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The foremost goal of conducting an investigative interview is to obtain as much accurate information as possible. To achieve this, investigators employ a variety of interviewing techniques. Kelly et al. (Psychol Public Policy Law 19:165–178, 2013) proposed a taxonomy interviewing techniques, grouping them into six domains (i.e., Rapport and Relationship Building, Context Manipulation, Emotion Provocation, Collaboration, Confrontation/Competition, and Presentation of Evidence). In this study, we focused on assessing the Context Manipulation domain (e.g., considering seating arrangements, time of day, clothing). Specifically, we sought to examine police investigators’ use and beliefs about the effectiveness of context manipulation techniques. A sample of 81 police investigators completed the survey. Our findings provide evidence that investigators believe the interview setting to have importance and are already employing some context manipulation techniques in their practice. Techniques mentioned most often were related to seating arrangement, investigators’ clothing, and item availability for suspects (e.g., water, coffee). This survey also provides evidence that investigators are receptive to using context manipulation techniques in their practice, despite how little they are currently taught during trainings. Understanding what context manipulation techniques investigators use and believe to be useful in their interviewing practice may have implications for future training, as well as for the (re)design of interview rooms.

OBJECTIVE The main goal of this study was to investigate how persons with symptoms of traumatization and other mental disorders influence daily policing work. METHOD In total, 2,228 German police officers filled out a questionnaire (28.2% female, 71.8% male). The data were assessed using Mann-Whitney U and chi-square tests. RESULTS The results show that 14.3% of the individuals police officers encountered in their daily work had been traumatized, according to police officer observations. With respect to mental health literacy, depression was the best-known disorder (M = 13.46) among police officers, and anxiety was the least known disorder (M = 10.88). According to police officers' responses, 75.5% of the persons thought to be suffering from mental health disorders or traumatization did not file a complaint because interrogation, investigations, or legal proceedings were perceived as too stressful. More than half of the participating police officers (50.4%) recommended the expansion of specialized training programs for law enforcement personnel, and more than one third recommended an increase in collaboration with professionals (39.1%), such as psychiatrists and psychologists. CONCLUSION Law enforcement officers often have contact with persons who show symptoms of traumatization or other mental disorders. Their general knowledge about mental disorders and regarding traumatization in particular is in need of expansion. The additional strain caused by legal proceedings prevents reporting of criminal incidents to the police from the respondents' viewpoint. This impediment to law enforcement needs to be addressed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Replication-an important, uncommon, and misunderstood practice-is gaining appreciation in psychology. Achieving replicability is important for making research progress. If findings are not replicable, then prediction and theory development are stifled. If findings are replicable, then interrogation of their meaning and validity can advance knowledge. Assessing replicability can be productive for generating and testing hypotheses by actively confronting current understandings to identify weaknesses and spur innovation. For psychology, the 2010s might be characterized as a decade of active confrontation. Systematic and multi-site replication projects assessed current understandings and observed surprising failures to replicate many published findings. Replication efforts highlighted sociocultural challenges such as disincentives to conduct replications and a tendency to frame replication as a personal attack rather than a healthy scientific practice, and they raised awareness that replication contributes to self-correction. Nevertheless, innovation in doing and understanding replication and its cousins, reproducibility and robustness, has positioned psychology to improve research practices and accelerate progress. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 73 is January 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Over the past decades, the psychological science has accumulated a large corpus of empirical knowledge about police interviews, deception detection, and suspects' confessions. However, it is unclear whether European police forces' practices and beliefs are consistent with recommendations derived from this empirical literature. The study described in this report is part of a larger research project examining European police investigators' practices and beliefs. An online survey was administered to Guardia Civil (n = 89) and Policia Nacional investigators (n = 126). The survey inquired about the length, frequency and electronic recording of interviews, the suspects' use of their right to remain silent, investigators' self-reported skills in distinguishing between truthful and deceptive statements, their estimates of the frequency of (false) confessions, and their use of specific interview tactics. The outcomes provide insights into investigators' knowledge and practices, highlight specific needs, and allow for a comparison between European and North American police forces.

The distinction between “Big-C” and “little-c” creativity implies that the generative process of celebrated creators is of a special type or degree. Arguments for and against such a hierarchy of cr...

The aim of this study is to instrumentally explore the cognitive and emotional load behind deception. According to literature, the cognitive and emotional load comprises of cognitive-, and emotional-related variables that are in association with the probability of lies. This study is a milestone of the Lie Research group at Karoli Gaspar University of the Reformed Church in Hungary. Acquaintances, friends, and other university students who were invited to our thoroughly organised interactive games. This research makes use of an interactive role-playing game called Mafia (also known as Werewolf). However, this version of the game also featured an interrogation session that was conducted by professionals who are familiar with the voice analysing software LVA-650. In order to establish the two-factor model, it was essential to carry out a confirmatory factor analysis. The voice segments (n = 969) collected from the interrogations served as the basis for the statistical investigation (research license: 278/2016/P). The confirmatory factor analysis showed significant correlations among the variables (Fig. 1). The model fit indices confirmed the hypothesised model (RMSEA: .043; SRMR: .035; TLI: .975; CFI: .987). During deception both emotional and cognitive load have various components, and they may appear in similar channels (e.g. micro-expressions, movements, changes in the voice). However, our aim was the explore the possibilities of the LVA-650, which can divide these two types of loads among algorithms. Our results suggest that both emotion and cognition play a major role in deception. These findings help researchers and professionals better understand deception and may alleviate the process of detecting lies. Thus far, this may be the first study in Hungary that documents instrumental methods about the cognitive and emotional background of deception.

To learn more about why people falsely confess without external pressure, we examined voluntary blame-taking in three experiments. Drawing from theories of prosocial behavior and social identity, we investigated whether participants' blame-taking is influenced by (a) their relationship with the guilty person (Experiment 1) and (b) the group membership of the person asking to take the blame (Experiments 2a and 2b). In Experiment 1, participants (N = 130) considered whether they would take the blame for a small traffic violation for their best friend and a stranger in a vignette-scenario. As expected, intended blame-taking rates were higher for their best friend (60.8%) than for a stranger (8.5%). Reported reasons for taking the blame included reciprocity and empathy. In Experiments 2a and 2b (Ns = 60; 89), we tested actual blame-taking behavior in two field experiments, using a new experimental paradigm. An experimenter approached participants and asked them to commit insurance fraud for a broken camera. Participants who shared the same group as the person in need were more willing to take the blame (47%-48%) than participants who were from a different group (21%-23%). The most frequently listed reason for taking the blame was empathy. Implications for the occurrence of voluntary blame-taking behavior to protect someone else are discussed.

A juror’s perception of the strength of the evidence presented during a criminal trial is the most important factor in determining the resulting verdict, yet little is known about how dispositional and situational factors impact these perceptions. This study seeks to determine the impact of interrogation length, defendant age, and alleged crime on jurors’ perceptions of evidence strength. Prior research has found that each of these individual factors can impact the perceived strength of the evidence, yet little is known about how these factors will influence the resulting verdict. Using an experimental survey model, the current study surveys over 500 online mock-jurors. Results indicated the length of the interrogation significantly influenced mock jurors’ opinions on evidence strength as well as their resulting verdict in a fictional case. Additionally, confessions offered by younger defendants may be viewed as less strong by respondents regardless of how long the interrogation lasted, and respondents were more likely to convict the defendant for the less serious of two crimes. Implications of these findings and future research directions are discussed.

The relevance of the study is determined by the need to improve the procedure for obtaining information provided by minors and juvenile witnesses during interrogation regarding the circumstances known to them in criminal proceedings at the litigation stage, while ensuring the best respect for the children's interests. The authors employed philosophical, general scientific, and special scientific methods of cognition, which allowed conducting a detailed analysis of the procedure for interrogating minor and juvenile witnesses at the litigation stage. To develop scientific proposals for improving the legislative regulation of the interrogation of minor and juvenile witnesses during the litigation, the study defined the principles of child-friendly justice that must be observed during this procedural action, as well as the guarantees stipulated by the Criminal Procedural Code of Ukraine and aimed at implementing international standards for ensuring the rights of minors in criminal proceedings. The authors of this study state that the legislative definition of requirements imposed separately on the teacher, psychologist, and doctor involved in the interrogation of minor or juvenile witnesses, as well as the procedure for involving such persons by the court and the pre-trial investigation body, would considerably improve the quality of the required aid to minor witnesses and would meet international standards. The study analyses the international practices concerning the introduction of the institution of representation in the litigation of pre-recorded testimony of minors and juvenile witnesses. The authors established that the introduction of such an institution is absolutely justified and will have an exceptionally positive effect both for minor and juvenile witnesses, as well as for the process of proof, and can be implemented in Ukrainian legislation. Scientific proposals have been developed to improve the legislative regulation of the interrogation of minor and juvenile witnesses during court proceedings

The present review aims to assess the current state of the jury-confession literature, with a primary focus on understanding how confessions impact jurors’ verdict decisions. Additionally, this review seeks to determine what case-specific factors (i.e., interrogation methods employed to elicit the confession and trial safeguards) impact confessions’ influence on jurors’ decisions.

Three lab experiments used an interrogation simulation to examine the relative effectiveness of pain, coercive verbal pressure, and rapport-building for obtaining reliable information. Investigator...

The structure of the interrogation process in cross-examinations is said to be diverse and complex in terms of question-response typology. This is because the counsel has to extract truth from an opposing party’s witness whose views are expected to advocate that party's views regarding the case. Accordingly, the study which is basically quantitative in nature aims to investigate what the examining party intends to obtain out of these questions and which of these questions are the most prevalently used. It also aims to measure the amount of cooperativity in witnesses' responses. Accordingly, three transcripts of cross-examination have been analyzed, using a pragmatically-oriented approach. The approach draws on Stenstorm (1984) and Archer's (2005) classification of questions; Stenstorm (1984) and Archer's (2002) classificatory scheme of responses which is based on the strategies of violating Grice's (1975) maxims to determine the degree of cooperation on the part of respondents. The analysis revealed a diversity in the attorneys' method, making the use of four types of leading questions as well as non-leading ones represented by WH questions. The latter recorded the least percentage in comparison with the overall percentage of leading questions. That is; a preference is shed on the part of cross-examining counsel towards leading over non-leading questions. Moreover, the majority of the responses given have indicated the witnesses' commitment to the purpose and format of the questions posed, showing a high level of cooperativity on the part of those witnesses

People with a mental illness (PWMI) are among the most vulnerable populations in the country, yet are far more likely to be incarcerated than people without a mental illness. PWMI are more likely to be wrongfully convicted for several reasons.At the onset of an investigation, PWMI are more likely to become suspects. Symptoms of mental illness breed fear and misunderstanding, arousing suspicion of a PWMI in the first place. Once approached by police, PWMI are more likely to escalate the initial encounter, leading to arrest and further interrogation. Through the lens of the Reid Technique, police misinterpret symptoms of mental illness as signs of guilt. Police continue using the Reid Technique to extract a confession. Mid- interrogation, PWMI are less likely to invoke Miranda rights. Without counsel, PWMI are more susceptible to minimization and maximation techniques, leading to higher rates of false confessions and ultimately, false convictions. These issues are significantly exacerbated for PWMI of color, who experience additional racial bias. From the beginning of an investigation to the end, the justice system seems perversely calculated to target innocent PWMI, rather than protect them. The case of James Blackmon demonstrates how an innocent PWMI can be railroaded into a false confession and wrongful conviction. This paper details Blackmon’s case, analyzes how each step of an investigation endangers PWMI, and examines possible solutions to protect innocent PWMI.

The article highlights the problem of practical implementation of such a security measure that can be applied to participants in criminal proceedings, such as ensuring the confidentiality of personal information. It is analyzed the views diversity of investigators, prosecutors, judges and lawyers on the algorithm of application of ensuring the personal data confidentiality, on the issue of storage of resolutions (decisions) on the application of this security measure in criminal proceedings. The practice of conducting procedural actions in court with persons whose personal data have been changed is studied separately. The peculiarities of interrogation, identification with protected participants of criminal proceedings in the mode of videoconference and in a closed court session are studied. Previous attempts to solve this problem by developing a Model Instruction on conducting court proceedings with witnesses, victims and other participants in criminal proceedings, in respect of whom security measures have been taken, are considered. According to the analysis results of the domestic legislation on security of participants in criminal proceedings and identification of gaps, after conducting a survey of current investigators, prosecutors, judges and lawyers, the generalization of modern practice of criminal proceedings with the participation of protected persons is made. The purpose of this research is to formulate proposals for a unified and mandatory for all participants in criminal proceedings procedure for working with persons whose personal data are changed for security purposes at all stages of criminal proceedings. The expediency of enshrining at the bylaw level in a separate normative legal act an algorithm for carrying out procedural actions in court with participants in criminal proceedings, which would meet the requirements of current legislation, including the provisions of the Data Summary constituting a state secret, is substantiated.

This is a replication and extension of our previous studies on minimization tactics and pragmatic implication/inference. Specifically, its purpose is to more closely examine the mechanisms that may be at work in the process by which minimization tactics influence sentencing expectations.

Objective: Minimization is a legal interrogation tactic in which an interrogator attempts to alleviate a suspect’s anxiety associated with confessing to a crime. These studies aimed to examine the extent to which minimization pragmatically implies that a suspect will receive a more lenient sentence in exchange for a confession. Hypotheses: Generally, we predicted that participants who read an interrogation with a minimization theme or a direct promise of leniency would mistakenly expect more lenient sentences compared to a control condition if the suspect confessed to the crime. Hypotheses were preregistered prior to conducting each experiment. Method: In six experiments (Ns=413, 574, 496, 552, 489, 839), MTurkers read an interrogation transcript in which the suspect was (1) promised leniency, (2) subjected to minimization, or (3) questioned about the evidence (control). We tested whether warnings about direct promises and minimization induce people to adjust their expectations of sentence severity. Results: Warnings about leniency repaired sentencing expectations when participants read an interrogation with a direct promise, but were ineffective when an interrogator used minimization. Planned mediation analyses suggest that moral minimization techniques decrease sentencing expectations after a confession by influencing perceived crime severity. Honesty themes, like illegal direct promises, decrease sentence expectations by implying that leniency will be forthcoming in exchange for a confession. Conclusions: Contrary to the beliefs of American courts, who have allowed minimization but not direct promises to be used in interrogations, minimization does indeed impact sentencing expectations. There may be cause to review the legality of such tactics. ORIGINAL STUDY 1 ABSTRACT: After people receive corrections for inaccurate information, implied misinformation generates greater memory errors than explicit misinformation (Rich & Zaragoza, 2015). This effect is thought to occur because it is more difficult for people to detect the influence of implied misinformation. It is possible that pragmatic implications that suggest confessing to a crime will result in a more lenient sentence are more persistent in their influence on expectations of sentencing, compared to explicit promises of leniency. That is, even if people are explicitly warned that the police are not able to guarantee leniency in exchange for a confession, they may have substantial difficulty adjusting their expectations about punishment in the appropriate direction.

This project is devoted to testing whether the Strategic Use of Evidence technique facilitates deception detection for observers.

The study will assess the effectiveness of two new variations of the SoS approach (Luke & Granhag, 2022) that are designed to keep the source motivated, which we call SoS-Cooling Off and SoS-Diversion. We will compare these new variations to the SoS-Standard approach. Our main research questions concern the comparison between the three conditions regarding sources’ disclosure of critical information. We will also assess and compare participants’ experiences being interrogated using the different techniques.

Our aim is to assess the SoS-approach (Luke & Granhag, 2020) in longer interviews and to test a new variation of the technique that we call SoS-Reinforcement. Our main research questions concern the comparison between the two SoS-conditions regarding sources’ disclosure of critical information, as well as assessing if SoS-Standard holds up as more effective than direct questioning in longer interviews. We will also assess and compare participants' experiences being interrogated using the different techniques.

This project is designed to test the hypothesis that hypothetical evidence delivered through bait questions serves an explanatory role in people's perceptions of a suspect's guilt, such that it "fills in the gaps" of an otherwise weaker case.

Having found no evidence that the minimization tactics we tested in Studies 1, 2, and 3 cause people to draw explicit inferences that the suspect will receive more lenient treatment (despite having an apparently reliable effect on sentencing expectations), we have decided to test an alternative form of minimization: one in which the interrogator develops a theme about the value of honesty and makes references to how other people, including the courts and prosecutors, may view honesty favorably. Such tactics were employed in the high-profile interrogation of Brendan Dassey. Indeed, we have derived the language of this condition from a transcript of Mr. Dassey’s interrogation. We expect to replicate our previous results that participants in the moral minimization condition will not draw inferences about lenient treatment of the suspect, and we predict that participants in the honesty theme condition will draw such inferences. We are also interested in testing a possible mechanism for the effects of moral minimization on sentencing expectations. It is possible that this form of minimization influences expectations by changing people’s perceptions of how severe the crime was. That is, perhaps moral minimization makes people view the crime as less blameworthy and therefore less likely to be punished severely. We will assess this possibility using a measure of perceived crime severity.

This is the project for the fifth study in our series of studies on pragmatic implicature in police interrogations. In this study we are focused on clarifying the mechanism according to which moral minimization functions to reduce sentencing expectations. We will also attempt to replicate the pragmatic implication effects we observed in Study 4.

The article deals with the peculiarities of tactical techniques for conducting interrogations on extremist crimes committed on the Internet. The Internet space acts as a social environment that is congruent (attractive) for adherents of extremist activities, where their leading characteristic is a focus on atypical, non — normative, asocial behavior. Tactical interrogation techniques create conditions for obtaining evidence about the circumstances of the case: whether there was a call to violence, whether violence is justified, what is the content of the materials presented in the network, what means (posters, leaflets, etc.) were used. When conducting an interrogation, the use of psychological influence techniques makes it easier to obtain criminally significant information. For individuals who commit crimes of extremist orientation, taking into account the typification of personal characteristics (idealistic, adventurers, non-normative), some effective tactics are described (egress to emotions, naked aggression, exchange of positions, intervention of an authoritative third, etc.) with an approximate list of questions. Techniques are designed to achieve mutual understanding between the investigator and the interrogated, in which the latter, regardless of the current situation, cooperates with the investigator and provides information about the circumstances of the case without distortion or concealment.

Threats are a common feature of detention and interrogation settings and have long been regarded as a routine procedure. Despite their prevalence and propensity to amount to ill-treatment and torture, threats have not been systematically and thoroughly analysed in case documentation processes. Given a lack of understanding, threats have unduly been considered a form of “torture-lite” at best by some juridical actors. However, its effect as an instrument of coercion can be devastating – engendering states of fear and anxiety and forcing its subject to act against their will. There is an important lack of theoretical reflection on what threats are, what types exist and how they impact the survivor. In this editorial, we aim to partly fill this gap from a medical and psychological perspective, providing a framework of understanding that will hopefully improve conceptual and practical assessment, documentation and qualification.

The purpose of the article is to form theoretical provisions and practical recommendations on the role of thespecialist in the interrogation of a minor victim of violence. The methodology encompasses various general scientificand special methods of scientific knowledge, in particular: the comparative legal method analyzes the legislation;general and special features of the doctrinal understanding of the specifics of the interrogation of minors are formallyand logically revealed; the system and structural method determines the types of special knowledge required duringthe interrogation of a minor. General conclusions and suggestions, based on the method of synthesis, are presented.The dialectical method was fundamental for the application of all methods. Scientific novelty. The necessity of thepsychologist's participation in the interrogation of a minor victim of violence is justified, not alternative, but obligatory. The necessity to involve technical support specialists has been proven, as such persons are usually interrogated byvideoconference, as well as by a doctor who specializes in obstetrics and gynecology, if a crime against child’s sexualfreedom and sexual integrity was committed. Conclusions. Opinions on the mandatory participation of a number ofspecialists in the interrogation of minors affected by violence acquired further development, basing on the analysis ofthe legal norms that regulate the participation of specialists during investigative (search) actions, as well as the viewsof scientists on the involvement of knowledgeable persons during interrogation. It is proved that due to certain age andpsychological features the child's interrogation has its own specifics associated with the delicacy of communication,psychological reflection of all questions and answers, the use of various demonstration tools, the need for interrogation using technical means of fixation etc. Therefore, there is an urgent need to participate in this investigative (search)action of knowledgeable persons (specialists) who will provide qualified assistance for more effective collection ofevidence. At the same time, special emphasis was placed on the role of psychologists and doctors in conducting interrogations, which will facilitate the investigator's communication with the child.