Lecture 3: Police interrogations and detecting deception

Question 1

What is the purpose of a police interrogation in Canada?

Answer 1

To extract a confession (problem with this goal is that methods become inherently coercive) and to obtain information about the crime.

Question 2

In the past physically coercive methods have been used, what are some examples?

Answer 2

whipping was occasionally used to obtain confessions (Brown v. Mississippi). In a more recent example, a wide range of torture tactics were used by chicago police to obtain confessions.
Stun guns and the NYCpolice and R. v. Hoilett.(clothes taken and left him in a cold cell, deprived him of sleep, interrogated while under the influence of alcohol)

Question 3

Today, police use more subtle coercion, like?

Answer 3

Lying, exaggerating, threats, promises of leniency, moral justification, promises of assistance

Question 4

The three steps of the reid model of interrogation

Answer 4

1. Gather evidence (about the crime to inform stage 2)
2. Conduct interview (this is a non accusatorial interview, don’t know whether the suspect is guilty or not)
3. Conduct accusatorial interrogation (you have made the decision at this stage that the person you interviewed in stage 2 is lying to you about their innocence and you believe they are guilty

Question 5

The nine step breakdown of step 3 in the Reid model

Answer 5

1. Confront suspect with their guilt
2. Develop psychological themes
3. Interrupt statements of denial
4. Overcome objections
5. Engage suspect
6. Show sympathy and urge truth
7. Offer alternative explanations (crux of interrogation)
8. Develop full confession
   Obtain written confession

Question 6

What is permissible by the courts in Canada?

Answer 6

Confession must be voluntary, and confessor must be compliant

Question 7

What are some problems with the reid model?

Answer 7

Detecting deception , interrogator bias and false confessions

Question 8

What is a minimization technique?

Answer 8

soft sell tactics used by police interrogators that are designed to lull the suspect into a false sense of secutiry

Question 9

What is a maximization technique?

Answer 9

Scare tactics used by police interrogators that are designed to intimidate a suspect believed to be guilty.

Question 10

What are retracted confessions?

Answer 10

A confession that the confessor later declares to be false

Question 11

What are disputed confessions?

Answer 11

A confession that is later disputed at trial

Question 12

What is a voluntary false confession?

Answer 12

A false confession tat is provided without any elicitation from the police. The charles lindbergh case

Question 13

What is a coerced internalized confession?

Answer 13

It is the rarest, a confession that results from suggestive interrogation techniques, whereby the confessor actually comes to believe he or she committed the crime. The paul ingram case.

Question 14

What are the 3 vulnerability factors associated with coerced internalized confessions?

Answer 14

1) a history of substance abuse or some other interference with brain function 2) the inability of people to detect discrepancies between what they observed and what has been erroneously suggested to them 3) factors associated with mental state

Question 15

What is a coerced compliant confession?

Answer 15

A confession that results from a desire to escape a coercive interrogation environment or to gain a benefit promised by the police or to avoid a threatened punishment. The guilford four case.

Question 16

What is internalization?

Answer 16

The acceptance of guilt for an act, even if the person did not actually commit it

Question 17

What is confabulation?

Answer 17

the reporting of events that never actually occurred.

Question 18

consequences of false confession

Answer 18

There is an increased chance of conviction even when jurors are aware that the confession was coerced. A second consequence is for the police and therefore the public, the police are diverted down a false trail that wastes time.

Question 19

What is deception?

Answer 19

When a person intends to mislead another person deliberately without being explicitly asked to do so by the target

Question 20

Depaulo &bell: married couples lied in 1 out of ___ interactions with their partner

Answer 20

10

Question 21

Depaulo and Kashy: on average people lied to____ of the people whom they interacted with in a typical week

Answer 21

34%

Question 22

Stages of the detection process

Answer 22

Appropriate attention must be given to relevant cues (2 things are assumed here: you know which cues are relevant and paying attention)
Relevant cues must be interpreted as a sign of deceit
Errors can occur at each stage (e.g., othello error and Brokhaw hazard)

Question 23

What are the methods for detecting deception?

Answer 23

The polygraph technique and verbal and non verbal behaviour

Question 24

What is measured in the polygraph technique?

Answer 24

Autonomic nervous system responses like, Breathing, Heart rate, blood pressure, sweating (skin conductance response)

Question 25

What is the comparison question test

Answer 25

A type of polygraph test that includes irrelevant questions that are unrelated to crime,, relevant questions concerning the crime being investigated and comparison questions concerning the person’s honesty and past history prior to the event being investigated.

Question 26

What is the guilty knowledge test/ concealed information test?

Answer 26

a type of polygraph test designed to determine if the person knows details about a crime. It does not assess deception but instead seeks to determine if the suspect knows details about the crime only a suspect would know. it is multiple choice format, and the suspect will display a larger physiological response to the correct answer than to the fake ones

Question 27

What is the ground truth?

Answer 27

as applied to polygraph research, the knowledge of whether the person is actually guilty or innocent.

Question 28

What are some counter measures?

Answer 28

Personality: psychopathy, however psychopaths are not more easily able to fool a polygraph than other people
Drugs and alcohol: Anti anxiety drugs/ tranquilizers
Physical maneuvers: Pressing toes into the floor, biting tongue
Mental countermeasures: counting backwards by 7 from a number greater than 200)

Question 29

What are some verbal and non verbal behavior cues to lying?

Answer 29

Verbal: slower speech, higher pitch, speech errors, speech fillers, provide fewer details, avoid self correction, need to focus on patterns.
Non verbal: gaze aversion, fidgeting (less supportive evidence for these), blinking, body movements, shrugs etc.

Question 30

Can people be trained?

Answer 30

Zukcerman et al.
Feedback increased accuracy (feedback based on whether you were right or wrong in detecting deception, if right you were reinforced to focus on the same characteristics)
But Results did not generalize

Question 31

What is the Mr.Big technique?

Answer 31

the procedure generally involves undercover police officers posing as members of a criminal organization who attempt to lure the suspect into a gang. Often the suspect is made to commit some minor crimes for which he may be rewarded and once committed to the organization the suspect is interviewed for a higher level job. However, to seal the deal with mr.big he must confess to a serious crime (the one under investigation)

Question 32

What is an alternative to the reid model being used in the UK?

Answer 32

The PEACE model, which stands for planning and preparation, engage and explain, account, closure and evaluation. Provides inquisitorial framework within which to conduct police interrogations, it encourages information gathering rather than securing a confession.

Question 33

Studies of validity of polygraph tests can be classified into two types, explain lab studies.

Answer 33

Laboratory: in lab studies, volunteers come to a lab and are randomly assigned to one of two conditions: comitting a mock crime or not comitting a mock crime, the main advantage of these studies is that the experimenter knows the ground truth. because of the large motivational and emotional differences between volunteers and actual suspects these studies have limited application to real life because they ethically cannot be strong incentive to beat the polygraph test and have little to fear if they fail it.

Question 34

Studies of validity of polygraph tests can be classified into two types, explain field studies

Answer 34

Field studies involve real life situations an actual criminal suspects, with actual polygraph tests. Involves original examiners (who are given cues and background info) and conduct the evaluation of the subject and blind evaluators are provided with original examiners charts and no info, the two are compared for accuracy. The biggest problem is the absence of ground truth

Question 35

What are event related brain potentials?

Answer 35

Brain activity measured by placing electrodes on the scalp and by recording electrical patterns related to presentation of a stimulus. One type that has shown promise is known as the P300, this ERP occurs in response to significant stimuli that occurs infrequently. When using CIT procedures guilty suspects should respond to crime relevant events with a large P300 response, in comparison to noncrime relevant events. No difference in P300 responses to the crime relevant and crime irrelevant events should be observed in innocent suspects. One benefit is they are resistant to manipulation.

Question 36

FMRI lie detection technique

Answer 36

It measures the cerebral blood flow (a marker of neurological activity) in different areas of the brain, the appeal of using a brain based lie detection approcah is that instead of measuring emotional arousal researchers hope that it measures the actual process of deception (lie conditions produce greater activation in the anterior cingulate and prefrontal regions compared to truth conditions). Studies results May not be very applicable to real life, most scientists believe it is premature to use FMRI.

Question 37

What are the concerns with brain based imaging evidence in courts?

Answer 37

May have a particularly powerful influnence on juror decision making, simply seeing pictures of brain images make people believe that it is more valid.

Question 38

What is the Brokaw hazard?

Answer 38

In the context of detecting deception, the Brokaw hazard refers to a failure to take into account how people differ in their expressive behaviour (i.e., absence of deceitful signs is not evidence of truth).

Question 39

What is the Othello error

Answer 39

In the context of detecting deception, the Othello error refers to a failure to consider that a truthful person who is under stress may appear as if they’re lying.