Search

Studies on the collection of information (intelligence) show the effectiveness of the Scharff technique and the principle of reciprocity. These two aspects have never been considered at the same time. In the present experiment, we compared the effect of two different forms of reciprocity (intrinsic vs. instrumental) and their combination on the elicitation of information in Scharff interviews. Participants were asked to imagine that an interview took place and were exposed to four reciprocity conditions (no reciprocity, intrinsic reciprocity, instrumental reciprocity, intrinsic and instrumental reciprocity). The results showed that instrumental reciprocity resulted in more information than intrinsic reciprocity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: We examined the possibility of using shared experiences to recruit human intelligence (HUMINT) sources. The research was based on two hypotheses. (a) Shared experiences amplify interpersonal affiliation, which increases the extent to which sources will commit to an intelligence arrangement. (b) The social connection opportunity shared experiences afford is what increases such commitment. Methods: Participants assumed the role of a source meeting a potential handler, a police officer, to discuss an arrangement whereby they might supply intelligence. We manipulated shared experience via the meeting's setting. Half of the participants underwent a shared experience to facilitate interpersonal affiliation with the handler, and the other half did not undergo such an experience. The handler used one of two approaches to propose the arrangement. One approach afforded a social connection opportunity, and the other constrained the possibility of a social connection in the arrangement. Results: The findings indicated that shared experiences can have interpersonal influence. The shared experience operationalization positively influenced felt closeness and social connection affordance. However, there was little indication that handlers could capitalize on shared experience to bolster commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This research introduces a web application, the bot orchestrator, to assist researchers in developing paradigms to examine illicit networks in experiments. We implemented the application and a new paradigm to create mock networks using strangers. The proof‐of‐concept experiment examined communication when networks plan illicit activities. Method: Participants assumed the role of an illicit network member—either a manager, a coordinator or an executor. They held some information the group needed to accomplish either a material or ideological goal: communication between the roles was imperative for success. We also manipulated the level of risk associated with communicating about the planning activities. For half of the participants, there was a moderate risk of communicating about the plans. For the other half, the risk of such communication was high. The procedure allowed us to examine who a network member was willing to communicate with, given the goal under pursuit and the associated risk level. Results: Although goal‐type, risk level, and the Goal‐type × Risk Interaction did not significantly predict communication decisions, a content analysis suggested that participants were attempting to navigate the risks while pursuing their goals. Participants employed diverse communication strategies: individual differences explained the most variance regarding how network members communicate. Conclusions: We hope the web application and paradigm this research introduces will facilitate further experiments examining illicit networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Research‐based interviewing techniques typically rely upon suspects being, at least partially, responsive and engaged in the conversation. To date, the scientific literature is more limited regarding situations where suspects exercise their legal right to silence. The present study aimed to examine Swedish police officers' self‐reported strategies when interviewing suspects who decline to answer questions. Methods: A total of 289 police officers responded to a national survey that included questions about handling silence. The participants worked with a wide range of criminal cases, including financial crimes, fraud, violent offences, domestic abuse, volume crime and traffic violations. We used content analysis to examine their written responses to the open‐ended question: 'What, if any, strategies do you use when interviewing suspects who speak very little or not at all?' Results: Four main categories were identified relating to (1) question strategies (e.g. asking the questions anyway, using silence), (2) information strategies (e.g. emphasizing the benefits of cooperating and informing about their legal right to silence), (3) supportive strategies (e.g. being friendly and asking about reasons for silence) and (4) procedural strategies (e.g. changing interviewers and conducting multiple interviews). Practitioners working with violent crimes reported meeting silent suspects more frequently compared with practitioners working with other criminal offences. Conclusions: The results provide an initial exploration into the various strategies used by police interviewers when questioning suspects who decline to answer questions. Further research is necessary for understanding and evaluating the ethics and effectiveness of such strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sketching while narrating involves describing an event while sketching on a blank paper (self‐generated sketch) or on a printed map. We compared the effects of self‐generated sketches and printed maps on information elicitation and lie detection. Participants (N = 211) carried out a mock mission and were instructed to tell the truth or to lie about it in an online interview. In the first phase of the interview, all participants provided a free recall. In the second phase, participants provided another free recall or verbally described the mission while sketching on a blank paper or on a printed map. Truth tellers provided richer accounts than lie tellers. Larger effect sizes emerged for the self‐generated sketch condition than for the printed map and free recall conditions. This suggests that self‐generated sketches are more effective lie detection tools when information on routes and locations is sought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to understand if guilty suspects' perceptions regarding the prior information or evidence held by the interviewer against the suspect could be influenced through the content of the investigative questions. To test this idea, we explored three question‐phrasing factors that we labeled as topic discussion (if a specific crime‐related topic was discussed or not), specificity (different levels of crime‐related details included in the questions), and stressor (emphasis on the importance of the specific crime‐related detail in the questions). The three factors were chosen based on relevance theory, a psycholinguistic theory that explores how people draw inferences from the communicated content. Participants (N = 370) assumed the role of the suspect and read a crime narrative and an interview transcript based on the suspect's activities. After reading the narrative and the transcripts, participants responded to scales that measured their perception of interviewer's prior knowledge (perceived interviewer knowledge [PIK]) regarding the suspects' role in the crime, based on the questions posed by the interviewer in the transcripts. Of the three factors tested, we found that questioning about a specific crime‐related topic (topic discussion) increased their PIK. This study is the first to explore the underlying mechanisms of how suspects draw inferences regarding the interviewer's prior knowledge through the content of the investigative questions adopting concepts of psycholinguistic theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Scharff technique aims to elicit information by affecting the source's perception of the interviewer's existing knowledge. Although the technique has been found to be effective for gathering new information, countermeasures to the technique have not been examined. In a 2 × 2 between‐subjects experiment, we informed half of the 120 sources about the counter‐interrogation strategy of carefully considering the interviewer's prior knowledge and the tactic of providing information perceived as already known to the interviewer. After this, sources were interviewed with the Scharff technique or the Direct approach, widely used in human intelligence‐gathering situations and consisting of open‐ended and direct questions. We found that "informed sources" did not succeed in revealing information already known to the interviewer, where informed sources and uninformed sources revealed known information to a similar degree (1.62 pieces vs. 1.65 pieces). Sources interviewed with the Direct approach (vs. Scharff technique) revealed a larger amount of information previously known to the interviewer (2.18 pieces vs. 1.08 pieces). When interviewed with the Scharff technique, sources informed about the counter‐interrogation strategy attempted to adopt more counter‐interrogation strategies. The present study replicates earlier research on the Scharff technique as a technique effective in affecting the source's perception of the interviewer's prior knowledge. The results of the current study indicate that both the Scharff technique and the Direct approach might be similarly robust against counter‐interrogation strategies, in terms of gathering new information. Future studies should focus on implementing more comprehensive training in counter‐interrogation strategies for the sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innocent suspects interviewed by a guilt‐presumptive versus innocence‐presumptive or neutral interviewer may tend more to display non‐verbal behaviours which neutral judges consider indicative of guilt. We examined the effects of interviewer's presumption of guilt on innocent mock suspects' alibis. Participants (N = 90) provided an alibi to convince an interviewer of their innocence of a theft after she implied that she believed that they were guilty or innocent or that she had no belief about their veracity. On the basis of existing conflicting findings for suspects' verbal behaviour during accusatory interviews, we predicted that alibis in the guilt‐belief condition would contain the highest or lowest number of correct details with overall higher or poorer accuracy rates, respectively. Although participants perceived the interviewer's presumptive approach, the number of correct details provided and accuracy rates of alibis did not differ significantly between conditions. We propose explanations to these findings and future research paths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its introduction into the field of deception detection, the verbal channel has become a rapidly growing area of research. The basic assumption is that liars differ from truth tellers in their verbal behaviour, making it possible to classify them by inspecting their verbal accounts. However, as noted in conferences and in private communication between researchers, the field of verbal lie detection faces several challenges that merit focused attention. The first author therefore proposed a workshop with the mission of promoting solutions for urgent issues in the field. Nine researchers and three practitioners with experience in credibility assessments gathered for 3 days of discussion at Bar‐Ilan University (Israel) in the first international verbal lie detection workshop. The primary session of the workshop took place the morning of the first day. In this session, each of the participants had up to 10 min to deliver a brief message, using just one slide. Researchers were asked to answer the question: 'In your view, what is the most urgent, unsolved question/issue in verbal lie detection?' Similarly, practitioners were asked: 'As a practitioner, what question/issue do you wish verbal lie detection research would address?' The issues raised served as the basis for the discussions that were held throughout the workshop. The current paper first presents the urgent, unsolved issues raised by the workshop group members in the main session, followed by a message to researchers in the field, designed to deliver the insights, decisions, and conclusions resulting from the discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eliciting information from semicooperative sources presents a major challenge in investigative and intelligence settings. This research examines the role of the human need to belong in individuals' willingness to disclose critical information. We hypothesised that social exclusion would exert a threat to individuals' need to belong and self‐esteem, which would make them strive for social reconnection through sharing information with others. In two experiments (N = 150 and N = 135), social exclusion and inclusion were manipulated before participants were given the opportunity to disclose critical information in a semicooperative game setting (Study 1) or a mock intelligence interview (Study 2). Social exclusion did not influence information disclosure in any of the experiments. Instead, however, social inclusion unexpectedly increased information disclosure in the interview setting. We conclude that prior social experiences can influence the outcome of subsequent interviews, but the precise mechanisms underlying such influence are currently unknown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study examined the joint influence of helpfulness priming and a helpfulness‐focused interpersonal approach on information disclosure in an intelligence interview. We based the research on the theoretical proposition that consistency between an interviewee's primed dispositions and an interviewer's interpersonal approach would facilitate disclosure. Participants (N = 116) took on the role of an informant with information about an upcoming terror attack. Afterwards, an interviewer solicited information about the attack using an interpersonal approach that exhibited either high (helpfulness‐focused) or low (control) fit with helpfulness concerns. Prior to the interview, in a seemingly unrelated experiment, we primed participants' helpfulness motivation and assessed their cognitive accessibility to helpfulness‐related constructs. We observed that helpfulness priming increased information disclosure when the helpfulness‐focused interpersonal approach was used but not when the control protocol was used. This research suggests that implementation of an interpersonal approach that complements an interviewee's primed dispositions may function symbiotically with the previous priming to facilitate information disclosure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: We experimentally investigated how different mnemonic techniques employed in an interview conducted immediately after an event affected truth tellers' and liars' responses when they were interviewed again after a 2‐week delay. We also compared how verbal accounts changed over time within truth tellers and liars, and how consistent both groups were. Participants (n = 143) were shown a mock intelligence operation video and instructed either to tell the truth or lie about its contents in two interviews, one of which was immediately after watching the video and the other after a 2‐week delay. In the immediate interview, they were asked to provide a free recall and then asked to provide further information via one of three mnemonics: context reinstatement, sketch, or event‐line. In the delayed interview, they were asked to provide only a free recall. Truth tellers reported more visual, spatial, temporal, and action details than did liars both immediately and after a delay. Truth tellers experienced more of a decline in reporting details after a delay than did liars, and this decline was affected by the mnemonic used. Truth tellers thus showed, more than liars, patterns of reporting indicative of genuine memory decay. Liars produced patterns of a “stability bias” instead. Truth tellers and liars were equally consistent between their immediate and delayed statements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The aim of this study was to examine how people mentally represent and depict true and false statements about claimed future actions—so‐called true and false intentions. On the basis of construal level theory, which proposes that subjectively unlikely events are more abstractly represented than likely ones, we hypothesized that false intentions should be represented at a more abstract level than true intentions. Fifty‐six hand drawings, produced by participants to describe mental images accompanying either true or false intentions, were rated on level of abstractness by a second set of participants (N = 117) blind to the veracity of the intentions. As predicted, drawings of false intentions were rated as more abstract than drawings of true intentions. This result advances the use of drawing‐based deception detection techniques to the field of true and false intentions and highlights the potential for abstractness as a novel cue to deceit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of this study was to assess statement consistency in pairs of deceptive and truth‐telling suspects when the Devil's Advocate approach is implemented. This approach involves asking suspects an ‘opinion‐eliciting’ question for arguments that support their opinions followed by a ‘devil's advocate’ question to elicit opposing arguments. On the basis of the confirmation bias and impression management literatures, we predicted that truth‐telling pairs would provide more consistent arguments in response to the opinion‐eliciting question than to the devil's advocate question. Deceptive pairs were expected to be equally consistent with each other in response to both questions. Method: Forty‐nine pairs of participants were matched, based on their strong opinions about a controversial topic, and were asked to either tell the truth or lie about their opinions to an interviewer. Pair members were permitted to prepare for the interview together. Each participant was interviewed individually with the devil's advocate approach. Results: Prepared truth‐telling pairs were more consistent with each other in response to the opinion‐eliciting question than to the devil's advocate question. However, and as predicted, deceptive pairs were equally consistent with each other in response to both questions. Conclusions: The Devil's Advocate approach seems to be a promising interview technique for assessing consistency among pairs who hold false opinions and pairs who hold true opinions. It also has implications for the consistency heuristic as consistency is not diagnostic of deception or honesty unless the interview technique is taken into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This study examines counter‐interrogation strategies employed by liars giving false alibis. Participants (N = 144) visited a restaurant to buy a sandwich (truth‐tellers) or to use it as a false alibi (liars). Half of the liars were informed they might be asked for a drawing of the alibi setting if interviewed (informed liars). Participants spent either 10 min (high familiarity condition) or 30 s (low familiarity condition) in the restaurant. All participants were asked to provide two visuospatial statements, which were assessed for salient details, nonsalient details, between‐statement consistency, and statement‐alibi setting consistency. Informed liars provided significantly more salient and nonsalient details than uninformed liars and truth‐tellers, particularly in the high familiarity condition. No differences emerged for statement consistency types. The results suggest that liars are more concerned than truth‐tellers about making a positive impression on the interviewer, and they fail to accurately reflect on truth‐tellers' visuospatial statements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a novel cognitive framework to distinguish between statements of true and false intent based on research on goal-directed behaviour. A true intention comes with a commitment to carry out the stated intention. This commitment activates the behavioural goal of a true intention. In contrast, a false intention does not come with a commitment to carry out the stated intention. Hence, the behavioural goal of a stated false intention should be inactive. Active goals have profound and predictable influences on human behaviour. For instance, active goals influence planning, future thought and evaluations. Such influences are functional-they aid in goal attainment. Insofar as true intentions activate goals, but false intentions do not, the expected influences of active goals should be weaker or non-existent for those stating a false intention. The framework parsimoniously accounts for previous intention-focused deception studies while generating new directions for future research.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When faced with threats of violence, it is of great importance to assess the risk for actual harm to occur. Over the last decades, this task has developed into a domain of its own and professionals have specialised in threat assessment. However, it is yet unknown whether professional experience affects the quality of threat assessments. The present study examined how threat assessment professionals ( N = 44), university students ( N = 44), and laypersons ( N = 45) assessed the risk for violence in three fictitious cases. The assessments (i.e., assigning risk values to different pieces of information) were found to be strikingly similar across the three groups. Yet, professionals agreed more with one another on their assessments, and professionals identified more relevant (empirically supported) threat cues when given the opportunity to request additional information. These results suggest that threat assessment professionals know better than nonprofessionals what information to look for, and hence, they may contribute most in the process of gathering information to clarify the threat. Such knowledge can help to optimise the use of expertise, which may improve the quality of threat assessments. The current findings can be of value to those who consult threat assessment professionals, as well as to the professionals themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose In previous laboratory-based work, the Scharff technique has proved successful for gathering intelligence from human sources. However, little is known about whether the technique can be taught to practitioners, and whether Scharff-trained practitioners will interview more effectively than colleagues using their conventional approaches and tactics. Method We examined professional handlers from the Norwegian Police ( n = 64), all experienced in interacting with informants. Half received training in the Scharff technique, and their performance was compared against handlers receiving no Scharff training and free to use the approaches they saw fit. All handlers received the same case file describing a source holding information about a future terrorist attack and were given the same interview objectives. Police trainees ( n = 64) took on the role of semicooperative sources and were given incomplete information about the attack. Results The trained handlers adhered to the Scharff training as they (1) aimed to establish the illusion of 'knowing-it-all', (2) posed claims to collect information, and (3) asked few (if any) explicit questions. In contrast, the untrained handlers tried to evoke the sources' motivation to reveal information and asked a high number of explicit questions. Scharff-trained handlers were perceived as less eager to gather information, but collected comparatively more new information. Conclusions The Scharff-trained interviewers utilized more specific elicitation tactics (e.g., posing claims) and fewer general interview strategies (e.g., evoking motivation), and they collected comparatively more new information. This captures the essence of the Scharff technique: It is subtle, yet effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Witnesses to violent crimes are often alcohol intoxicated, but few studies have investigated the impact of alcohol on witness reports. This study investigated how alcohol intoxication and time of interview affected reports of intimate partner violence (IPV). One hundred thirty six healthy men ( N = 66) and women ( N = 70) were randomized to an alcohol group (0.8g/kg for men, 0.75g/kg for women) ( N = 70) or control group ( N = 66), given juice. Participants consumed drinks in a laboratory setting before they witnessed an IPV scenario. Fifty percent of the intoxicated and sober participants were interviewed ten minutes after viewing the film and all participants were interviewed one week later. For the analyses, participants in the alcohol group were divided into two groups (moderately/highly intoxicated) based on their BAC-level. Ten minutes after viewing the event, highly (BAC = 0.08-0.15) intoxicated witnesses gave shorter, but as accurate, reports as moderately intoxicated/sober witnesses. All witnesses gave shorter and less accurate reports one week later compared to immediately after. However, an immediate interview increased completeness one week later. In general, time and high intoxication made witnesses give less detailed accounts of actions and verbal information, but not of objects. Highly intoxicated witnesses reported less actions and verbal information in all interviews, while information regarding objects was reported to a similar extent. At the present BAC-level, it is beneficial to conduct an immediate free recall interview with intoxicated witnesses to obtain a maximum amount of correct information and minimize the negative effect of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to discriminate between honest and deceptive alibi statements holds great legal importance. We examined this issue from the perspective of group deception. Our goals were to (a) compare the consistency between the statements of guilty and innocent suspects and those of their respective alibi witnesses, and (b) to examine the moderating role of object-salience on the level of consistency between their statements. Pairs of truth-tellers provided honest testimonies. Pairs of liars were divided into perpetrators and alibi witnesses. Statements of lying pairs were considerably more consistent than the statements of truth-telling pairs. In addition, both truth-tellers and liars showed lower levels of within-group consistency when recalling less salient details about an event. However, truth-tellers' consistency levels were considerably more affected by salience than were liars' consistency levels. These findings contribute to deception theory and have important implications for the real-life task of distinguishing between true and false alibi statements. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined how police officers planned to interview suspects in a situation where they lacked information about a critical phase of a crime (i.e., the time during which the crime took place) but possessed information about less critical phases of the crime (i.e., the time before and/or after the crime took place). The main focus was the officers' planned use of the available information (evidence) to elicit admissions about the critical phase. A survey was distributed to police officers ( n = 69) containing a fictitious murder case for which they were to prepare an interview with a suspect. The investigators planned to disclose the evidence more often in a strategic manner (obtaining the suspect's statement and exhausting alternative scenarios before revealing the evidence) than in a non-strategic manner (revealing the evidence before requiring an explanation). The investigators' most frequently reported reason for their planned evidence use was to collect additional information about the particular phase to which the disclosed evidence pertained. It was rare that the investigators planned to disclose the evidence about a less critical phase of the crime in order to elicit admissions about the more critical phase (e.g., by disclosing the evidence to try to shift the suspect's counter-interrogation strategy from less to more forthcoming). The investigators may benefit from recent research showing that strategic evidence disclosure can be used as a means to elicit admissions about a phase of a crime for which information is lacking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lie detection research has typically focused on reports about a single event. However, in many forensic and security contexts, suspects are likely to report on several events, some of them may be untruthful. This presents interviewers with the challenge of detecting which reports are true and which are not. Varying question format in a second interview, we examined differences in liars' and truth-tellers' statement consistency about two events. One hundred and fifty participants viewed a meeting in which a noncritical and a critical event were discussed. Truth-tellers were instructed to be honest in their reports about both events, whereas liars had to lie about the critical event. In the first interview, all participants provided a free recall account. In a second interview, participants either gave another free recall account or responded to specific questions presented sequentially (concerning one event at a time) or nonsequentially (concerning both events simultaneously). Liars' accounts featured fewer repetitions than truth-tellers for both events, particularly in response to questions presented in nonsequential order. The implications for the use of this question format are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the current vignette study is to map the style, type, and themes of questions that are asked when assessing the credibility of asylum seekers' claims. Sixty-five officials from the Swedish Migration Agency ( Migrationsverket), were asked to respond to one out of four different vignettes that contained fictitious asylum narratives. Each vignette presented the types of problems often encountered by officials at the migration board. Two of the vignettes contained no evidence of the origin of the asylum seeker. The other two contained no evidence for the claim of persecution. The asylum officials were asked to formulate five questions that would help them to assess the veracity of the applicant's claim. Our analyses showed that they mainly formulated open questions in an information gathering style. A thematic analysis of the questions revealed that when a claim about origin was assessed, asylum officials mostly asked questions about life in the country of origin, identity documents, and the flight to Europe. When the claim about persecution was assessed, in contrast, asylum officials mostly formulated case-specific questions (e.g., how the applicant was arrested). Hence, when the credibility of claims about origin is assessed, there seems to be a typical set of questions that asylum officials use. The asylum officials seem to assume that if the applicant is truly originating from a specific country or area, he or she should have ample knowledge about that area, its customs, and frequently encountered objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Despite high potential value for real-life situations, detecting true and false intentions by groups of suspects have not been previously investigated. Method The experimental study had a set-up in which participants ( N = 232), half in dyads and half in quartets, planned for either a mock crime or a non-criminal event. In structured individual interviews, all participants were asked one set of questions targeting their intentions (anticipated questions) and one set of questions targeting the planning phase of the intentions (unanticipated questions). We scored the level of detail and consistency in participants' interview responses. Results As predicted, questions on the planning phase were perceived as unanticipated and difficult to answer by both liars and truth tellers. Truth tellers' answers to the question on intent were perceived as more detailed compared to the liars. Cells of truth tellers and liars achieved an equally high within-group consistency for their answers to the questions on the stated intentions, whereas cells of truth tellers achieved a higher within-group consistency for the answers to the questions on the planning phase. Finally, truth tellers' descriptions of their intentions contained more information related to how to attain the stated goal, whereas liars gave more information related to why it was necessary to attain the stated goal. Conclusions Asking anticipated and unanticipated questions can be a successful way of eliciting cues to true and false intentions among small cells of suspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) technique becomes more widely taught to practitioners, it is important to investigate possible countermeasures to the technique. It is possible that guilty suspects who are aware of the SUE technique will employ forthcoming verbal strategies to make themselves appear innocent. Mock suspects committed a richly detailed simulated transgression (or a benign analogue) and were interviewed about their activities. Prior to questioning, some suspects received information about SUE tactics the interviewer was likely to use. Guilty suspects who were informed about the SUE technique employed more verbally forthcoming strategies than their uninformed counterparts. Guilty suspects who were given SUE information also reported planning for the interview in different ways. However, guilty-informed suspects did not become as forthcoming as innocent suspects overall. In sum, it appears that information about the SUE technique induces guilty suspects to alter their strategies, but only to a relatively small degree.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the effect of deliberate mimicry on eliciting (accurate) information and cues to deceit. Mimicry is considered to facilitate cooperation and compliance in truth tellers, whereas liars are constrained to provide detail. We therefore expected truth tellers to be more detailed than liars, particularly after being mimicked. A total of 165 participants told the truth or lied about a meeting they attended. During the interview, an interviewer mimicked half of the participants. Truth tellers were more detailed than liars, but only in the 'mimicry present' condition. Truth tellers also gave more accurate units of information than liars, and the difference was most pronounced in the 'mimicry present' condition. Mimicry as a tool for eliciting information and cues to deceit fits well with the emerging 'interviewing to detect deception' literature, particularly in the 'encouraging interviewees to say more' approach. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the combined effect of the Cognitive Interview ( CI) and the unanticipated questions approach on the magnitude of the elicited cues to true and false intentions. The participants ( N = 125) planned for either a mock crime or a non-criminal event, half of them were interviewed with a standard interview ( SI) and half with the CI. All participants were asked one set of questions targeting their intentions (anticipated questions) and one set of questions targeting the phase in which they planned their stated intentions (unanticipated questions). As predicted, the questions about the planning phase were perceived as unanticipated by both liars and truth-tellers. Furthermore, and as predicted, the truth-tellers' (vs. the liars') answers to the unanticipated questions were significantly more detailed. Importantly, and in line with our predictions, for the answers given to questions about the planning-phase, liars and truth-tellers differed more clearly in the CI-condition than in the SI-condition, indicating that the CI indeed magnified the differences between liars and truth-tellers. In addition, and as predicted, the truth-tellers' (vs. the liars') descriptions of their intentions were more characterized by information related to how to attain the stated goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigators often have to deal with small groups of suspects, and this is true both for criminal cases and for suspected terrorist cases. There is, however, very little research examining the effectiveness of different interview techniques when facing cells of suspects. In order to remedy this shortcoming, we examined the extent to which three interviewing techniques elicited cues to deception from small groups of suspects. In one technique, the evidence was disclosed early in the interview (early evidence); in another, the evidence was disclosed late using the Strategic use of evidence technique (SUE-basic); and in the third technique, the evidence was disclosed late and with an increased strength and precision (SUE-incremental). We used a mock-theft scenario with 126 participants randomly allocated to one of six conditions: guilty or innocent suspects interrogated with one of the three disclosure tactics. The SUE-incremental proved to be the most effective technique, resulting in significant differences between guilty and innocent suspects for all three cues examined: statement-evidence inconsistency, within-statement inconsistency, and within-group inconsistency. Based on the findings, we argue that the SUE technique is effective also for eliciting cues to deception when used for small groups of suspects. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study adds to the growing research field of true and false intentions. Specifically, we examined the benefit of asking unanticipated questions when interviewing groups of suspects on repeated occasions. Participants were divided into truth tellers and liars and were further divided into groups of three. Truth tellers planned a neutral task. Liars planned a mock crime and additionally prepared a cover-story-thematically similar to the truth tellers' task-to be used if they were apprehended. Participants were intercepted after planning their tasks. In subsequent interviews, participants were asked anticipated questions on their intentions and unanticipated questions on the planning of their intentions. Participants were interviewed once in Experiment 1 (N = 132) and three times in Experiment 2 (N = 123). Truth tellers provided longer and more detailed answers than liars and had higher levels of within-group consistency compared with liars. This was the case for answers to both anticipated and unanticipated questions. No differences between truth tellers and liars were found for between-statement consistency. Repeated interviews had minimal effect on statement length or within-group consistency. The results highlight within-group consistency as an important cue to deceit. However, a number of limitations to the unanticipated questions approach were evident. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ninety-five dental care patients participated in a quasi-experiment in which they were interviewed twice about dental visits they had made during the past ten years. Objective truth was established by analysing their dental records. The main purpose of the study was to investigate to what extent context-specific cues could facilitate particularization (i.e., recollection of events and details) of repeated and similar events. A mixed design was employed and the effects of three types of cues were explored: two types of context-specific cues vs. cues commonly used in police practise when interviewing plaintiffs. In line with our hypothesis, context-specific cues tended to be more effective for recollection of individual events than the comparison cues. In addition, context-specific cues generated more details than the comparison cues and the difference was marginally significant. Rehearsal of the memories by telling them to others was associated with an increased number of recollected events and details. The results are discussed from a legal psychology perspective with focus on recollection of repeated abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional police-suspect interviews differ from intelligence interviews in several important ways, and these differences merit new research activities. This article presents an overview of recent and innovative research into eliciting information and cues to deceit in intelligence interviews, and discusses research into new domains including 'lying about intentions', 'undercover interviewing', and 'collective interviewing'. Although that research is still in its infancy, the findings reveal that truth tellers' and liars' answers can be distinguished from each other if the correct interview protocols are implemented, such as asking unexpected questions and introducing forced turn-taking. In addition, this new research also shows that the so-called Scharff technique is more effective for eliciting human intelligence information compared with more traditional techniques. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three techniques for eliciting intelligence from human sources were examined. Two versions of the Scharff-technique (conceptualized as four tactics) were compared against the Direct Approach (open and direct questions). The Scharff confirmation technique used correct claims to elicit information, and the Scharff disconfirmation/confirmation technique used a mix of correct and incorrect claims. The participants (N = 119) took the role of 'sources' holding information about a terrorist attack and tried not to reveal too much or too little information during an interview. The Scharff confirmation resulted in more new information than the Scharff disconfirmation/confirmation and the Direct Approach. The sources in the Scharff conditions had a more difficult time reading the interviewer's information objectives. The sources in the Scharff conditions underestimated, whereas sources in the Direct Approach overestimated, how much new information they revealed. The study advances previous work and shows that the Scharff-technique is a promising intelligence gathering technique. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose that suspects' counter-interrogation strategies vary as a function of their perception of the interrogator's knowledge about the events in question. The present study investigates the verbal behavior of guilty and innocent suspects when they are aware that there may be incriminating evidence against them. Participants (N = 143) took part in either a simulated act of terrorism or a benign task. They were then interviewed about their activities. Participants were randomly assigned to receive no additional information or to be informed that an investigative team may have collected evidence from surveillance cameras. Results suggest that when alerted to possible evidence against them, guilty suspects adopt either extremely withholding or extremely forthcoming verbal strategies. Theoretical implications of these results are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common strategy in interviewing is to repeatedly focus on the same topics, for example by asking to recall an event first in chronological order and then in reverse order. We examined the effect of changing interviewers between the two questions or keeping the same interviewers throughout on cues to deception. Truth tellers may be most encouraged to recall again what they have witnessed when confronted with new interviewers, as these new interviewers have not heard their story before. Liars may be most encouraged to recall again their story when confronted with the same interviewers, realising that these interviewers will check for consistency in their answers. The impact of changing interviewers should lead to more pronounced differences between truth tellers and liars in terms of detail and repetition in the 'Changed Interviewers' condition compared with the 'Same Interviewers' condition. Participants were interviewed by two interviewers about a mock security meeting they attended. In half the interviews, the same two interviewers remained throughout, and in the other half, two new interviewers took over half-way through. As predicted, differences between truth tellers and liars in terms of detail and repetition were most pronounced in the 'Changed Interviewers' condition. Changing interviewers during an interview effectively differentiates liars and truth tellers with respect to detail and repetition. We discuss this finding and its place within investigative interviewing and deception detection literature. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined interview techniques aimed at eliciting intelligence from human sources. We compared two versions of the Scharff-technique to the Direct Approach (a combination of open and direct questions). The Scharff conditions, conceptualised into four tactics, differed only with respect to the 'confirmation/disconfirmation-tactic'. The participants (N = 90) received background information and took the role as a source in a phone interview. They were instructed to strike a balance between not revealing too little and too much information. As predicted, the Scharff-technique resulted in more new information than the Direct Approach. Importantly, the sources interviewed by the Scharff-technique perceived that they had revealed less new information than they objectively did, whereas the sources interviewed by the Direct Approach perceived that they had revealed more new information than they objectively did. Furthermore, the interviewer's information objectives were better masked with the confirmation-tactic than with the disconfirmation-tactic. The results highlight the Scharff-technique as a promising human intelligence gathering technique. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose In this experiment we examined whether an unanticipated spatial task could increase the differences between lying and truth telling groups of adolescents. In addition, we explored whether there are some elements of such a spatial task that elicit more diagnostic cues to deception than others. Methods In groups of three, adolescents ( N = 150, aged 13-14) either experienced ('truth tellers') or imagined ('liars') an event. In subsequent individual interviews, the adolescents were asked to provide both a general verbal description of the event (the anticipated task), and a spatial description by making marks on a sketch (the unanticipated task). Next, adults ( N = 200) rated the degree of consistency between either the general descriptions or the spatial descriptions from the adolescents in each triad. Results The differences between liars and truth tellers were larger for the spatial markings (the unanticipated task) than for the general verbal descriptions (the anticipated task). Importantly, as predicted, the difference between lying and truth-telling triads was most manifest for markings of salient (vs. non-salient) aspects of the event. Conclusions The results suggests that (a) using spatial tasks may be a useful tool for detecting deception in adolescents, but that (b) the assessment of credibility should only draw on the salient aspects of the unanticipated spatial task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. Research on real-life suspect interviews shows that disclosure of evidence is a very common tactic and that it occurs in all phases of the interview. It is therefore remarkable that there is hardly any research on the effectiveness of different disclosure tactics. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of three different disclosure tactics: presenting the evidence early and two versions of the Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) technique. Methods. For the SUE-Basic technique (SUE-B), the evidence was disclosed late in the interview. For the SUE-Incremental technique (SUE-I), we used a stepwise disclosure tactic derived from the so-called Evidence Framing Matrix. The tactic consists of revealing evidence of increasing strength and precision. A mock-theft scenario was employed with 195 participants who were randomly allocated to one of six conditions: guilty or innocent suspects were interviewed with one of the three techniques. Two measures of inconsistency were used as dependent variables: statement-evidence inconsistency and the newly developed within-statement inconsistency. Results. By interviewing with SUE-I, strong cues to deception were elicited, especially for the statement-evidence inconsistency variable. For the SUE-B, significant but smaller differences between guilty and innocent suspects were obtained. Conclusions. We found that both when and how the evidence was disclosed moderated the effectiveness of disclosure. With respect to when, it was more effective to disclose the evidence late (vs. early), and with respect to how, it was more effective to disclose the evidence in a stepwise (vs. direct) manner. The tactical aspects of evidence disclosure are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated how different doses of alcohol affected eyewitness recall. Participants ( N = 126) were randomly assigned to three groups with different blood alcohol concentration ( BAC), either a control group (mean BAC 0.00%, N = 42), a lower alcohol dose group (mean BAC 0.04%, N = 40), or a higher alcohol dose group (mean BAC 0.06%, N = 44). After consumption, participants witnessed a movie of a mock crime and were interviewed one week later. The main results showed that witnesses with the higher intoxication level recalled fewer details compared to witnesses with the lower intoxication level. The amount of alcohol consumed did not have an impact on the accuracy rate. No sex differences were found. The results are discussed in the light of past research. We conclude that more studies are needed before recommendations can be made to an applied setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the effect of (i) a second interviewer's demeanour and (ii) asking expected and unexpected questions on cues to deception. We predicted that liars compared with truth tellers would provide more detail to expected questions and less detail to unexpected questions, particularly when the second interviewer is supportive. Liars prepare answers for expected questions, and a supportive interviewer will encourage them to provide more detail. By definition, liars have not prepared answers for unexpected questions, and their answers to such questions will be less detailed. Participants (N = 168) appeared before two interviewers: The first asked all the questions, and the second remained silent. The second interviewer exhibited either a supportive or a neutral demeanour. As predicted, liars provided more detail to expected questions and less detail to unexpected questions, particularly when the second interviewer was supportive. In conclusion, a supportive second interviewer elicits cues to deceit. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research presents a novel approach to discriminating between true and deceptive statements about intended future behavior. Arguing that true intentions are goal-directed, we predict that people who genuinely intend to pursue a reported goal will implicitly evaluate goal-relevant cues positively, whereas people who do not intend to pursue the goal will not. Participants in an experiment were instructed to tell the truth about a planned future behavior (true intention) or to falsely report that same behavior to mask their actual mock-criminal intention (false intention). As predicted, an evaluative priming task showed that participants with true intention exhibited implicit positive evaluations of cues relevant to the reported goal, whereas participants with false intention did not. Subsequent analyses showed that implicit positivity significantly discriminated between true and false intentions. The findings are discussed in terms of theoretical contributions and implications for the development of future detection tools. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present experimental study adds to the emerging line of psycholegal research focusing on true and false intentions. It is the first to examine mock suspects' (N = 120) counter-interrogation strategies in investigative interviews in which they anticipate questions on their intentions. As planning is an inherent part of many intentions, mock suspects were, in addition to questions on their intentions, asked a set of questions that pertained to the planning phase in which they formed their intentions. Besides ratings of the anticipation and difficulty of the questions, participants were asked to provide their principal strategy for being perceived as truthful. Both truth tellers and liars perceived the questions on the planning phase as significantly more unanticipated than the questions on their intentions. Furthermore, liars perceived the questions on the planning phase as more difficult to answer than did truth tellers. Liars and truth tellers differed with respect to their principal strategy employed for being perceived as truthful. Liars' most commonly used strategy was to stick to the cover story, whereas truth tellers' most common strategy was to be honest. The results are discussed in relation to the unanticipated questions approach and psychological concepts such as the illusion of transparency. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into lying about intentions is relatively new. Studies have suggested that lying about intentions can be detected with statement analysing methods. This article describes two experiments. The first experiment investigates how much spatial and temporal detail is given by people who are discussing a true or false intention in a 26-question interview. The results showed that those with a true intention gave more spatial and temporal details. The second experiment examines these details in a one-question interview and whether the amount of temporal detail given can be manipulated by the phrasing of the question. The results showed that the amount of detail is much lower in these short interviews, but can be increased with specific phrasing. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The major aim was to examine the effect of the perpetrator's tone of voice and time delay on voice recognition. In addition, the effect of two types of voice description interviews intended to strengthen voice encoding was tested. Both 11- to 13-year-olds (n = 160) and adults (n = 148) heard an unfamiliar voice for 40 s. The perpetrator either spoke in a normal tone at encoding and in the lineup (congruent), or in an angry tone at encoding and a normal tone in the lineup (incongruent). Witnesses were then interviewed about the voice with global questions or by rating voice characteristics. Half of the witnesses were presented with a lineup shortly after the interview (immediate) and the others after 2 weeks (delayed). Children tested immediately made significantly more correct identifications. This was not the case for adults. (In)congruency between tone of voice and interview type did not significantly affect voice recognition. Witnesses in the congruent-immediate condition performed the best. However, only 25% of the children and 19% of the adults made correct identifications. Poor identification accuracy and the fact that the majority of witnesses believed they would recognise the voice later are reasons for treating voice identification evidence with great caution. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the effect of social influence on children's witness reports, with respect to a number of details varying in centrality. Children ( N = 115; age = 10 years, 4 months to 13 years, 8 months) were interviewed about a personally experienced event. Half of the children were interviewed together with a confederate who answered the interview questions before the child did, while the other half were interviewed alone. Children were influenced by the confederate's answers to withhold some critical details observed (omission errors), but not to add details not observed (commission errors). When the children were asked to follow up on their reports, truthful reports contained more information than did false reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. Previous experiments have demonstrated asymmetrical scepticism in investigators' judgments of criminal evidence - evidence inconsistent (vs. consistent) with the dominant hypothesis about a case is judged as less reliable. In addition, some types of evidence (e.g., witness testimony) are more susceptible to asymmetrical scepticism than others (e.g., DNA evidence), indicating varying degrees of elasticity. This article proposes that inconsistent evidence arouses cognitive dissonance, and that the dissonance can be reduced through either asymmetrical scepticism (for high-elasticity evidence) or belief change (for low-elasticity evidence). The hypotheses are tested in two experiments. Methods. In both experiments, law students made a preliminary judgment about the guilt of a suspect in a homicide case, and subsequently received a piece of DNA or witness evidence which was either consistent or inconsistent with the preliminary judgment. The extent to which participants changed their guilt judgments, judged the additional evidence as reliable, and felt dissonance served as the main dependent variables. Results. Inconsistent (vs. consistent) evidence did arouse stronger dissonance, but only for witness (and not DNA) evidence. Experienced dissonance (Experiment 1) and dissonance reduction (Experiment 2) accounted for the effect of the evidence on changes in guilt judgments, but not for the effect on reliability judgments. The greatest dissonance reduction was observed among participants who received inconsistent witness evidence but did not change their guilt judgments accordingly. Conclusions. It appears that dissonance plays a significant, although complex, role in investigative judgments of guilt and reliability. Alternative dissonance-reducing mechanisms that can account for the findings and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Previous research has shown that exposure to social information can influence behaviour through the automatic activation of goals. In the first study to examine such influences in a legal setting, an experiment with 104 experienced criminal investigators tested the idea that exposure to occupational norms can activate distinct information-processing goals. As predicted, exposure to norms associated with efficiency (vs. thoroughness) sped up and reduced the depth of investigators' processing of criminal evidence, thus reducing their openness to sequentially late witness evidence. In addition, the goal activation operated outside investigators' awareness, illustrating the insidious cognitive influence of occupational norms. The results are discussed in terms of practical significance and contributions to the goal activation literature and the applied study of criminal investigations. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Previous demonstrations of asymmetrical scepticism (i.e., that investigators perceive evidence inconsistent [ vs. consistent] with the focal hypothesis of a case as less reliable) have failed to account for the underlying mechanism. This study examined whether inconsistent evidence is discredited due to its inconsistency with a prior belief or because it conflicts with the goal to reach closure in a case. Police trainees ( N = 107) were presented with a homicide case and judged the reliability of incriminating or exonerating evidence while entertaining a 'guilty' or 'innocent' hypothesis concerning a suspect. Asymmetrical scepticism was observed in the guilty condition, but not in the innocent condition, partially supporting the goal-consistency explanation. Implications for the organization of criminal investigations are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we argue that the emerging concept of episodic future thought (EFT) is a good candidate for capturing the core mental processes at play when forming an intention. Furthermore, we argue that tapping essential EFT features can be helpful in understanding how statements on the forming of true and false intentions may differ. Specifically, we argue that the processes relevant for constructing a convincing cover-story (which a guilty suspect needs to mask his criminal intention) will be much less characterized by the typical EFT features. To test our assumption we devised a new experimental set-up accommodating the main characteristics of intent and allowing for episodic future thought. The combined empirical evidence strongly supports our assumption that EFT is a helpful concept for illuminating the differences that may occur when forming true and false intentions. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]