14 June 2007
In brief
New research from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) casts doubt on police interviewing strategies. Police manuals recommend various approaches to help investigators find out if they are being told the truth, for example, studying eye contact, comparing responses in the interview with responses during small talk at the beginning, or using specific questions that liars and those telling the truth are believed to respond differently to. However, the ESRC study, Interviewing to Detect Deception, suggests these methods are ineffective. In experiments involving students and police officers, those using police approaches were unable to identify liars.
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