Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30532180›Full record

Trial reportPloS one2018

Unanticipated questions can yield unanticipated outcomes in investigative interviews.

Tom Parkhouse, Thomas C Ormerod

Abstract readRandomized Controlled Trial
In one paragraph

Trial report in PloS one, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Tom ParkhouseDepartment of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, East Sussex, United Kingdom.ORCID 0000-0001-6773-5376
Thomas C OrmerodDepartment of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, East Sussex, United Kingdom.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Asking unanticipated questions in investigative interviews can elicit differences in the verbal behaviour of truth-tellers and liars: When faced with unanticipated questions, liars give less detailed and consistent responses than truth-tellers. Do such differences in verbal behaviour lead to an improvement in the accuracy of interviewers' veracity judgements? Two empirical studies evaluated the efficacy of the unanticipated questions technique. Experiment 1 compared two types of unanticipated questions (questions regarding the planning of a task and questions regarding the specific spatial and temporal details associated with the task), assessing the veracity judgements of interviewers and verbal content of interviewees' responses. Experiment 2 assessed veracity judgements of independent observers. Overall, the results provide little support for the technique. For interviewers, unanticipated questions failed to improve veracity judgement accuracy above chance. Reality monitoring analysis revealed qualitatively distinct information in the responses to the two unanticipated question types, though little distinction between the responses of truth-tellers and liars. Accuracy for observers was greater when judging transcripts of unanticipated questions, and this effect was stronger for spatial and temporal questions than planning questions. The benefits of unanticipated questioning appear limited to post-interview situations. Furthermore, the type of unanticipated question affects both the type of information gathered and the ability to detect deceit.

Indexed as

Anticipation, PsychologicalDeceptionLie DetectionVerbal BehaviorAdultChoice BehaviorExecutive FunctionFemaleHumansInterviews as TopicJudgmentMaleSpatial NavigationTime PerceptionYoung Adult

Identifiers

PMID30532180
PMCPMC6285978

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.