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Unanticipated questions can yield unanticipated outcomes in investigative interviews

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 16:24 authored by Thomas Parkhouse, Thomas OrmerodThomas Ormerod
Asking unanticipated questions in investigative interviews can elicit differences in the verbal behaviour of truth-tellers and liars: When faced with unanticipated questions, liars give less detailed and consistent responses than truth-tellers. Do such differences in verbal behaviour lead to an improvement in the accuracy of interviewers’ veracity judgements? Two empirical studies evaluated the efficacy of the unanticipated questions technique. Experiment 1 compared two types of unanticipated questions (questions regarding the planning of a task and questions regarding the specific spatial and temporal details associated with the task), assessing the veracity judgements of interviewers and verbal content of interviewees’ responses. Experiment 2 assessed veracity judgements of independent observers. Overall, the results provide little support for the technique. For interviewers, unanticipated questions failed to improve veracity judgement accuracy above chance. Reality monitoring analysis revealed qualitatively distinct information in the responses to the two unanticipated question types, though little distinction between the responses of truth-tellers and liars. Accuracy for observers was greater when judging transcripts of unanticipated questions, and this effect was stronger for spatial and temporal questions than planning questions. The benefits of unanticipated questioning appear limited to post-interview situations. Furthermore, the type of unanticipated question affects both the type of information gathered and the ability to detect deceit.

Funding

EPSRC DTP EP/M508172/1; G1644; EPSRC-ENGINEERING & PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL; EP/M508172/1

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

PLoS ONE

ISSN

1932-6203

Publisher

Public Library of Science

Issue

12

Volume

13

Article number

e0208751

Department affiliated with

  • Psychology Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2019-01-03

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2019-01-03

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2019-01-03

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