The Combined Effects of Questioning Technique and Interviewer Manner on False Confessions

Although it is known that interrogation tactics can elicit false confessions and interviewer manner may determine the outcome of an interview, the combined effects of questioning technique and interviewer manner on false confessions have not been examined empirically. Following a false accusation of theft, participants were interviewed in one of four questioning conditions (minimisation, repetitive questioning, leading questions, and nonleading questions) in which interviewers adopted a stern or friendly manner. Perceptions of pressure to confess and interviewer behaviours were measured. Significantly more false confessions were elicited using nonleading questions rather than repetitive questioning. More false confessions were elicited in the friendly interviewer condition than in the stern interviewer condition. Neither interviewer manner nor questioning technique had a significant effect on subjective ratings of pressure to confess. The finding that false confessions may be elicited in the absence of coercive tactics may have implications for informing best practices in investigative interviewing. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Jurors Believe Interrogation Tactics Are Not Likely To Elicit False Confessions: Will Expert Witness Testimony Inform Them Otherwise?

Situational factors – in the form of interrogation tactics – have been reported to unduly influence innocent suspects to confess. This study assessed jurors’ perceptions of these factors and tested whether expert witness testimony on confessions informs jury decision-making. In Study 1, jurors rated interrogation tactics on their level of coerciveness and likelihood that each would elicit true and false confessions. Most jurors perceived interrogation tactics to be coercive and likely to elicit confessions from guilty, but not from innocent suspects. This result motivated Study 2 in which an actual case involving a disputed confession was used to assess the influence of expert testimony on jurors’ perceptions and evaluations of interrogations and confession evidence. The results revealed an important influence of expert testimony on mock-jurors decisions

Strategic Interviewing to Detect Deception: Cues to Deception across Repeated Interviews

Previous deception research on repeated interviews found that liars are not less consistent than truth tellers, presumably because liars use a repeat strategy to be consistent across interviews. The goal of this study was to design an interview procedure to overcome this strategy. Innocent participants (truth tellers) and guilty participants (liars) had to convince an interviewer that they had performed several innocent activities rather than committing a mock crime. The interview focused on the innocent activities (alibi), contained specific central and peripheral questions, and was repeated after one week without forewarning. Cognitive load was increased by asking participants to reply quickly. The liars’ answers in replying to both central and peripheral questions were significantly less accurate, less consistent, and more evasive than the truth tellers’ answers. Logistic regression analyses yielded classification rates ranging from around 70% (with consistency as the predictor variable), 85% (with evasive answers as the predictor variable), to over 90% (with an improved measure of consistency that incorporated evasive answers as the predictor variable, as well as with response accuracy as the predictor variable). These classification rates were higher than the interviewers’ accuracy rate (54%)

Using an Example Statement Increases Information but Does Not Increase Accuracy of CBCA, RM, and SCAN

Verbal credibility assessment methods are frequently used in the criminal justice system to investigate the truthfulness of statements. Three of these methods are Criteria Based Content Analysis (CBCA), Reality Monitoring (RM), and Scientific Content Analysis (SCAN). The aim of this study is twofold. First, we investigated the diagnostic accuracy of CBCA, RM, and especially SCAN. Second, we tested whether giving the interviewee an example of a detailed statement can enhance the diagnostic accuracy of these verbal credibility methods. To test the latter, two groups of participants were requested to write down one true and one fabricated statement about a negative event. Prior to this request, one group received a detailed example statement, whereas the other group received no additional information. Results showed that CBCA and RM scores differed between true and fabricated statements, whereas SCAN scores did not. Giving a detailed example statement did not lead to better discrimination between truth tellers and liars for any of the methods but did lead to the participants producing significantly longer statements. The implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd