Strategic Use of Evidence During Police Interviews: When Training to Detect Deception Works

Authors: Hartwig, Maria; Granhag, Pär; Strömwall, Leif; Kronkvist, Ola

Source: Law and Human Behavior, Volume 30, Number 5, October 2006 , pp. 603-619(17)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

Research on deception detection in legal contexts has neglected the question of how the use of evidence can affect deception detection accuracy. In this study, police trainees (N=82) either were or were not trained in strategically using the evidence when interviewing lying or truth telling mock suspects (N=82). The trainees' strategies as well as liars' and truth tellers' counter-strategies were analyzed. Trained interviewers applied different strategies than did untrained. As a consequence of this, liars interviewed by trained interviewers were more inconsistent with the evidence compared to liars interviewed by untrained interviewers. Trained interviewers created and utilized the statement-evidence consistency cue, and obtained a considerably higher deception detection accuracy rate (85.4%) than untrained interviewers (56.1%).

Keywords: Deception detection; Statement-evidence consistency; Evidence disclosure; Interviewers' strategies; Suspects' strategies

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10979-006-9053-9

Affiliations: 1: Email: mhartwig@jjay.cuny.edu

Publication date: 2006-10-01