Some verbal cues to deception in near-death experiences

People who lie about having a near-death experience (NDE) use hedges, negative statements, and negative emotion expressions more often than people who actually report an NDE. In a comparison of 50 fabricated NDE stories with 50 genuine NDE interviews, liars produced 63.9% of all hedges (vs. 26.1% for NDErs), 53.1% of negative statements (vs. 46.9%), and 54.9% of negative emotion expressions (vs. 45.1%). The findings suggest that verbal cues linked to deception—hedges, negativity, and negative emotions—are more frequent in liars' accounts, consistent with prior research on deceptive language.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Introduction Lying is a ubiquitous element of communication and causes chaos (Urch, 2006). There are many approaches to understanding the reasons for lying. However, detecting it has always been of interest to researchers, and for almost a century, verbal cues to deception have been studied to assess the credibility of judicial statemen truth-tellers (Sporer at al., 2021). To this end, many scientists tried to differentiate verbal cues to deception in the stories of liars and truth-tellers. Three of the detected verbal cues are hedges, negative statements, and negative emotions, which are produced by liars more than truth tellers (DePaulo et al., 2003; Newman et al., 2003; Zhou et al., 2004; Bond & Lee 2005; Hancock et al., 2005; Tausczik & Pennebaker 2010; Hauch et al., 2014; Addawood et al., 2019). In the present study, we examined these three verbal cues in stories from a group of people who claimed to have had a near-death experience (NDE) and compared them to another group who fabricated NDE stories.An NDE is sometimes reported after life-threatening situations, like cardiac arrests, shocks caused by blood loss, coma caused by brain injuries, suicide attempts, drowning, apnea, accidents, or other situations in which death is unavoidable (Van Lommel et al., 2017). NDEs lead to permanent changes in the lives of NDErs. NDEs mostly contain many similar core features, such as reviewing one’s life, passing through a tunnel, visiting and communicating with a bright light, encountering some holly characters, and seeing dear deceased relatives or acquaintances (Charland-Verville et al., 2014), which are common among experiencers of different age, gender, religion, or cultural background (Hashemi et al., 2023).The research question in this study was: “To what extent do NDErs produce hedges, negative statements and negative emotions compared to the group who lies about having NDE?” The null hypothesis was that both groups produce the same number of hedges, negative statements, and negative emotions. Materials and MethodsTo test the validity of our hypothesis, we needed a group who claimed to have had NDE and another group who fabricated an NDE. Therefore, a group of 50 participants, (31 females and 10 males, all above 18) took part in this study as liars. For the NDErs, we selected 50 interviews, (37 males and 13 females, all above 18) from the TV show called ‘Life after Life’, in which participants talked about their NDEs. Stories from both groups were audio-recorded and then transcribed. In a qualitative analysis we investigated and coded hedges, negative statements, and phrases which express negative emotions in each story. Finally, a comparative analysis was conducted. Result and Discussion Considering Farsi language rules, we analyzed stories from both groups separately and coded each cue as follows:Negative statementsFor this code, we counted verbs with negative prefixes, the words ‘no’, ‘nobody’, and ‘nothing’. Statistics showed these negations were used by 53.1% by liars and 46.9% by NDErs.Negative emotionsNegative emotion expressions are words or expressions in contrast to positive or neutral expressions. For example, ‘cry’ in contrast with ‘laugh’, and ‘anger’ in contrast with ‘happy’ or ‘calm’. Statistics for this code revealed that liars produced more (54.9%) negative emotions than NDErs (45.1%).HedgesWe used a category of different types of hedges in Farsi including modal verbs, modal expressions, raising impersonal constructions, negative constructions, question forms, verbs of doubt, and recounts. Each item was analyzed in each story under a separate code. After comparing the total usage of hedges in both groups, the result revealed that hedges were used significantly more by liars (63.9%) compared to NDErs (26.1%). ConclusionAll three verbal cues associated with deception examined in this study were produced more by liars and this is aligned with previous studies regarding deceptive language use. It can be concluded that there are two primary reasons for the production of negative statements and negative emotions. First, as mentioned in previous studies, the act of telling lies might evoke some feelings of fear and guilt merely because of lying; consequently, verbal markers associated with negativity can be traced in liars’ words. Second, liars might be affected by the concept of this specific research; they might link the topic of near-death experience to what they have heard about afterlife. Therefore, remembering sins they have committed can be reflected in negative statements and negative emotion expressions. Employing different types of hedges can be the result of liars’ lack of cognitive creativity. They struggle to vividly picture what exactly happened and attempt to distance themselves from the event, feeling less responsible and less committed. These factors contribute to uncertainty.