Mimicry and Investigative Interviewing: Using Deliberate Mimicry to Elicit Information and Cues to Deceit

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.     

Using the model statement to elicit verbal differences between truth tellers and liars amongst Arab interviewees: A partial replication of Leal,Vrij, Deeb,and Jupe (2018)

Leal, Vrij, Deeb, and Jupe (2018) found—with British participants—that a model statement elicited (a) more information and (b) a cue to deceit: After exposure to a model statement, liars reported significantly more peripheral information than truth tellers. We sought to replicate these findings with Arabs living in Israel. Truth tellers and liars reported a stand‐out event that they had (truth tellers) or pretended to have (liars) experienced in the last 2 years. Half of the participants were given a model statement in the second phase of the interview. Replicating Leal et al. (2018a), (a) truth tellers reported more core details than liars initially and (b) a model statement resulted in more additional core and peripheral details in the second phase of the interview. Unlike in Leal et al. (2018a), a model statement did not have a differential effect on truth tellers in the current experiment.     

Using unexpected questions to elicit information and cues to deceit in interpreter‐based interviews

We examined whether speech‐related differences between truth tellers and liars are more profound when answering unexpected questions than when answering expected questions. We also examined whether the presence of an interpreter affected these results. In the experiment, 204 participants from the United States (Hispanic participants only), Russia, and the Republic of Korea were interviewed in their native language by a native‐speaking interviewer or by a British interviewer through an interpreter. Truth tellers discussed a trip that they had made during the last 12 months; liars fabricated a story about such a trip. The key dependent variables were the amount of information provided and the proportion of all statements that were complications. The proportion of complications distinguished truth tellers from liars better when answering unexpected than expected questions, but only in interpreter‐absent interviews. The number of details provided did not differ between truth tellers and liars or between interpreter‐absent and interpreter‐present interviews.     

Are you for real? Exploring language use and unexpected process questions within the detection of identity deception

The current study was to test whether reality monitoring and language use could distinguish identity liars from truth tellers when answering outcome questions and unexpected process questions. Truth tellers (n = 30) and liars (n = 30) discussed their identity in a recruitment interview. No differences emerged between truth tellers and liars in the details they provided. In terms of language use, liars used more positive language than truth tellers, whereas truth tellers used more cognitive process words than liars. However, neither were more pronounced when asking process questions. Overall, process questions elicited more cognitive process and cause words than outcome questions. Therefore, process questions may be able to contribute to the cognitive load approach. The findings suggest that reality monitoring may not be diagnostic when applied to identity deception. We discuss the language use differences in relation to impression management theory.     

Facilitating memory‐based lie detection in immediate and delayed interviewing: The role of mnemonics

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.     

Automated verbal credibility assessment of intentions: The model statement technique and predictive modeling

Recently, verbal credibility assessment has been extended to the detection of deceptive intentions, the use of a model statement, and predictive modeling. The current investigation combines these 3 elements to detect deceptive intentions on a large scale. Participants read a model statement and wrote a truthful or deceptive statement about their planned weekend activities (Experiment 1). With the use of linguistic features for machine learning, more than 80% of the participants were classified correctly. Exploratory analyses suggested that liars included more person and location references than truth‐tellers. Experiment 2 examined whether these findings replicated on independent‐sample data. The classification accuracies remained well above chance level but dropped to 63%. Experiment 2 corroborated the finding that liars' statements are richer in location and person references than truth‐tellers' statements. Together, these findings suggest that liars may over‐prepare their statements. Predictive modeling shows promise as an automated veracity assessment approach but needs validation on independent data.     

Does Practice Make the Perfect Liar? The Effect of Rehearsal and Increased Cognitive Load on Cues to Deception

Recent studies have explored ways to increase cognitive load in liars to identify cues to deception. This study used a driving simulator as a load‐inducing technique to explore differences between truth‐tellers and liars during an investigative interview scenario and also investigated the effect of rehearsing lies in this context. Deception affected driving performance. Truth‐tellers drove more slowly compared with their own baseline, whereas unrehearsed liars sped up. There was no difference in speed between truth‐tellers and rehearsed liars. In addition, truth‐tellers had significantly faster reaction times compared with their own baseline, than both rehearsed and unrehearsed liars. During the interviews, truth‐tellers provided significantly more visual and auditory details and mentioned significantly fewer cognitive operations than liars. The findings add to the body of literature exploring the optimal relationship between cognitive load and secondary task performance to identify cues to deception.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using the Verifiability lie Detection Approach in an Insurance Claim Setting

In this experiment, we tested the verifiability approach in an insurance claim setting. Core of the verifiability approach is that truth tellers give more details that can be verified than liars. Fifty undergraduate students took part, who produced true and false insurance claim statements related to theft, loss, or damage. These statements were coded in terms of verifiability (the number of details that could be checked by an investigator) and witness factors (friends, police, other officials and CCTV cameras). Truth tellers provided more verifiable details than liars and liars provided more unverifiable details than truth tellers. In addition, truth tellers (versus liars) more frequently informed their friends about the incident or referred to CCTV footage of the incident. The potential and limitations of using the verifiability approach in insurance settings are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Visuospatial counter‐interrogation strategies by liars familiar with the alibi setting

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.     

Processes underlying deception: an empirical analysis of truth and lies when manipulating the stakes

The aim of the present experiment was to examine to what extent participants experience attempted control, cognitive load and arousal when they lie and tell the truth under lower‐stakes and higher‐stakes conditions. We expected both differences and similarities between truth tellers and liars. We expected that participants would experience these processes to a higher degree when they lied compared to when they told the truth (differences), but we also expected that both liars and truth tellers would be keen to make a convincing impression; and that raising the stakes would affect liars and truth tellers in a similar way (similarities). A total of 128 participants lied and told the truth during an interview (lying and truth telling was counterbalanced). Stakes were manipulated by informing half of the participants that their interviews would be recorded on videotape and would be analysed and evaluated by police officers. The predictions were supported. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Collective interviewing of suspects

When people are interviewed about possible wrongdoing that has been committed in groups, they typically are interviewed separately. Yet, in several settings it would be more intuitive and convenient to interview suspects together. Importantly, such collective interviews could yield verbal cues to deception. This is the first deception experiment to investigate collective interviewing. Twenty-one pairs of truth tellers and 22 pairs of liars were interviewed pair-wise about having had lunch together in a restaurant. Given that truth tellers adopt a “tell it all” strategy in the interviews while, in contrast, liars prefer to keep their stories simple, we predicted that pairs of truth tellers would (i) interrupt and (ii) correct each other more, and would (iii) add more information to each other's answers than pairs of liars. The results supported these hypotheses. Theory-driven interventions to elicit more cues to deception through simultaneous interviewing are discussed.     

Suspects' consistency in statements concerning two events when different question formats are used

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.     

认知负荷取向下基于记忆-反应冲突的欺骗检测

欺骗检测一直是心理学的重要研究问题。基于欺骗理论的认知视角, 研究者提出欺骗检测的认知负荷取向。采用隐瞒信息测试这一测谎范式, 通过操纵认知负荷影响个体在虚假反应时的记忆-反应冲突解决过程, 考察增加认知负荷对欺骗检测的影响, 以期更好地揭示欺骗检测的认知机制。在此基础上, 以普通人群和犯罪嫌疑人为被试探查基于记忆-反应冲突的欺骗检测的行为和生理指标, 并根据获得的行为和生理指标, 采用机器学习方法进行建模, 预测个体的欺骗行为。研究结果将服务于司法、安防和人际交往等领域的欺骗检测。     

Eliciting information and cues to deceit through sketching in interpreter‐based interviews

As interviewees typically say less when an interpreter is present, we examined whether this was caused by interpreters not interpreting everything interviewees says or by interviewees providing less information. We further examined (a) the effect of a model drawing on providing information and (b) the diagnostic value of total details and the proportion of complications as cues to deceit. Hispanic, Russian, and South Korean participants were interviewed by native interviewers or by a British interviewer through an interpreter. Truth tellers discussed a trip they had made; liars fabricated a story. Participants received no instruction (condition 1) or were instructed to sketch while narrating without (condition 2) or with (condition 3) being given examples of detailed sketches. Interviewees said less when an interpreter was present because they provided less information. Truth tellers gave more details and, particularly, obtained a higher proportion of complications than liars. The sketching manipulation had no effect.     

Interviewing to detect omission lies

Interviewees sometimes deliberately omit reporting some information. Such omission lies differ from other lies because all the information interviewees present may be entirely truthful. Truth tellers and lie tellers carried out a mission. Truth tellers reported the entire mission truthfully. Lie tellers were also entirely truthful but left out one element of the mission. In truth tellers' statements, only the parts that lie tellers were also asked to recall were analysed. Interviews were carried out via the Cognitive Credibility Assessment, Reality Interview, or standard interview protocol. Dependent variables were the details, complications and verifiable sources interviewees reported. A questionnaire measured three deception strategies: ‘Tell it all’, ‘keep it simple’ or ‘paying attention to demeanour’. Lie tellers reported fewer details, complications and verifiable sources than truth tellers and reporting these variables was negatively correlated with the ‘keep it simple’ and ‘demeanour’ strategies. The type of interview protocol did not affect the results.     

Drop the Small Talk When Establishing Baseline Behaviour in Interviews

The present experiment investigated the behavioural patterns of interviewees when comparing their baseline behaviour, prior to the interview, with their behaviour during the investigative interview. Similar to what has been advised in the police literature, the truthful baseline behaviour was established prior to the interview through non‐threatening questions. The investigative part of the interview then followed in which the interviewee was aware that they would be assessed on whether they were lying. During the investigative part, interviewees either discussed the job that they had (truth tellers, n = 128) or pretended to have (liars, n = 115). Findings revealed that both liars and truth tellers' behavioural patterns differed between the baseline behaviour and the investigative part of the interview. The findings suggest small talk should not be used as a baseline comparison with the investigative part of the interview when determining if the interviewee is being deceitful. An alternative way of using a baseline lie detection method, the comparable truth method, is discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sketching while narrating as a tool to detect deceit

In none of the deception studies that used drawings to date, was the effect of sketching on both speech content and drawing content examined, making it unclear what the full potential is of the use of drawings as a lie detection tool. A total of 122 truth tellers and liars took part in the study who did or did not sketch while narrating their allegedly experienced event. We formulated hypotheses about the total amount of information and number of complications reported and about various features of the drawings. Participants in the Sketch-present condition provided more information than participants in the Sketch-absent condition, and truth tellers reported more details than liars, but only in the Sketch-present condition. In contrast to previous research, no Veracity differences occurred regarding the content of the drawings, perhaps because sketching was introduced as a tool that facilitated verbal recall and not as a stand-alone tool.