Drew Leins

This study explored the decision‐making processes of soldiers as they evaluated scenarios containing information offering various levels of certainty. Soldiers with different levels of experience read scenarios that presented potential threats and then identified the priority threat, their confidence in this identification, and the cues they used t...

Many domains across physical, life, and social sciences suffer from incomplete models of constructs (e.g., organisms, environments, behaviors), which hinders reproducibility and the pace of discovery. Critically, the prevailing research paradigm, of individuals or small groups working within the resource constraints of their own organization, does...

Little is known about the mechanisms underlying how interviewers establish and monitor baselines of respondent behaviour. This study addresses this knowledge gap by characterising the practice of establishing baselines and measuring the accuracy of interviewer judgements based on assessments of baseline and departure behaviours. Eighteen profession...

Organisations conducting research programs often focus the work of their scientists and technologists on challenge problems (CPs). These challenges are designed to ensure that progress is measurable and relevant to the goals of the program sponsor. Generating and selecting pertinent CPs is difficult, as is assessing their value. We describe a metho...

This study explored the performance of interpreters in military intelligence-gathering interrogations. We coded transcripts of 10 interrogations of one detainee at an overseas U.S. military detention facility. The same interrogator conducted each session with the assistance of two interpreters who participated in one session together and worked alo...

This study tested the ability of experienced interviewers and novice observers to detect deception while watching mock interviews featuring experimental or control questioning methods and different detainee languages. The protocol featured a complex, realistic critical event and naturalistic interviews in which mock detainees could report unconstra...

Two experiments tested mnemonics for enhancing memory for family meeting occurrences and details. Experiment 1 tested a set of seven mnemonics to facilitate recollections of family meeting occurrences. Mnemonics helped respondents report 70% more event occurrences than were reported during unaided free recall. Experiment 2 tested (i) a revised set...

When eyewitnesses and criminal suspects change their sworn testimony, their credibility is challenged, either because inconsistent testimony is a sign that people have poor memories or because they are deceptive and can't keep their story straight. As reviewed below, inconsistency is the most often cited reason for discrediting others (e.g., Brewer...

PurposeAlibis are critical components of innocent suspects' efforts to prove their innocence. However, they can often be inaccurate. Two experiments explored factors influencing innocent alibi generation. Experiment 1 tested the effect of retrieval cue (time vs. location vs. paired time and location) on report accuracy and schema reliance. Experime...

The present experiment examined the role of cognitive flexibility in the consistency of truth tellers' and liars' reports. We expected liars to be less flexible (less able to report an experience in different ways) and hence less consistent than truth tellers when asked to describe an event in different ways (e.g. verbally and pictorially). In the...

Purpose. Most past research on detecting deception has relied on the assumption that liars often fabricate a story to account for their whereabouts, whereas truth tellers simply recall an autobiographical memory. However, little research has examined whether liars, when free to choose the topic of their own reports, will actually choose to fabricat...

Purpose. Consistency as a cue to detecting deception was tested in two experiments using sketch drawing and verbal reports in repeated interviews. Liars were expected to be less consistent than truth‐tellers. Methods. In Expt 1, 80 undergraduate students reported truthfully or deceptively about an alleged lunch date – they sketched the layout of th...

Micronutrient status can affect cognitive function in the elderly; however, there is much to learn about the precise effects. Understanding mediating factors by which micronutrient status affects cognitive function would contribute to elders' quality of life and their ability to remain in the home. The Nutrition, Aging, and Memory in Elders (NAME)...

To describe patterns of cognitive deficits and activities of daily living (ADLs) in older people with diabetes mellitus. Cross-sectional, population-based study. Three homecare agency areas in Boston, Massachusetts. Two hundred ninety-one homebound people aged 60 and older; 40% with diabetes mellitus. Demographic data; evidence of diabetes mellitus...

This dissertation comprised two experiments, which addressed three main goals: (a) to test a new paradigm for measuring objectively the accuracy of alibis, (b) to explore the effectiveness of three retrieval cues (time only, location only, and time-and-location) in an alibi context, and (c) to explore the metacognitive strategies of innocent alibi...