Research Article
Is the Truth in Your Words? Distinguishing Children’s Deceptive and Truthful Statements
Table 1
The mean frequency (standard deviation) of the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count categories by narrative type.
| Dimension |
Example | Lie | True | Younger | Older | Adults | Younger | Older | Adults |
| Word count | | 78.56 (48.55) | 142.53 (96.72) | 300.53 (126.45) | 112.6 (88.59) | 110.21 (55.77) | 304.57 (109.45) | Words per sentence | | 9.97 (6.37) | 19.20 (13.30) | 55.45 (46.87) | 23.56 (24.36) | 16.77 (6.91) | 29.27 (11.89) | Words longer than six letters | | 11.20 (6.78) | 7.54 (2.82) | 10.92 (2.37) | 8.63 (5.14) | 8.87 (3.86) | 10.66 (1.98) | Unique | | 60.85 (12.73) | 55.75 (14.18) | 46.16 (6.03) | 54.37 (20.60) | 57.97 (15.09) | 45.49 (5.51) | First person singular | I, my | 10.41 (5.09) | 7.44 (4.65) | 6.12 (2.71) | 6.72 (3.19) | 6.13 (2.22) | 5.84 (3.41) | First person plural | We, us | 00.92 (1.96) | 5.38 (4.70) | 3.01 (2.22) | 5.79 (5.10) | 4.32 (3.20) | 3.16 (2.70) | Total self-references | I, we | 10.22 (5.31) | 11.56 (4.97) | 9.13 (2.40) | 12.06 (3.75) | 10.46 (3.31) | 9.00 (2.24) | Second person pronouns | You, your | 0.00 (0.00) | −0.67 (1.22) | 0.57 (0.65) | 0.53 (1.69) | 0.60 (1.43) | 0.37 (0.58) | Third person pronouns | She, their | 3.38 (3.77) | 1.51 (1.52) | 1.9 (1.43) | 1.38 (2.43) | 1.13 (1.47) | 2.06 (1.59) | Positive emotions | Happy, pretty | 0.48 (0.80) | 1.16 (1.73) | 2.01 (1.36) | 0.58 (0.73) | 1.76 (1.62) | 1.87 (1.07) | Negative emotions | Hate, enemy | 0.57 (0.61) | 1.03 (0.48) | 0.87 (0.92) | 0.08 (0.22) | 0.08 (0.22) | 1.05 (0.91) | Cognitive processes | Know, ought | 3.8 (2.62) | 2.17 (1.44) | 5.92 (1.91) | 1.89 (1.84) | 2.82 (1.89) | 5.63 (2.14) | Discrepancy terms | Should, would | 0.29 (0.57) | 0.28 (0.44) | 1.79 (0.99) | 0.60 (0.78) | 0.99 (1.61) | 1.61 (1.01) | Tentative terms | Maybe, guess | 1.10 (2.55) | 0.36 (0.65) | 2.78 (0.65) | 0.97 (1.23) | 1.26 (1.09) | 2.39 (1.41) | Sensory/perceptual processes | See, touch | 1.72 (1.47) | 1.48 (1.07) | 1.52 (1.15) | 0.80 (1.02) | 1.56 (1.21) | 1.34 (0.99) | Time | Hour, day | 3.89 (4.02) | 4.82 (3.12) | 3.96 (1.74) | 4.21 (4.70) | 4.15 (2.66) | 4.17 (1.81) | Space | Around, over | 3.43 (3.70) | 4.50 (2.50) | 4.29 (1.25 ) | 6.79 (5.19) | 5.79 (3.23) | 4.26 (1.60) | Exclusive | But, without | 1.48 (1.60) | 2.00 (1.80) | 3.61 (1.25) | 2.67 (2.32) | 3.50 (2.93) | 3.93 (1.37) | Motion | Walk, move | 3.12 (2.14) | 4.26 (2.97) | 3.39 (1.49) | 4.42 (2.52) | 3.67 (2.56) | 3.94 (0.95) | Certainty | Always, never | 0.24 (0.53) | 0.53 (0.73) | 2.75 (1.51) | 0.26 (0.62) | 0.53 (0.80) | 2.47 (1.00) |
|
|