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Nothing new here, this interviewing technique by storytelling has been standard procedure for a long time with the British Police. One simple variation is to re

Nothing new here, this interviewing technique by storytelling has been standard procedure for a long time with the British Police. One simple variation is to recall the story from the beginning, then recall from the end and see what doesn't match up.

mcphage 11y ago
That's not exactly what's going on here. The point is to use the sensory memories to improve the interviewee's ability to recall, and then see who actually recalled better the second time around. Yes, you could probably compare the two for inconsistencies as well, but that's not what he was measuring for this—just the change in level of detail between the two versions.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  That's right, and another difference is that word frequencies change. E.g., in a lie there might be many references to "the green car", while a truthful story would refer to it variously as "the old green car", "the yellowish hatchback", "that ugly old car", etc. Yes there are inconsistencies in those descriptors. That is a property of memory, not of guilt. Which shows yet another deficiency in LEOs' standard methods. They interrogate until they get an inconsistency, which they know the courts will interpret as guilt, even though this research shows that it is no such thing. Therefore intelligent guilty people can talk to the police with no fear, while no innocent person should ever talk to them.
mrestko 11y ago
I used a variation of this trick when I was a resident assistant in college. We had the unfortunate job of busting drinking parties in the dorms and part of our responsibility was to collect ID numbers or social security numbers if the person claimed to not have their IDs. People would quite happily rattle-off a fake SSN. But if you wait 60 seconds and come back to them and ask for the number in reverse, it's essentially impossible to repeat the same fake, especially if you've been drinking.
- pavel_lishin 11y ago
  I would have a hard time doing this with mine, and I'm sober. Would people memorize fakes to give away consistently, or would they just rattle off a random nine digit number?
  - at-fates-hands 11y ago
    Sometimes. I used to be a bouncer in my college town and you'd be surprised at what lengths kids will go to pass off their fake ID's as real. they'll memorize everything on the ID, including where the city is located - "So Flagstaff, is that North or South of Phoenix? I can never remember?" I would ask for all the information on the ID if I thought they looked young. Then once the person was confident they had passed my tests, I'd ask them what their area code was when they call home. 9/10 a fake ID holder will fail this test because its not something on the ID, but something they should know without fail.
    - pavel_lishin 11y ago
      That's a pretty good idea! But doesn't this rather depend on you knowing the area code yourself?
      - knodi123 11y ago
        Haha, either that, or pretending you do. You're only looking for people who are not confident.
        pavel_lishin 11y ago
        As someone who frequently forgets how old he is, I'd be kind of irked if someone denied me entry because I said "I'm 28. No, wait, shit, 29!"
        scott_s 11y ago
        Knowing some bouncers and bar tenders, they tend to have a dynamic level of skepticism. If you look 25-ish, that sort of slip probably won't deny you entry. If you look 20-ish, it may be more likely. The difficulty here is that the incentives heavily favor allowing false negatives, and denying false positives. I know that in Virginia, the bar tenders were personally responsible if they served alcohol to anyone underage. And in a college town (where I was for quite some time in grad school), there are loads of underage kids trying to get into the bars, and the authorities would sometimes hire underage kids to test the bars.

mcphage 11y ago

That's not exactly what's going on here. The point is to use the sensory memories to improve the interviewee's ability to recall, and then see who actually recalled better the second time around. Yes, you could probably compare the two for inconsistencies as well, but that's not what he was measuring for this—just the change in level of detail between the two versions.

jessaustin 11y ago
That's right, and another difference is that word frequencies change. E.g., in a lie there might be many references to "the green car", while a truthful story would refer to it variously as "the old green car", "the yellowish hatchback", "that ugly old car", etc. Yes there are inconsistencies in those descriptors. That is a property of memory, not of guilt. Which shows yet another deficiency in LEOs' standard methods. They interrogate until they get an inconsistency, which they know the courts will interpret as guilt, even though this research shows that it is no such thing. Therefore intelligent guilty people can talk to the police with no fear, while no innocent person should ever talk to them.

mrestko 11y ago

I used a variation of this trick when I was a resident assistant in college. We had the unfortunate job of busting drinking parties in the dorms and part of our responsibility was to collect ID numbers or social security numbers if the person claimed to not have their IDs. People would quite happily rattle-off a fake SSN. But if you wait 60 seconds and come back to them and ask for the number in reverse, it's essentially impossible to repeat the same fake, especially if you've been drinking.

pavel_lishin 11y ago
I would have a hard time doing this with mine, and I'm sober. Would people memorize fakes to give away consistently, or would they just rattle off a random nine digit number?
- at-fates-hands 11y ago
  Sometimes. I used to be a bouncer in my college town and you'd be surprised at what lengths kids will go to pass off their fake ID's as real. they'll memorize everything on the ID, including where the city is located - "So Flagstaff, is that North or South of Phoenix? I can never remember?" I would ask for all the information on the ID if I thought they looked young. Then once the person was confident they had passed my tests, I'd ask them what their area code was when they call home. 9/10 a fake ID holder will fail this test because its not something on the ID, but something they should know without fail.
  - pavel_lishin 11y ago
    That's a pretty good idea! But doesn't this rather depend on you knowing the area code yourself?
    - knodi123 11y ago
      Haha, either that, or pretending you do. You're only looking for people who are not confident.
      - pavel_lishin 11y ago
        As someone who frequently forgets how old he is, I'd be kind of irked if someone denied me entry because I said "I'm 28. No, wait, shit, 29!"
        scott_s 11y ago
        Knowing some bouncers and bar tenders, they tend to have a dynamic level of skepticism. If you look 25-ish, that sort of slip probably won't deny you entry. If you look 20-ish, it may be more likely. The difficulty here is that the incentives heavily favor allowing false negatives, and denying false positives. I know that in Virginia, the bar tenders were personally responsible if they served alcohol to anyone underage. And in a college town (where I was for quite some time in grad school), there are loads of underage kids trying to get into the bars, and the authorities would sometimes hire underage kids to test the bars.