Did You Commit a Crime There? Investigating the Visual Exploration Patterns of Guilty, Innocent, Honest, and Dishonest Subjects When Viewing a Complex Mock Crime Scene

Previous studies with the eye-tracking technology have predominantly tracked eye parameters in response to a single simple stimulus, and have generated interesting - sometimes inconsistent - results in research on deceptive behavior. The present study analyzed visual patterns in response to a complex image, to investigate potential differences in eye fixation between guilty versus innocent, and honest versus dishonest participants. One hundred and sixty participants were assigned to one of four experimental groups, defined by the parameters of honesty (dishonesty) and guilt (innocence), and asked to complete a computer-based task, looking at neutral and target images (i.e., images of the mock crime scene). RealEye software was used to capture participants’ eye movements when viewing the images. The findings revealed significant differences in eye movements between the four experimental groups in the pictures in which the area where the crime took place was clearly visible. Dishonest and guilty participants recorded fewer and shorter fixations in the area of the image where the crime took place than those who entered the crime scene but did not commit the crime. No differences between groups emerged in the visual patterns in response to neutral images, confirming that the number and duration of fixations in response to the target images may be attributed to the experimental condition.