The Devil's Advocate protocol has been developed to assist making veracity assessments when someone discusses their opinion. The present experiment focused on protester actions rather than controversial issues and also included an adapted version of the Verifiability Approach. Participants told the truth or lied about protester actions and the…

In some contexts (e.g., legal and medical), it is imperative that children indicate when they do not understand an adult's question. Yet, little research has examined children's clarification requests. We asked 122 4- to 9-year-olds tricky and simple interview questions to assess how often and how children request clarification in interviews, the…

When cross-examining witnesses, lawyers will sometimes use complex questions to "trip-up" witnesses and thus cast doubt on their testimony. Extending prior research, the present study showed that multifaceted test questions (which contain both a true and false proposition) reduced accuracy for both misled and control participants but had…

In existing studies of investigative interviewing, the effects of interviewing contexts have often been measured with little consideration of the reciprocal interviewee's stable characteristics. To clarify the factors and conditions under which adults are likely to retain accurate information and be resistant (or vulnerable) to suggestions during…

In the area of security, human cognition remains essential for face recognition despite advancements in technology. Law enforcement agencies (LEAs) are interested in harnessing these abilities, as recognizing people is a fundamental aspect of their work. We conducted two studies to support integrating human face recognition skills into police…

When responding to queries for information, people control the grain size (precision-coarseness) of the information they communicate based on competing goals of accuracy and informativeness (Goldsmith & Koriat, "Behavioral and Brain Sciences," 1999, 19, 167). Two experiments examined whether the act of searching for answers using the…

We investigated how to optimize the effectiveness of retrieval-based learning when the instructional text comprises seductive details (i.e., interesting but irrelevant text adjuncts). Specific questions during retrieval practice should help students focus their recall on main ideas--and not on seductive details, which should in turn foster delayed…

Experimental studies examining child 'witnesses' under cross-examination typically rely on researchers questioning children using a 'barrister's script'. In the current research, experienced barristers used a defence statement from a mock perpetrator (who committed a theft 11 months earlier) to challenge typically developing children's evidence…

Person descriptions often lack the level of detail necessary to assist in the apprehension of a perpetrator. To date, it is not clear how person descriptions are obtained by frontline police officers. Worldwide, many police forces now use body worn video (BWV), which provides a unique opportunity to examine how frontline police officers gather…

Thirty-eight interviewers with no prior investigative interviewing experience questioned school-aged children (N = 68, aged 6-10 years) about a personally experienced event. These interviewers relied primarily on question types that are not recommended by interviewing guidelines. Providing interviewers with misleading prior knowledge exacerbated…

Hanns Scharff, an interrogator during the Second World War, was known for his remarkable effectiveness at collecting intelligence from prisoners of war using a friendly, conversational approach in which he led the prisoners to unknowingly reveal the information he wanted. In the last decade, psychologists have produced a body of experimental…

Sham marriages occur frequently, and to detect them, partners are sometimes interviewed together. We examined an innovative method to detect deceit in such interviews. Fifty-three pairs of interviewees, either friends (truth tellers) or pretended to be friends (liars), were interviewed about their friendship. Just before the interview, they…

Attaining an uninterrupted free report (FR) is at the heart of best practice investigative interviewing guidance. However, witnesses/victims do not naturally provide detailed accounts. Techniques have been developed to counter-act this, such as a report everything (RE) instruction. This research examined the relative effectiveness of "an…

This study examined the effectiveness of ground rules--simple instructions outlining the communication expectations of an investigative interview--with 73 younger (age 18-40) and 57 older (age 60+) adults. Participants watched a film depicting an implied sexual assault and were interviewed after a brief delay. One third received no ground rules,…

Missing body homicide cases have gained public interest globally due to some high-profile cases. In many of these cases, the task of locating the victim's remains relies on the information investigators can gain through the interviewing of willing suspects. To date, investigative interviewing research has largely focused on the retrieval of…