Animals are used by humans in many ways, yet science has paid little attention to the study of human-animal relationships (Melson 2002). In the present study participants (n= 96) completed a questionnaire on attitudes towards animal use and individual differences were examined to determine which characteristics might underlie these attitudes ('belief in animal mind', age, gender, experience of animals, vegetarianism, political stance, and living area). It emerged that participants held different views for different types of animal use, and that belief in animal mind (BAM) was a powerful and consistent predictor of these attitudes, with BAM together with gender and vegetarianism predicting up to 37% of the variance in attitudes towards animal use.Thus future research should acknowledge the importance of BAM as a major underlying factor of attitudes towards animal use, and should also distinguish between different types of animal use when measuring attitudes. We proposed that the large effect of BAM might be due to increasing interest in animal mind over the past decade.

Using transcripts of 26 real-life interviews with suspected child sex offenders from England, this study examined the use of empathy and the impact of question type on the amount of investigation relevant information (IRI) obtained. There were no significant differences in the amount of IRI obtained in the interviews as a function of the use of empathy by police officers. The mean proportion of inappropriate questions was significantly higher than the mean proportion of appropriate questions and, as hypothesized, the responses to appropriate questions contained significantly more items of IRI than responses to inappropriate questions.

There exists very limited published research on what actually happens during police interviews with suspects, and the research which does exist has identified a number of weaknesses. In attempts to remedy this, some governments have brought in legislative changes and some police forces have sought to improve their training. The present study examined the extent to which a number of psychological tactics identified in the literature were actually used by a major police force in England. Audio tape recordings of interviews were assessed by a number of forensic psychologists. It was found that coercive tactics were used very infrequently but that tactics concerned with the seeking of information were common. There were relatively few correlations between (i) the extent to which suspects changed 'position' from denial toward confession and (ii) the degree of usage of each of the 17 tactics. Most of the tactics had a stronger degree of usage in interviews in which the suspects continued to deny/never confessed. The relationships between these findings and changes in relevant legislation and training are discussed.

is a Reader in Forensic Psychology, a chartered forensic psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. She is also a member of the ACPO Investigative Interviewing Strategic Steering Group and course leader of the FdA Investigation and Evidence, a distance learning degree programme specifically for investigators.

Julie Cherryman is a senior lecturer in theDepartment of Psychology, University of Portsmouth. Her research interests include investigative interviewing of young children, children's eyewitness identification, and the investigative interviewing of suspects, which was the topic of her PhD. Ray Bull is professor of psychology at the University of Portsmouth. As well as research on the investigative interviewing suspects, he is an acknowledged international expert on witness testimony. He is currently conducting a major project on children's facial recognition. ABSTRACT Responses to a questionnaire from 81 police officers experienced in specialist investigative interviewing (511) were content analysed to determine which skills they thought were important in specialist investigative interviewing, and which were present or missing in police cifficers in general and in themselves. 'Listening' was considered to be the most important skill in 5II and all if the other skills listed in the questionnaire were described as 'very important' or 'important'. Generally, the cifficers believed that all of the listed skills could be improved upon, and that 'preparation', 'openmindedness' and flexibility' were the skills which were most ojten missing in police cifficers who conduct 5II (though the officers did not consider these to be missing in themselves).