Understanding Investigative Interviewing

Forensic Psychology – Investigative Interviewing and Lie Detection

In this course, Dr Cody Porter (University of the West of England) explores investigative interviewing and lie detection. In the first lecture, we think about methods of investigative interviewing, including the two main types and four dimensions of each. In the second lecture, we think about historical approaches to lie detection, from ancient practices to the modern polygraph. In the third lecture, we think about how body language can be used to detect deception. Next, we think about the cognitive approach to lie detection. In the fifth lecture, we think about how best to approach detecting deception. In the sixth and final lecture, we review the ‘investigator’s toolkit’ of strategies to detect deception.

Understanding Investigative Interviewing

In this lecture, we think about investigative interviewing methods, focusing in particular on: (i) differentiating the information gathering and accusatorial approaches by which countries employ them and which techniques for extracting information are used in each; (ii) Meissner and colleagues’ review of investigative interviewing techniques, which established the four dimensions of investigative interviewing; (iii) a discussion of each of the four dimensions of both investigative interviewing methods, differentiating between the information gathering approach and the accusatorial approach; (iv) Méndez’s study looking into how investigative interviewing is performed globally; (v) Méndez’s findings that excessively long interviews and unjustified means, such as torture, are used around the world; (vi) the poor outcomes of torture, particularly focused around the rate of false confessions.