Interview and Interrogation Techniques Tip 18 | “Google” Your Subject

Interview and Interrogation Techniques Tip 18

Have you ever thought about “Googling” your subject?

101 Tips for Interviewers and Interrogators

Stan B. Walters The Lie Guy® Blog

In Interview and Interrogation Techniques Tip 18 I suggest that you should “Google” your subject. Does that mean on the internet? No, not at all.  Read along and see what I mean.

Extensive research has shown that lie signs are in fact quite rare when using generic interview and interrogation techniques.  The signs a subject may possibly generate are very faint “signals” and are very brief which makes them hard to spot.  We know that during the interviewing and interrogation of subjects, that even though the subject may be experiencing a high level of “detection anxiety”, they don’t exhibit a large volume of deception signals. 

This is especially true for the stereotypical body language cues that investigators have been taught to look for for decades. In fact, by focusing the majority of their attention on body language lie signs, observers fall victim to “confirmation bias” and can make very egregious errors in spotting deception.  I call it “The Big Foot Syndrome.”  If you “think” you’re going to see signs of Big Foot while you’re out in the woods, then EVERYTHING looks like a sign made by Big Foot! The best and most reliable cues come from verbal content.

Although verbal content is comparatively more reliable than body language cues, detection still requires more effort on the part of the observer / interviewer.

Two things can change the investigator’s success at spotting deception and getting more information during interviewing and interrogation.

• Don’t focus so much on spotting where the subject is possibly being deceptive.  If you only focus on winning the “you’re lying” battle, the odds are stacked unfavorably against you.  Identify which “topics” seem to give the subject the greatest problems and focus your questions around those issues.
• As you’re interviewing and interrogation efforts progress, focus your questions around the “topic” areas.  Your goal is to energize any lie symptoms that “may” be present. At the same time, your questions will generate larger amounts of information.

Watch video Tip # 18 “Interviewing and Interrogation | Do You “Google” Your Subject” and see how you can identify and energize your subject’s hot spots. See what I mean about “Googling” your subject!

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