialogue was analyzed using linear regression analysis. The results reveal that certain language features are highly significant predictors of deception in synchronous, spontaneous online communication.