Police Interrogations
Rapport, open-ended and non-suggestive questions, interviewee autonomy, strategic presentation of evidence, and eliciting verbal cues are defining characteristics of this approach to interviewing.
What is the information-gathering approach (e.g., PEACE)?
This is an example of a comparison question test.
What is a traditional polygraph or lie detector test?
This term refers to the human tendency to draw conclusions about what is implied but not explicitly stated.
What is pragmatic implication?
These three elements can be bargained or changed during plea negotiations.
What are facts, sentences, and charges?
These refer to past legal decisions and opinions, and they serve the purpose of promoting consistency.
What are legal precedents?
These are the nine steps of a widely used accusatory interrogation method: positive confrontation; theme development; handling denials; overcoming objections; procurement and retention of attention; handling passive mood; presenting the alternative question; having the suspect orally relate details; and elements of oral and written statements.
What is the REID technique?
Imposing cognitive load, asking unexpected questions, encouraging interviewees to say more, strategic use of evidence (SUE), the verifiability approach, and the concealed information test (CIT) are examples of these tools.
What are cognitive-based lie detection tools?
This is the one explicit recommendation made in the original Scientific Review Paper concerning false confessions (i.e., Kassin et al., 2010)?
What is all custodial interviews and interrogations should be videotaped in their entirety?
This is one of the clear benefits of plea bargains/negotiations.
What is judicial efficiency (faster and less resource-demanding cases)?
When evaluating the admissibility of a potential expert’s testimony, the judge discovers that the underlying theory is problematic. Specifically, it is unclear how the theory could be disproven. Name the Daubert criterion that is potentially not being met by this expert.
What is falsifiability?
This is the key goal of the Behavior Analysis Interview, which precedes a particular style of interrogation.
What is determining whether a suspect is lying (i.e., likely guilty)?
These are the two main assumptions underlying an arousal-based approach to lie detection.
What is 1. Lying is stressful and 2. Lying will produce (non-verbal) visible signs of increased anxiety or nervousness?
These are three interrogation techniques that research has found can increase the likelihood of a false confession (but that Courts have ruled as Constitutional).
What is extended duration (isolation), direct lies concerning the case (fabricated evidence), minimization, maximization, etc.?
This normative model proposes that defendants evaluate plea offers by comparing them to the expected value of trial outcomes.
What is the shadow-of-the-trial model?
According to Leo (2011), there are three ways police officers attempt to avoid (or negotiate) Miranda.
What is recasting interrogation (as non-custodial), de-emphasizing significance, persuading suspects, continued questioning (outside Miranda)?
Courts have ruled the following techniques constitutional: Extended duration (isolation), direct lies concerning the case, minimization, and maximization. This is despite the fact that all these techniques have been found to increase the risk of these?
What are false confessions?
These are the first five criteria Vrij and Fisher (2016) developed to evaluate lie-detection tools in investigative derived from the Daubert guidelines.
What are: 1. Falsifiability; 2. Tested; 3. Peer Review; 4. Known Error Rates; 5. Scientific Consensus?
The three types of false confessions that Kassin et al. (2025) define.
What are: 1. Voluntary—a spontaneously-made confession with no pressure from law enforcement; 2. Compliant—a confession made in response to (interrogatory) pressure; 3. Internalized (or persuaded)-–a confession thought by the suspect to be true (due to memory distrust)?
This theory differs from the shadow-of-the-trial model in that it is descriptive and accounts for differential decision-making based on reference points.
What is prospect theory?
Costanzo and Krauss (2015) outlined three different roles that expert legal psychologists can play (when consulting on trials or testifying). Based on their comments, rank these roles from best (most ethical) to worst.
What are conduit-educator, philosopher-advocate, and hired-gun?
Dividing a procedure’s rate of false alarms by its rate of hits produces this metric.
What is a diagnosticity ratio?
These are the additional five criteria Vrij and Fisher (2016) developed to evaluate lie detection tools in investigative interviews (outside those derived from Daubert).
What are: 1. Ease of incorporation; 2. Truth-Teller Impact; 3. Ease of Use; 4. Lie Bias Protection; 5. Counteraction?
American courts have recognized limitations regarding the admissibility of potentially involuntary confessions. These are the three reasons courts cited for suppressing involuntary confessions.
What are questions concerning the reliability of the confession; concerns regarding potential due process violations; deterrence of poor or problematic police practices?
These are four potential costs of plea bargains/negotiations.
What are inappropriate criminal sanctions (in both directions), potential coercion (in demanding waivers of Constitutional rights), reduction in citizen engagement with and approval of the legal system, transfer of sentencing power to prosecutors (from judges), etc.?
These are two pros and two cons of increasing ecological validity in a research study.
What are: Increased external & face validity, practical applicability, psychological realism (Pros); Reductions in experimenter control/internal validity (e.g., less randomization), ethical questions, harder to replicate, costlier (Cons)?