The Effects of Group Member Experience and Task Complexity on Computer Mediated Collaborative Groups Facing Deception

Individuals often work together in environments where computers mediate their communication. One key area affected by computer mediated communication in group settings is the transmission of cues to deception. If cues to deception are filtered, such as they are with computer-mediated communication, deception detection accuracy can be hindered due to the lack of cues available, and group task performance can be lowered. Past deception research was not very applicable to many business settings since the tasks studied did not mimic the interactive, computer-mediated group settings where business decisions are often made. Past research also did not look at the influences of individuals’ familiarity with each other and their task complexity, which are key parts of group decision-making processes. We plan to conduct two experiments that simulate organizational collaborative group settings by having groups of subjects perform a computer-mediated collaborative task. Our experimental task will be a computerized strategy game where groups of subjects will methodically search a game board for a fixed number of targets, which they will attempt to destroy on their final turn. We will manipulate subjects’ task complexity and group members’ familiarity with each other in the experiments. We will then look at how their task performance and deception detection accuracy are influenced by these factors when they are facing a deceptive group member.