Voice recognition and self-deception: a reply to Sackeim and Gur

Gibbins, K. and Douglas, W. (1985) Voice recognition and self-deception: a reply to Sackeim and Gur. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48 (5). pp. 1369-1372.

Abstract

Sackeim and Gur (1983) have rejected our claim that voice recognition is inadequate as a demonstration of self-deception, asserting that our argument contains a logical error and consequently misrepresents their position. They present evidence, (Sackeim & Gur, 1985), to support their position especially with reference to the motivational aspects of self-deception. We reassert our view, on the basis of our experiments, that it is clear that Sackeim and Gur's data do not necessarily require the operation of a self-deception process. Sackeim and Gur argue that subjects' reports and their galvanic skin responses (GSRs) are both measures of recognition. They claim that when people are faced with their own tape-recorded voices, the overt and covert measures of recognition often do not coincide and that this lack of agreement implies that self-deception is operating. We argue that the evidence cannot be regarded as watertight, because almost exactly the same results are obtained when the target is a voice that is not their own. Sackeim and Gur, however, feel that their interpretation rests, not just on this approach, but on evidence from studies in which, they believe, relevant motives are varied. We present what we believe to be plausible alternative explanations of this evidence, thus leaving the burden of proof of their theory with Sackeim and Gur.

Publication Type:	Journal Article
Murdoch Affiliation:	School of Psychology
Publisher:	American Psychological Association
Copyright:	© 1985 American Psychological Association
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/34061

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