The Role of Initial Witness Accounts within the Investigative Process

Gabbert, Fiona; Hope, Lorraine; Carter, Elizabeth A.; Boon, Roel; Fisher, Ronald P.

doi:10.1002/9781118769133.ch6

Cited by 10 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…But although open questions maximize the accuracy of witnesses’ responses, those questions rarely elicit all of the details that the interviewer needs (Gabbert et al, 2015). Even if we decide that it is worse to omit information than report something wrong, the contact-tracing interviewer cannot possibly know the range of cues that might help in any specific case, which means that overreliance on a predetermined list of questions is unlikely to generate a comprehensive set of leads.…”

Section: What Can Help?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Contact Tracing: A Memory Task With Consequences for Public Health

Garry

Hope

Zajac

et al. 2020

Perspect Psychol Sci

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In the battle for control of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19), we have few weapons. Yet contact tracing is among the most powerful. Contact tracing is the process by which public-health officials identify people, or contacts, who have been exposed to a person infected with a pathogen or another hazard. For all its power, though, contact tracing yields a variable level of success. One reason is that contact tracing’s ability to break the chain of transmission is only as effective as the proportion of contacts who are actually traced. In part, this proportion turns on the quality of the information that infected people provide, which makes human memory a crucial part of the efficacy of contact tracing. Yet the fallibilities of memory, and the challenges associated with gathering reliable information from memory, have been grossly underestimated by those charged with gathering it. We review the research on witnesses and investigative interviewing, identifying interrelated challenges that parallel those in contact tracing, as well as approaches for addressing those challenges.

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Section: What Can Help?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Contact Tracing: A Memory Task With Consequences for Public Health

Garry

Hope

Zajac

et al. 2020

Perspect Psychol Sci

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“…However, when the interviewer puts emphasis only on questioning about one aspect of the event (spatial information), but neglects to ask questions about the other aspects (e.g., descriptions about actions of people during the crime), there is a risk to elicit less complete statements at the initial interview and after a delay (Gabbert et al, 2016).…”

Section: Delay and Deception Detectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regarding spatial open‐ended questioning, spatial details are important because they give valuable knowledge about directions of movement, locations of people or objects, or the layout of crime scene (Hope, Gabbert, & Fisher, 2011). However, when the interviewer puts emphasis only on questioning about one aspect of the event (spatial information), but neglects to ask questions about the other aspects (e.g., descriptions about actions of people during the crime), there is a risk to elicit less complete statements at the initial interview and after a delay (Gabbert et al, 2016).…”

Section: Delay and Deception Detectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The goal of any successful police investigation is to obtain reliable evidence for court proceedings (Gabbert, Hope, Carter, Boon, & Fisher, 2016;Milne & Bull, 1999). The testimony of witnesses plays an important role in criminal investigations, and so information collected from them in interviews must be both accurate and relevant to the case (Walsh & Oxburgh, 2008).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Deception detection in repeated interviews: The effects of immediate type of questioning on the delayed accounts

Izotovas

Vrij

Hope

et al. 2020

Journal Invest Psychology

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In this study, we examined how different types of interviewing (eliciting more complete vs. less complete accounts) used in an interview conducted shortly after an event affected truth tellers' and liars' responses when they were interviewed again after a two-week delay. Participants (n = 80) were shown a mock intelligence operation video and told either the truth or lied about its contents in two interviews, immediately after watching the video, and after a two-week delay. In the immediate interview participants were instructed either to report everything they remembered, or asked spatial questions related to the event. In the delayed interview, all participants were asked to report everything. The differences between truth tellers and liars were slightly larger in the report everything than in the spatial questions condition. Results suggest that an immediate "report everything" instruction can aid to effectively discriminate between truthful and deceptive accounts.

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“…However, we believe truthful statements were not dramatically inflated by false details. First, witness memory research showed that immediate, non-suggestive retrieval practice inoculated memory against inaccurate information at future repeated retrieval attempts (Gabbert, Hope, Carter, Boon, & Fisher, 2016;Pansky & Nemets, 2012). Second, consistency results showed that truthtellers reported mostly repetitions compared to reminiscences in the delayed interview.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facilitating Memory-Based Lie Detection in Immediate and Delayed Interviewing: The Role of Sketch Mnemonic

Izotovas

Vrij

Strömwall

et al. 2020

PSY

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Memory enhancing techniques, or mnemonics, are typically recommended in evidence-based investigative interviewing guidelines. In the current study, the use of a sketch mnemonic and its effect on the responses of truth tellers and liars was examined. Participants (n = 49) watched a mock intelligence operation video. They were instructed to tell the truth or lie about this operation in an interview immediately afterwards, and again after a two-week delay. In both interviews participants were requested to make a sketch of the place of the mock operation, and then to verbally describe the drawing. Results revealed that truth tellers reported more visual, spatial, temporal, and action details than liars in the immediate interview. Truth tellers also reported more spatial, temporal and action details than liars in the delayed interview. Truth tellers experienced a decline in reporting action details after the delay, whereas liars did not show a decline in reporting any details over time. Thus, truth-tellers showed patterns of reporting indicative of genuine memory decay, whereas liars produced patterns reflecting a ‘stability bias’. Between-statement consistency was not different across veracity conditions.

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The Role of Initial Witness Accounts within the Investigative Process

Cited by 10 publications

References 62 publications

Contact Tracing: A Memory Task With Consequences for Public Health

Contact Tracing: A Memory Task With Consequences for Public Health

Deception detection in repeated interviews: The effects of immediate type of questioning on the delayed accounts

Facilitating Memory-Based Lie Detection in Immediate and Delayed Interviewing: The Role of Sketch Mnemonic

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