Detecting Malingering and Deception

Forensic Distortion Analysis (FDA-5)

Harold V. Hall, Joseph Poirier

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429750762
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Diritto
• Subtopic: Diritto medico

Detecting Malingering and Deception: Forensic Distortion Analysis (FDA-5), Third Edition maintains the tradition of the prior two editions, following the Forensic Distortion Analysis (FDA) model. Fully updated since the last edition nearly 20 years ago, the book continues to serve as a comprehensive volume on deception and distortion in forensic, clinical and several specialized contexts.

As with the previous editions, the book presents a model of deception intended to be utilized and applied by the qualified evaluator. The proposed model covers targets of the faker, response styles shown, and methods to detect the deception. The goal is to summarize the historical and latest information on distortion detection, to present guidelines for detecting deception that include variable accuracy rates based on different detection techniques, and to stimulate further research of effective methods of deception detection. Recommendations and guidelines for the practicing clinician are offered throughout the book, including real-world cases to inform and enlighten, particularly in unique cases or those in which the certain outcomes are unexpected.

Key Features:

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• Outlines the role of the forensic professional in applying and integrating methods assessment in deception and distortion

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• Provides base-rates for deception-related behavior and events, especially useful in report writing or courtroom testimony as an expert witness

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• Presents the latest advances in methodology and technology to assist in the search for ground truth in applied settings and situations

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• Applies forensic distortion analysis to evaluate the deception-related findings and statements of other professionals involved in a particular case

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• New coverage includes sections on deception analysis for collectivities, including media groups, contemporary politics, cross-national corporations, conflict, and terrorism

Detecting Malingering and Deception incorporates the latest research, providing practical application to utilize information and evaluative methods as they pertain to deception-related settings and situations. Sample reports and extensive graphs, tables, charts, and histograms are provided, and every chapter has been updated with new studies and investigations. The Third Edition boasts several new chapters and updated working appendices of coverage to expand the exploration of deception addressing advances in the field, and our current understanding of the phenomenon.

Deception Analysis in Criminal Contexts

IV

Interviewing and Interrogation

15

Introduction

This chapter addresses forensic assessment of suspects and witnesses through techniques of observation and interviewing. Every mental health trainee’s introduction to clinical work involves the clinical interview. In the beginning, the trainee may be exposed to media presentations of interviewing, and then participating as an observer, and ultimately as the interviewing professional. Clinical interviewing begins with an understanding of what constitutes a clinical contract. Next emanate ethical issues of confidentiality, informed consent, clinical competence, and clinical negligence. Forensic work follows a similar path, but additionally incorporates a grasp of the workings of the adversarial process and the issues of detecting malingering and deception.

Academic researchers frequently claim that present methods of interviewing and interrogation yield too many false positives (innocent parties labeled as perpetrators). Traditionally, sources have stressed the importance of corroborating the self-reports of witnesses with reports made by other parties (Horvath, Jayne, & Buckley, 1994; Leach, & Orchowski, 2019; Vrij, Semin, & Bull, 1996; Vrij & Winkle, 1993). Arriving at a clear understanding of events that constitute a forensic matter are important in every circumstance, but considering criminal cases or family court circumstances with the potential consequences are extreme. For the forensic examiner, ultimately, the questions of veracity and deceptive presentation are at issue. An important initial distinction is the difference between the clinical investigative interview and interrogation procedures by police authorities and criminal investigators. Interrogation is an assertive and sometimes aggressive approach and is designed to generate prosecutory evidence to be used in litigation. Extreme examples of interrogation procedures have been portrayed in Hollywood crime and spy movies depicting aggressive questioning and, in some instances, brutal physical torture, as well as other exotic means of extracting desired information from withholding subjects.

Vrij (1993, 1994, 1995) reported studies with police detectives who viewed video fragments of confederates instructed to be truthful or lie in an interview with an actor dressed as a police officer. The detectives indicated their judgments of whether the confederates were lying or not. In one study, the accuracy rate was no better than chance (49%); the author concluded that the detectives used the wrong cues to detect deception (Vrij, 1994).

Recently, in the United States, interrogation efforts with terrorism suspects have led to the justification of so called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” These techniques are aggressive and confrontive in nature and designed to elicit “truthfulness” through intimidation and physically aversive methods. Vrij et al. (2017) have contended that such an approach is ineffective. Rather than yielding sought after information, the techniques only engender resistance, inaccurate information, and confound useful cues to detect deception.

The views in this chapter are based on the authors’ experiences over the years with court systems, police departments, and other investigative/enforcement agencies. It is important to note that, in general, interviewing refers to clinical interviews and assessment procedures and the term interrogation refers to investigation procedures used by police and others. Clinical interviewing is designed to generate clinical findings and hypotheses objectively. Clinical interviewing in forensic matters should be comprehensive, exacting, and rigorous; these objectives, however, are not tantamount to clinicians being exempt from ethical guidelines in delivering clinical services. The content of the earlier Chapters 3 and 6 of this text regarding the topics of involuntary distortion and nonverbal behavior are especially relevant to investigative interviewing.

The wealth of studies reviewed in previous chapters can easily lead to a preoccupation with distortions at the expense of sound clinical diagnosis and assessment. Distortion analysis is an integral aspect of the Forensic Distortion Analysis-5 (FDA-5) model. Also critical is an appreciation for the role of non-deliberate distortion and the basic existential qualities of sincerity and honesty in human nature.

We now make explicit a point that has been covert throughout the preceding chapters. Forensic clinicians of all genres must deal with their own countertransference dynamics regarding forensic matters. This begins with mindful appreciation of one’s personal moral framework and one’s conception of the psychology of man. In most cases, this will begin with the clinician’s personal beliefs and which, for some, may envelop religious convictions. In other instances, belief systems may be atheistic or agnostic. All these countertransference issues will potentially color the clinician’s forensic analyses and thereby must be thoroughly understood and integrated into the clinician’s clinical style. This concern was, of course, the basis of Freud’s contention that all psychoanalysts must undergo personal analysis as part of their training. Such counter transference issues apply to any clinician’s repertoire, but are singularly important in forensic work. From the perspective of the judiciary, the forensic clinician is expected to approach forensic matters with neutrality and fairness. Part of the training in law school curriculums is to alert attorneys to deviances from these qualities, and expert witnesses will be pummeled with criticism during testimony and cross-examination for perceived lapses in objectivity. The authors have participated in the training and supervision of student and trainee forensic clinicians in numerous settings. The authors’ experience is that clinicians who work from humanistic theoretical frameworks will struggle most with adopting, for lack of a better term, the robotic-like affective manner that is suitable for work in forensic settings. The forensic clinician must be a good listener upon hearing gruesome details of criminal behavior. Another example of this point is clinicians administering psychological instruments designed to empirically ferret out tainted styles of responding or outright malingering. Some of these instruments require the examiner to verbalize inquiries that are patently absurd and, in some instances, ludicrous. It requires a special examiner style to not verbally or non-verbally taint the delivery of such inquiries such that the respondent’s grasp or response to the intended inquiry is not compromised. Similarly, during interrogation interviews, the forensic clinician’s demeanor must be deliberate and focused on the desired non-affective (i.e., non-prejudiced) interactive manner.

In given training sessions, astute students have questioned how the proposed forensic clinician style differs in sham quality from the practiced manners of the deceitful politician, con men, or military leaders who engage in deceptive delivery. There is no satisfying or simply exculpatory response to this inquiry. From the beginning chapters of this book, we have emphasized that some forms of deceptive behavior, although involving deception, are adaptive as opposed to being primarily self-serving or malevolent in intent. The parent who tries to convince the young child that the ground green pea baby food is good for you, even though the parent struggles to even smell the concoction, let alone taste it. The military training officer attempts to instruct young recruits of the value of rigorous training to prepare for possible combat. Religion classes attempts to extol the virtues of following the Ten Commandments to young pubescent adolescents. Human life is driven by paradox and contradictions; a reality that touches upon the human conditions described in this book, but the answer to which goes well beyond this book’s purpose. The best conclusory comment to this discussion is to remind the forensic clinician to always strive to pursue the aspiratory goals of the established ethical codes we have cited in the body of this book.

The current literature regarding forensic interviewing reflects two areas of interest. The first area involves dealing with the continuing problem of “false confessions.” There are a variety of circumstances that generate false confessions including mental illness, naïveté and inventory, and overly aggressive interviewing tactics (Gudjonsson, 1990; Rogers, 1990; Volbert et al., 2019). The second area of interest is investigative interviewing practices with children and adolescents (Fisher et al., 2016; Leach & Orchowski, 2019; Poirier, 1999; Rivard & Compo, 2017; Saywitz & Camparo, 2013).

The ethical principles of informed consent, confidentiality, and beneficence remain primary considerations as in all clinical work. Interviewing is a flexing process of regulating and managing clinical impressions (Schlenker & Weigold, 1992). Interviewing is usually not invasive, intimidating, or aggressive. Interviewing does not assume a bias to deception, nor is it impervious to manipulation or deception. In forensic circumstances, however, interviewing, of necessity, becomes an artful effort of anticipating the likelihood of deception effort by subjects.

In contrast, police investigators are taught to be sensitive to nonverbal behavior, although not always in a reliable or empirically accurate manner (Vrij, Hartwig, & Granhag, 2019). Interviewing and interrogation efforts can take place in combination with other investigative approaches—forensic hypnosis, polygraphy, plethysmography lab results, and criminal profiling. Some of these techniques can be effective with sensitive, intuitive, well-trained investigators. Many of these methods are relatively crude in terms of empirical reliability, and findings from these ancillary approaches must be viewed with caution by clinical interviewers. Presently, there are no standards of certification for the latter individuals. To an extent, this is also a problem with forensic clinicians, although there are formal, forensic board-certification procedures intended to promote excellence in forensic practice for psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers.

A significant difference between police methods and clinical approaches is the general reluctance for direct reliance on suspect-generated information by police investigators. Indeed, as is repeatedly cautioned throughout this book, reliance on significant-player provided information can be a source of error in psychological findings. To counteract the problem, police investigation relies primarily on crime scene evidence and study of the suspect’s modus operandi. The thesis here is that both approaches have merit and both have limitations. In relevant circumstances, forensic clinicians will have access to police investigative materials, which should be regarded with appropriate perspective.

Early Forensic Interviewing Efforts

Traditional forensic interviewing approaches utilized protocols based on reaction time measurements and word association findings (Goldstein, 1923; Henke & Eddy, 1909; Leach & Washburn, 1910; Marston, 1920; Yerkes & Berry, 1909). Some of this early work emanated from the efforts of early Jungian psychoanalysts (e.g., Jung and Wertheimer) utilizing symbolism and word association theory to detect deception. Goldstein (1923) summarized this early research and noted that early efforts involved attempts to identify dynamics of diagnoses of hysteria and neurasthenia. Over time, the general population became less naïve regarding mental health issues, and early researchers recognized that suspect/deceivers would see through simplistic efforts (e.g., questioning dependent on reaction times to words sensitive to elements of a crime scene). These early efforts eventually morphed into contemporary forensic work and detecting deception dynamics.

Corroboration as a Clinical/Forensic Tool

Forensic sources (Hall, 1982; Resnick, 1997; Shapiro, 1999; Verigin et al., 2019) have consistently emphasized the need to corroborate the self-reports of suspects and witnesses with the independent reports of other parties. Depending on the nature of the suspected deception or malingered behavior, collateral data should be gathered from past or current circumstances. For example, if a criminal defendant is suspected to be malingering hallucinations, it would be important to gather information from the defendant’s prior history to determine if psychotic experiences were previously documented for the defendant. If the suspected malingerin...