How Does the Strategic Use of Evidence Assist in the Detection of Deception - Essay Example

How Does the Strategic Use of Evidence Assist in the Detection of Deception? Name Institution Course Date Assessing the truthfulness of a particular person’s statement can be used done using various techniques. However, some techniques have been found to yield positive results when used effectively while others have resulted in negative results. Human beings are prone to biases and they exhibit difficulty in the detection of deception due to their limitations on perceptions and interpretations (Hall, Mast, & West, 2016). This is especially true in the interactive contexts where investigator’s cognitive abilities are already busy with the interaction itself. Human judgment can be improved through training on how to utilize valid deception indicators. Moreover, improvement of questioning techniques has shown to offer great assistance to the investigators in the detection of deception. Strategic use of Evidence (STU) is one of the methods used in detecting deception. This essay explains how STU assist in the detection of deception. For almost half a century, empirical research on detection of deception has been carried out by psychologists. Currently, there is significant volume of research studies in this field (Vrij et al., 2008). Deception has led to wrongful convictions and breaking down of police investigations. Vrij etal., (2008) has defined deception as a ‘deliberate attempt to create false beliefs in others’. In this case, deception may include false assertions concerning autobiographical memories, concealing transgressions in an intentional mammer, and false claims about emotions, beliefs, and attitudes (Hartwig, Granhag & Luke, 2014). Detecting deception focuses on finding out the extent to which people are good at detecting lies. This entails the accuracy that people score in distinguishing statements that are true and false. It also covers ways that can be used in improving their credibility judgment if at all they exist. Moreover, research on deception is concern with establishing cues to deception. In other words, it attempts to find out if people’s behaviour’s when they are speaking and are lying are different when they are truthfully speaking. The last decade saw several research studies being conducted on the strategic ways that can be used to interview suspects for purposes of eliciting cues to deception. STU has been particularly a landmark technique in this new field of research (Driskell & Salas, 2012). Indeed, the research on SUE technique has been carried out for more than a decade and several scientific papers related to the technique are available. In single suspects, SUE technique has been successful in evoking signs of deception (Hartwig et al., 2006). Moreover, this method has gained considerable success in eliciting signs of deception in adults, children, suspects who are liars, and in small groups of suspects. Today, SUE is an empirically developed interview method that is significantly assisting in the detection of deception. It is a highly effective questioning strategy for detecting deception (Levine, 2014). It assists in detection of liars through the mechanism of evidence withholding. It has been found that accuracy is improved when known evidence is initially withhold when questioning a potential liar for purposes of finding out whether their statements matches the evidence. In other words, it a strategy employed to see if there is any contradiction between statements and evidence. Hundreds of studies have been conducted on the ability to detect human lies. On average, people score 54 per cent correct judgments (Hartwig et al., 2014). This score is not substantial considering that a yield of 50 per cent correct can be registered if it was guessing. Detection of deception is therefore associated with high rates of error and enhanced technique is needed to detect lies to a greater degree. Generally, there is a common belief that people who are tasked with detection of deception on a routine basis (for instance legal professions and police officers) may have higher capabilities to achieve higher accuracy rates due to their experience, training or both (Garrido, Masip, & Herrero, 2004). Although this belief is well ingrained in the society and sound plausible, there is no literature that supports it. In fact, research studies have shown that presumed experts of lie detection do not register higher accurate levels of lie detection in comparison with lay judges (Bond & DePaulo, 2006; Meissner & Kassin, 2002). However, as expected, the decision making of professionals are different in some ways from that of ordinary people. Typically, police officers are more suspicious and are systematically susceptible of being overconfident in their judgments (Meissner & Kassin, 2004). In sum, reviews on literature about the accuracy of lie detection by human beings shows that their ability to detect deception is mediocre. Due to this reason, SUE has been developed to improved accuracy rates of detecting lies. SUE as a method of detecting lies has been found to offer substantial assistance in the detection of deception. It has been utilized by law enforcement officers to strengthen their cases and by legal professionals to argue their cases. Systematic questioning of suspects may result in different cues to deception through different methods. All these methods emphasize cognitive differences between liars and those who tell the truth rather than their emotional differences (Hartwig et al., 2014). In other words, they assume that these two groups of people may have different amounts of mental loads. Additionally, they may also differ in the way their statements are being strategized and planned (Hartwig et al., 2014). For example, it is posited by cognitive load approach that telling the truth is less mentally demanding than telling lies because liars are faced with a more difficult task (Vrij, 2012). It suggests that imposition of further cognitive load to liars who are assumed to be already burdened by lying may exhibit more cues of cognitive load as compared to those telling the truth. Empirical studies have supported cognitive load hypothesis by demonstrating significant behavioural differences between liars and truth-tellers when they are requested to once again tell their stories in a reverse order (mentally demanding conditions) (Vrij et al., 2008). This is one way that SUE assists in the detection of deception. There is another body of research that shows how SUE help in the detection of deception. It is the unanticipated questions approach. In this method, liars are assumed to prepare some aspects of their cover story but not all of them (Hartwig et al., 2014). This technique has been largely found to be effective as some lairs have difficulties remembering the exact details of their stories. Unanticipated questions approach suggests that the responses of liars may be less detailed, consistent, and plausible when they are asked questions they do not expect about their cover story (Vrij & Granhag, 2012). However, liars sometimes provide statements that are consistent with what they say orally as compared to those telling the truth. There is a problem therefore with this method as a lie detection strategy. The argument behind high consistency amongst liars as compared to truth tellers is that those who are lying prepare for the interview in advance. They know that it is very important to plan and discuss their fabricated story if they are to ‘sell’ their story. Nonetheless, asking unanticipated questions is an effective strategy of detecting liars. Indeed, it enhances lie detection when interview is conducted to a group of suspects (Vrij et al., 2009). Unanticipated questions lead to lower levels of correspondence in answers for groups that are lying than for pairs of people telling the truth. The different levels of correspondence can therefore be utilized in the detection of deception. SUE is a lie detection method that is founded on the premise that liars and groups of people telling the truth posses some cognitive differences. It is a strategy of lie detection that is anchored in the social cognitive framework that focus on understanding the manner in which people are able to carry out behaviour control in order to move away from undesired results and towards achieving the desired objectives. In this context, the objectives of both liars and those who are telling the truth entails convincing the interviewer their assertions reflected in their statement are true. Specifically, the SUE strategy asserts that liars and those who are telling the truth use different approaches to convince. These strategies are known as counter-interrogation approaches (Granhag & Hartwig, 2008). They assist in the detection of deception when SUE is being utilized. Traditional techniques for detecting deception originated from early theories on lying (Navarro, 2003). They assumed that people who are lying will show stress-based signs since they fear the possibility of being caught. Furthermore, these theories assume that liars feel guilty about lying and can be detected by analyzing behaviour and body language of the people. This theory led to significant research studies that attempts to develop reliable behavioural indicators that can be used in the detection of deception. Indeed, it is vital for police investigators to acutely detect deception in order to apprehend the real culprits and not detain innocent suspects. Active detection of deception require assembling information for purposes of checking facts of the communication content and prompting deception signs in a strategic manner (Levine, 2014). Moreover, it also includes encouragement of honest admissions and discouraging continued lies. Absence of reliable deception cues often leads to poor accuracy of detecting deception although basing detection of lies on deception signs is not free from errors. Evidence—based approaches like SUE can be highly effective. References Bond Jr., C.F., DePaulo, B.M., 2006. Accuracy of deception judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Review 10, 214–234. Driskell, J. E., Salas, E., & Driskell, T. (2012). Social indicators of deception. Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 54(4), 577-588. Garrido, E., Masip, J., Herrero, C., 2004. Police officers’ credibility judgments: accuracy and estimated ability. International Journal of Psychology 39, 254–275. Granhag, P. A., & Hartwig, M. (2014). The Strategic Use of Evidence Technique: A Conceptual Overview. In P.A Granhag, A Vrij & B Verschuere (Eds.) Detecting Deception: Current Challenges and Cognitive Approaches (231-251). Chichester, West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Granhag, P.A., Hartwig, M., 2008. A new theoretical perspective on deception detection: on the psychology of instrumental mind-reading. Psychology, Crime and Law 14, 189–200. Hall, J. A., In Mast, M. S., & In West, T. V. (Eds.) (2016). The social psychology of perceiving others accurately. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hartwig, M., Granhag, P. A., Strömwall, L. A., & Kronkvist, O. (2006). Strategic use of evidence during police interviews: when training to detect deception works. Law and human behavior, 30(5), 603. Hartwig, M., Granhag, P.A., & Luke, T. (2014). Strategic use of evidence during investigative interviews: The State of Science. In D.C Raskin, C.R Honts, & J.C Kircher (Eds.), Credibility Assessment: Scientific research and applications (1-36). Waltham, MA: Academic Press. Levine, T. R. (2014). Active deception detection. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1(1), 122-128. Meissner, C.A., Kassin, S.M., 2002. “He’s guilty!”: investigator bias in judgments of truth and deception. Law and Human Behavior 26, 469–480. Navarro, J. (2003). A four-domain model for detecting deception. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 72(6), 19-24. Vrij, A., 2008. Detecting Lies and Deceit: Pitfalls and Opportunities, second ed. Wiley, New York. Vrij, A., Fisher, R., Mann, S., & Leal, S. (2008). A cognitive load approach to lie detection. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 5(1‐2), 39-43. Vrij, A., Granhag, P.A., 2012. Eliciting cues to deception and truth: what matters are the questions asked. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition 1, 110–117. Vrij, A., Leal, S., Granhag, P. A., Mann, S., Fisher, R. P., Hillman, J., & Sperry, K. (2009). Outsmarting the liars: The benefit of asking unanticipated questions. Law and human behavior, 33(2), 159-166. Read More