Did you commit a crime there? investigating the visual exploration patterns when viewing a complex mock crime scene: A comparison between guilty vs. innocent and honest vs. dishonest participants

Objective of the study. Research with the eye tracking technology in deceptive behavior have mostly tracked eye parameters in response to a single, simple stimulus, and generated interesting but inconsistent results in research on deceptive behavior. The present study analyzed visual patterns in response to a complex image, representing a room in which a mock crime took place, in order to investigate potential differences in eye gaze and fixation between guilty versus innocent, and honest versus dishonest participants. Methodology. One hundred and sixty participants were randomly assigned to one of four experimental groups, defined by a combination of the manipulated variables: visit the target room versus not visiting it, committing a crime there versus not committing it, answer questions truthfully versus deceptively. They were later asked to complete a computer-based task, looking at both neutral (room not relevant for the subject) and target images (i.e., images of the mock crime scene). The eye movements of participants during the computer-based task were captured through the Realeye Software. Results obtained. The findings revealed significant differences in eye movements between the four experimental groups. Dishonest and guilty participants recorded fewer and shorter fixation in the portion of the image when the crime took place than participants who entered the crime scene without committing the crime. No differences emerged in the visual pattern in response to the neutral images, confirming that the different number and durations of fixation showed by the groups in response to the target images may be attributed to the experimental condition. Conclusion. The new findings of this exploratory study, the first examining differences in eye pattern between different experimental conditions in response to a complex stimulus, may guide deception research using eye tracking technologies. Future research should try to test the present findings in ecological contexts...