AUTHOR=Sergi Ida , Mottola Francesca , Gnisci Augusto , Caso Letizia , Palena Nicola 

TITLE=The role of individual features of memory and impulsiveness in telling a true or false story in a realistic, clear, and reconstructible way

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1173219

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1173219

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=Research shows that realism, clarity, and reconstructability of the story, all part of the Reality Monitoring, can be useful to assess veracity. Generally, truth tellers obtain higher scores on all three variables than liars, but there is some variability across individuals due to their personal characteristics. Meta-memory and impulsivity also play a role in deception. The aim of the present study was to explore whether there was an interaction effect between such personal aspects and veracity on realism, clarity, and reconstructabilty of the story. One-hundred and fifty-eight participants took part in the experiment and were asked to tell the truth and lie during an interview (veracity condition). They filled in a questionnaire measuring their meta-memory performance and their level of functional and dysfunctional impulsivity. A k-means cluster analysis on meta-memory and impulsivity was conducted and three clusters were obtained: controlled-memory inefficient, controlled-memory efficient, and impulsive-average memory. The results showed that participants scored higher on all three Reality Monitoring criteria when telling the truth than when lying. Further, a cluster membership by veracity interaction for realism was also significant. Follow-up analyses showed that, when lying, the level of realism in the story was significantly higher for people belonging to the cluster “impulsive-average memory” than for people belonging to the cluster “controlled-memory efficient”, a result that seems to indicate that people with good memory and able to control dysfunctional impulsivity have more difficulties when lying. Implications of the results, the limitations of the study, and suggestions for future research are also provided.