Differentiation of Truthful and Deceptive Criminal Suspects in Behavior Analysis Interviews

Abstract

The Behavior Analysis Interview© (BAI) is a commonly used procedure designed to assist investigators in distinguishing between suspects who are concealing their involvement in a criminal event (deceptive) from those who are not (truthful). During a BAI a protocol of questions is asked and suspects' verbal responses and accompanying nonverbal behaviors and attitudinal characteristics are assessed. Based on this assessment the likelihood of involvement in the criminal event is determined. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness with which trained evaluators were able to distinguish between truthful and deceptive suspects undergoing BAIs. Sixty videotaped interviews, 30 of truthful and 30 of deceptive suspects, were observed by four evaluators, each of whom independently scored suspect's behaviors and attitudes and judged the suspect's truthfulness. The results showed that, excluding inconclusive decisions, evaluators' average accuracy on truthful suspects was 91% and on deceptive suspects, 80%. Suspects' status did not affect confidence of evaluators' decisions but confidence was greater when correct as opposed to incorrect calls were made. Deceptive suspects manifested “theoretically” predicted behaviors and attitudes of “deceptiveness” to a significantly greater degree than did truthful suspects. The BAI appears to be useful for investigative purposes in order to differentiate between suspects who are concealing involvement in a criminal offense from those who are not.

Lessons from Pinocchio: Cues to deception may be highly exaggerated

“…These two cues are impressions of verbal immediacy and cooperativeness. Although their effects appear at least somewhat promising, both these cues are heavily influenced by outlier estimates from the same study, namely Horvath, Jayne, & Buckley (1994), whose methods have been criticized for, among other things, insufficiently establishing the ground truth of the rated messages (Vrij, Mann, & Fisher, 2006). https://rabbitsnore.shinyapps.io/deception literature simulator/ I have argued that a critical component of the Land of Toys problem is low power of the studies that make up the literature, but I have only presented simulations under a single set of power conditions, namely conditions similar to those observed in DLMMCC.…”

Does Training Improve the Detection of Deception? A Meta-Analysis

“…Summary of two training studies ) George, Marett, and Tilley (2004 No deception detection training study Hill and Craig (2004) Detection of pain in facial expressions Horvath, Jayne, and Buckley (1994) No between-or within-participants design Y. C. Lin (1999) Not retrievable M. Lin, Crews, Cao, Nunamaker, and Burgoon (2003) Article reports results from Cao et al (2003) Mann, Vrij, andBull (2006) No training or feedback Marett, Biros, and Knode (2004) Relationship between training and accuracy not investigated Masip, Alonso, Garrido, and Herrero (2009) No purpose of improving detection accuracy McKenzie, Scerbo, and Catanzaro (2003) No deception detection training study Parker and Brown (2000) Training of only two individuals was not clearly described; no usable results of means/detection accuracy Porter, Juodis, ten Brinke, Klein, and Wilson (2010) Lack of statistical data for computing an effect size Seager (2001) No specific detection deception training Warren, Schertler, and Bull (2009) Training with facial (micro-)expression tools; lack of control group Yang (1996) Not retrievable Appendix A (continued) 10 randomized Sporer and McCrimmon (1997) unpubl. …”

‘What Would You Say if You Were Guilty?’ Suspects' Strategies During a Hypothetical Behavior Analysis Interview Concerning a Serious Crime

“…Two studies conducted by John E. Reid and Associates' personnel yielded positive results (Blair & McCamey, 2002;Horvath, Jayne, & Buckley, 1994); however, these studies have been criticized because, in addition to other methodological limitations, the actual guilt or innocence of the suspects was uncertain (Alonso, Masip, Garrido, & Herrero, 2009;Masip, Herrero, Garrido, & Barba, 2011;Vrij, 2008;Vrij, Mann, & Fisher, 2006). Vrij, Mann, and Fisher (2006) conducted a controlled laboratory experiment in which ground truth was firmly established.…”