An empirical test of the behaviour analysis interview

The perceived guilt and innocence of adults with developmental language disorder and adults with typical language during a mock interrogation

PURPOSE

This study examined if there were differences in the guilty and not guilty judgments of adults with developmental language disorder (DLD) and those with typical language (TL) functioning.

METHOD

Twenty-four adults (12 DLD, 12 TL) were assigned to either the guilty or not guilty conditions. Those in the guilty condition engaged in a mock crime while those in the not guilty condition were informed that a crime had been committed. Peer jurors were presented with video interrogations of the DLD (6 guilty, 6 not guilty) and TL (6 guilty, 6 not guilty) participants and were asked to make categorical judgments of guilty and not guilty and to indicate confidence in their judgments.

RESULTS

In general, peer jurors were not accurate in their judgments of the accused, and were more likely to judge individuals with DLD as guilty relative to accused individuals with TL. Peer jurors were particularly poor at judging innocent adults with DLD as not guilty and guilty adults with TL as guilty. Despite this, peer jurors were more confident than not in their guilty and not guilty determinations.

CONCLUSIONS

Peer jurors are confident in their judgments of the guilt of the accused when they should not be, particularly in the case of accused adults with DLD. Implications are discussed.

Four Misconceptions About Nonverbal Communication

Research and theory in nonverbal communication have made great advances toward understanding the patterns and functions of nonverbal behavior in social settings. Progress has been hindered, we argue, by presumptions about nonverbal behavior that follow from both received wisdom and faulty evidence. In this article, we document four persistent misconceptions about nonverbal communication-namely, that people communicate using decodable body language; that they have a stable personal space by which they regulate contact with others; that they express emotion using universal, evolved, iconic, categorical facial expressions; and that they can deceive and detect deception, using dependable telltale clues. We show how these misconceptions permeate research as well as the practices of popular behavior experts, with consequences that extend from intimate relationships to the boardroom and courtroom and even to the arena of international security. Notwithstanding these misconceptions, existing frameworks of nonverbal communication are being challenged by more comprehensive systems approaches and by virtual technologies that ambiguate the roles and identities of interactants and the contexts of interaction.

From criminal interrogations to investigative interviews: a bibliometric study

This paper presents the results of a bibliometric study providing a comprehensive overview of the social science research conducted on criminal interrogations and investigative interviews since the 1900s. The objectives are to help researchers to further understand the research field, to better communicate research findings to practitioners, to help practitioners understand the breadth of scientific knowledge on criminal interrogations and investigative interviews, and to foster dialog between researchers and practitioners. To begin, after a brief description of Web of Science, we describe how we developed our database on criminal interrogations and investigative interviews. Then, we report the yearly evolution of articles, the journals where they were published, the research areas covered by this research field, as well as the authors, the institutions and the countries that published the most on a variety of topics related to criminal interrogations and investigative interviews. Finally, we present the most used keywords and the most cited articles, and examine the research on questionable tactics and techniques in the research field of criminal interrogations and investigative interviews. This paper ends with a critical look at the results, for the benefit of researchers and practitioners interested in criminal interrogations and investigative interviews.

Verbal Lie Detection: Its Past, Present and Future

This article provides an overview of verbal lie detection research. This type of research began in the 1970s with examining the relationship between deception and specific words. We briefly review this initial research. In the late 1980s, Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA) emerged, a veracity assessment tool containing a list of verbal criteria. This was followed by Reality Monitoring (RM) and Scientific Content Analysis (SCAN), two other veracity assessment tools that contain lists of verbal criteria. We discuss their contents, theoretical rationales, and ability to identify truths and lies. We also discuss similarities and differences between CBCA, RM, and SCAN. In the mid 2000s, 'Interviewing to deception' emerged, with the goal of developing specific interview protocols aimed at enhancing or eliciting verbal veracity cues. We outline the four most widely researched interview protocols to date: the Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE), Verifiability Approach (VA), Cognitive Credibility Assessment (CCA), and Reality Interviewing (RI). We briefly discuss the working of these protocols, their theoretical rationales and empirical support, as well as the similarities and differences between them. We conclude this article with elaborating on how neuroscientists can inform and improve verbal lie detection.

The fabricated past: intentionally fabricated autobiographical memories in Alzheimer's disease

OBJECTIVE

We investigated intentionally fabricated autobiographical memories in Alzheimer's Disease (AD).

METHOD

We invited AD patients and control participants to construct real events as well as fabricated events describing fictitious personal events that occurred in the past.

RESULTS

Results demonstrated slower retrieval time for intentionally fabricated memories than for real ones in both AD patients and control participants. The analysis also showed similar vividness for intentionally fabricated memories and real ones in AD patients but lower vividness for intentionally fabricated memories than for real ones in control participants.

CONCLUSIONS

The slow retrieval time of intentionally fabricated memories may be attributed to the cognitive effort required to retrieve elements from autobiographical memory and edit them to construct a new memory. We suggest that the vividness of intentionally fabricated memories observed in AD may induce confusion with real memories. In addition to the experimental approach of our study, we offer a theoretical rationale for intentionally fabricated autobiographical memories by situating them in the wider context of different facets of false memories in AD (e.g. confabulations, source monitoring errors).

Minimierende und maximierende Vernehmungstaktiken: Risiko falscher Geständnisse und sozialpsychologische Wirkmechanismen

Einzelberichte deuten auf die Verwendung von Vernehmungstaktiken in Deutschland hin, die die Schwere der Tat und die Konsequenzen eines Geständnisses herunterspielen (Minimierung) und die vorhandenen Beweise und die Schwere der Konsequenzen von bestreitenden Aussagen übertreiben (Maximierung). Forschungsarbeiten zeigen jedoch, dass solche Taktiken die Rate falscher Geständnisse erheblich erhöhen. Es wird im vorliegenden Beitrag argumentiert, dass Minimierungs- und Maximierungstaktiken darauf abzielen, eine Aussagemotivation bei Beschuldigten (Zwischenziel) herzustellen, die in eine Geständniserlangung übergehen soll (Hauptziel). Diese Annahme gründet auf einer vorgenommenen Systematisierung und Abgrenzung einzelner Vorgehensweisen dieser Taktiken. Außerdem erklärt der Beitrag kursorisch die sozialpsychologischen Wirkungsweisen dieser Taktiken auf Geständnisentscheidungen. Dies soll helfen, zukünftig Wirkungsweisen einzelner Vorgehensweisen differenzierter wissenschaftlich zu untersuchen, besser zu verstehen und theoretisch zu begründen.

Did You Just Lie to Me? Deception Detection in Face to Face versus Computer Mediated Communication

Individuals' deception detection ability during either a face-to-face (FtF) interaction or through computer-mediated communication (CMC) was explored under more naturalistic conditions where they were not forewarned that deception may be involved. Participants discussed a social issue either in a room together or by instant messaging from separate rooms. Prior to discussion, some participants were asked to deceive their partner regarding their actual opinion on the issue. Results showed that mode of communication did not influence participants' deception detection accuracy rate, nor their truth bias. Regardless of mode of communication, deceptive participants experienced the same level of physiological arousal as the non-deceivers. In contrast, deceivers reported experiencing higher levels of anxiety but only in the FtF condition. Findings highlight how for different communication modalities, a multitude of interactive factors may influence deception detection.

Science or pseudoscience? A distinction that matters for police officers, lawyers and judges

Scientific knowledge has been a significant contributor to the development of better practices within law enforcement agencies. However, some alleged 'experts' have been shown to have disseminated information to police officers, lawyers and judges that is neither empirically tested nor supported by scientific theory. The aim of this article is to provide organisations within the justice system with an overview of a) what science is and is not; b) what constitutes an empirically driven, theoretically founded, peer-reviewed approach; and c) how to distinguish science from pseudoscience. Using examples in relation to non-verbal communication, this article aims to demonstrate that not all information which is presented as comprehensively evaluated is methodologically reliable for use in the justice system.

Reading Lies: Nonverbal Communication and Deception

The relationship between nonverbal communication and deception continues to attract much interest, but there are many misconceptions about it. In this review, we present a scientific view on this relationship. We describe theories explaining why liars would behave differently from truth tellers, followed by research on how liars actually behave and individuals' ability to detect lies. We show that the nonverbal cues to deceit discovered to date are faint and unreliable and that people are mediocre lie catchers when they pay attention to behavior. We also discuss why individuals hold misbeliefs about the relationship between nonverbal behavior and deception-beliefs that appear very hard to debunk. We further discuss the ways in which researchers could improve the state of affairs by examining nonverbal behaviors in different ways and in different settings than they currently do.

Lessons From Pinocchio: Cues to Deception May Be Highly Exaggerated

Deception researchers widely acknowledge that cues to deception-observable behaviors that may differ between truthful and deceptive messages-tend to be weak. Nevertheless, several deception cues have been reported with unusually large effect sizes, and some researchers have advocated the use of such cues as tools for detecting deceit and assessing credibility in practical contexts. By examining data from empirical deception-cue research and using a series of Monte Carlo simulations, I demonstrate that many estimated effect sizes of deception cues may be greatly inflated by publication bias, small numbers of estimates, and low power. Indeed, simulations indicate the informational value of the present deception literature is quite low, such that it is not possible to determine whether any given effect is real or a false positive. I warn against the hazards of relying on potentially illusory cues to deception and offer some recommendations for improving the state of the science of deception.

The Relation Between Young Children's False Statements and Response Latency, Executive Functioning, and Truth-Lie Understanding

This study examined relations between children's false statements and response latency, executive functioning, and truth-lie understanding in order to understand what underlies children's emerging ability to make false statements. A total of 158 (2- to 5-year-old) children earned prizes for claiming that they were looking at birds even when presented with images of fish. Children were asked recall ("What do you have?"), recognition ("Do you have a bird/fish?"), and outcome ("Did you win/lose?") questions. Response latencies were greater when children were presented with fish pictures than bird pictures, particularly when they were asked recall questions, and were greater for false statements than for true statements, again when children were asked recall questions. Older but not younger children exhibited longer latencies when making false responses to outcome questions, which suggests that younger children were providing impulsive desire-based responses to the outcome questions. Executive functioning, as measured by the Stroop task, was not related to false statements. Children who were better at labeling statements as the truth or not the truth were more proficient at making false statements. The results support the proposition that the cognitive effort required for making false statements depends on the types of questions asked.

It Takes Two: The Round-Robin Methodology for Investigative Interviewing Research

Investigative interviews are complex, dyadic, and social interactions typically studied by evaluating interviewers' questioning strategies. In field settings, interviewers naturally vary in their interviewing practice. Thus, it is important to conduct research reflective of idiosyncrasies in witnesses, interviewers, and the resulting unique pairings. This study explored sources of variation in an interview by using a "round-robin" design. Each session of the study involved five witnesses observing five separate events. Witnesses were then simultaneously, but independently interviewed by four different interviewers, or completed a self-administered written interview. This sequence was repeated until each witness had seen every event and had been interviewed by each interviewer. Over nine sessions (N = 45) this produced 225 total interviews. Individual interview performance (accuracy and level of detail) as well as experience (subjective ratings) were then analyzed in relation to the typical performance of the interviewer, the witness, the event, and the unique paring. We found that witnesses and interviewers could have an effect on statement quality; however, the unique interview experience variance had the greatest influence on interview performance. This study presents the round-robin methodology as a useful tool to study realistic variation in interviewer, witness, and dyad behavior. The preprint of this paper is available at psyarxiv.com/tv5gz/, and materials and data are available at osf.io/ef634/files/.

Unmaking a murderer: behaviour sequence analysis of false confessions

The causes of false confessions are an important issue in legal studies and forensics. Recent advances in DNA testing have increased the number of proven false confessions; however, there are probably many cases without scientific evidence to refute the guilty verdict. The current research provides a novel approach to understand the structure and process of police interrogation techniques, in the United States behaviour sequence analysis. This method allows complex interactions in interrogations to be broken down and the progression of techniques analysed clearly. A case study is provided of an individual who confessed to a series of very serious crimes. The results show that several psychological techniques, such as leading statements, pressure, empathy, and inducements, are used, in increasing frequency, which resulted in the suspect's confession. This research provides support for behaviour sequence analysis as a new method to understand the structure of police interrogations and how psychological techniques may be used to gain false confessions.

Psychological Perspectives on Interrogation

Proponents of “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the United States have claimed that such methods are necessary for obtaining information from uncooperative terrorism subjects. In the present article, we offer an informed, academic perspective on such claims. Psychological theory and research shows that harsh interrogation methods are ineffective. First, they are likely to increase resistance by the subject rather than facilitate cooperation. Second, the threatening and adversarial nature of harsh interrogation is often inimical to the goal of facilitating the retrieval of information from memory and therefore reduces the likelihood that a subject will provide reports that are extensive, detailed, and accurate. Third, harsh interrogation methods make lie detection difficult. Analyzing speech content and eliciting verifiable details are the most reliable cues to assessing credibility; however, to elicit such cues subjects must be encouraged to provide extensive narratives, something that does not occur in harsh interrogations. Evidence is accumulating for the effectiveness of rapport-based information-gathering approaches as an alternative to harsh interrogations. Such approaches promote cooperation, enhance recall of relevant and reliable information, and facilitate assessments of credibility. Given the available evidence that torture is ineffective, why might some laypersons, policymakers, and interrogation personnel support the use of torture? We conclude our review by offering a psychological perspective on this important question.

False confessions

As illustrated by numerous cases in recent years, DNA exonerations of innocent individuals have cast a spotlight on the counterintuitive problem of false confessions. Studying the underlying psychology scientists have found that (1) innocent people are often targeted for interrogation because police make erroneous but confident judgments of deception; (2) certain interrogation techniques-namely, lengthy sessions, presentations of false evidence, and minimization themes that imply leniency-increase the risk that innocent people will confess; (3) certain individuals are particularly vulnerable to influence-notably, those with mental health problems or intellectual impairments, which render them overly compliant or suggestible, and children and adolescents, who exhibit 'immaturity of judgment'; (4) confession evidence is highly persuasive in court as a matter of common sense, increasing perceptions of guilt, even among judges and juries who see the confession as coerced, and even at times when the confession is contradicted by exculpatory information; (5) Miranda rights to silence and to counsel are not sufficiently protective, so proposals for reform have centered on the mandatory recording of interrogations, from start to finish, and a shift toward using investigative interviewing-a less confrontational, less deceptive means of questioning suspects. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1439. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1439 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

The accuracy of auditors' and layered voice Analysis (LVA) operators' judgments of truth and deception during police questioning

The purpose of this study was to determine if auditors could identify truthful and deceptive persons in a sample (n = 74) of audio recordings used to assess the effectiveness of layered voice analysis (LVA). The LVA employs an automated algorithm to detect deception, but it was not effective here. There were 31 truthful and 43 deceptive persons in the sample and two LVA operators averaged 48% correct decisions on truth-tellers and 25% on deceivers. Subsequent to the LVA analysis the recordings were audited by three interviewers, each independently rendering a decision of truthful or deceptive and indicating their confidence. Auditors' judgments averaged 68% correct decisions on truth-tellers and 71% on deceivers. Auditors' detection rates, generally, exceeded chance and there was significantly (p < 0.05) greater confidence on correct than incorrect judgments of deceivers but not on truth-tellers. These results suggest that the success reported for LVA analysis may be due to operator's judgment.

Criminal versus HUMINT Interrogations: The Importance of Psychological Science to Improving Interrogative Practice

The discovery of many cases of wrongful conviction in the criminal justice system involving admissions from innocent suspects has led psychologists to examine the factors contributing to false confessions. However, little systematic research has assessed the processes underlying Human Intelligence (HUMINT) interrogations relating to military and intelligence operations. The current article examines the similarities and differences between interrogations in criminal and HUMINT settings, and discusses the extent to which the current empirical literature can be applied to criminal and/or HUMINT interrogations. Finally, areas of future research are considered in light of the need for improving HUMINT interrogation.

Effects of false-evidence ploys and expert testimony on jurors' verdicts, recommended sentences, and perceptions of confession evidence

During interrogations, police may use false-evidence ploys or fabricated claims to convince suspects to confess. Mock jurors read trial materials containing interrogation transcripts with or without a false-evidence ploy and one of two expert witness conditions (present or absent). We examined jurors' verdicts, recommended sentences, and perceptions of the interrogation. Although factual evidence and the defendant's confession remained constant across conditions, false-evidence ploys led to fewer convictions and shorter sentences. Jurors also perceived interrogations with ploys as more deceptive and coercive. Expert testimony reduced convictions and increased interrogation deception and coercion ratings. Across ploy types, participants rated demeanor ploys as less deceptive and recommended longer sentences for confessors. Outcomes reveal important, previously unrecognized consequences of false-evidence ploys.

Increasing cognitive load to facilitate lie detection: the benefit of recalling an event in reverse order

In two experiments, we tested the hypotheses that (a) the difference between liars and truth tellers will be greater when interviewees report their stories in reverse order than in chronological order, and (b) instructing interviewees to recall their stories in reverse order will facilitate detecting deception. In Experiment 1, 80 mock suspects told the truth or lied about a staged event and did or did not report their stories in reverse order. The reverse order interviews contained many more cues to deceit than the control interviews. In Experiment 2, 55 police officers watched a selection of the videotaped interviews of Experiment 1 and made veracity judgements. Requesting suspects to convey their stories in reverse order improved police observers' ability to detect deception and did not result in a response bias.

The Behavioural Analysis Interview: Clarifying the Practice, Theory and Understanding of its Use and Effectiveness

The Behavioural Analysis Interview (BAI) is the only questioning method that has been developed specifically to help investigators sort those who are likely to be ‘guilty’ from those who are not. In its typical application the BAI is a pre-interrogation interview that is used to focus interrogational effort; however, it also can be used independently in order to circumscribe investigative efforts in those cases in which there is a fixed and relatively large number of ‘suspects’. In this paper an overview of the BAI process is provided and the findings and limitations of the extant bodies of field and laboratory research on the BAI are discussed. The paper concludes with suggestions to guide future research on the BAI.

Cues to deception and ability to detect lies as a function of police interview styles

In Experiment 1, we examined whether three interview styles used by the police, accusatory, information-gathering and behaviour analysis, reveal verbal cues to deceit, measured with the Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA) and Reality Monitoring (RM) methods. A total of 120 mock suspects told the truth or lied about a staged event and were interviewed by a police officer employing one of these three interview styles. The results showed that accusatory interviews, which typically result in suspects making short denials, contained the fewest verbal cues to deceit. Moreover, RM distinguished between truth tellers and liars better than CBCA. Finally, manual RM coding resulted in more verbal cues to deception than automatic coding of the RM criteria utilising the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software programme. In Experiment 2, we examined the effects of the three police interview styles on the ability to detect deception. Sixty-eight police officers watched some of the videotaped interviews of Experiment 1 and made veracity and confidence judgements. Accuracy scores did not differ between the three interview styles; however, watching accusatory interviews resulted in more false accusations (accusing truth tellers of lying) than watching information-gathering interviews. Furthermore, only in accusatory interviews, judgements of mendacity were associated with higher confidence. We discuss the possible danger of conducting accusatory interviews.