Maria Hartwig

• PhD, University of Gothenburg
• Professor (Full) at John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Today, there is an extensive body of work on deception and its detection. This chapter primarily focuses on theoretical ideas about emotional aspects of deception. A popular notion is that liars fail to suppress emotions associated with deception, such as guilt, fear, and anxiety (or other hidden emotions). This so-called leakage hypothesis has bee...

Objectives Recent writing and research on interrogation has highlighted the potential importance of the physical context in which the interview takes place. Whereas manuals and self-reports from police investigators indicate how they can leverage the space to maximize control over subjects, arguments for non-coercive manipulation of the room contex...

Objective: Drawing on recent work in policing and organizational psychology, we examined factors related to openness to organizational change and to adopting evidence-based interview techniques among law enforcement investigators. Hypotheses: We hypothesized that a procedurally fair organizational climate would predict outcomes tied to organizat...

Objectives Drawing on recent work in policing and organizational psychology, we examined factors related to openness to organizational change and to adopting evidence-based interview techniques among law enforcement investigators.HypothesesWe hypothesized that a procedurally fair organizational climate would predict support for organizational chang...

Denault, V., Plusquellec, P., Jupe, L. M., St-Yves, M., Dunbar, N. E., Hartwig, M., … van Koppen, P. J. (2020). L’analyse de la communication non verbale: Les dangers de la pseudoscience en contextes de sécurité et de justice [The analysis of nonverbal communication: The dangers of pseudoscience in security and justice contexts]. Revue internationa...

Para los profesionales de la seguridad y la justicia (policías, abogados, jueces), los miles de artículos revisados por pares sobre comunicación no verbal representan fuentes importantes de conocimiento. Sin embargo, a pesar del alcance del trabajo científico realizado sobre este tema, los profesionales pueden recurrir a programas, métodos y enfoqu...

The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness of the micro‐expressions training tool (METT) in identifying and using micro‐expressions to improve lie detection. Participants (n = 90) were randomly assigned to receive training in micro‐expressions recognition, a bogus control training, or no training. All participants made veracity judge...

This is a Supplemental Disclosure Statement to the following published article: Granhag, P.A., Strömwall, L.A., Willén, R.M., & Hartwig, M. (2013). Eliciting cues to deception by tactical disclosure of evidence: The first test of the Evidence Framing Matrix. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 18, 341-355.

The relationship between nonverbal communication and deception continues to attract much interest, but there are many misconceptions about this relationship. In this review we present a scientific view on the relationship. We describe theories explaining why liars would behave differently from truth tellers, followed by research how liars actually...

Research on embodied cognition and priming show that human behavior is influenced nonconsciously by the environment in metaphoric ways. Previous research has shown that conceptual priming can lead people to disclose sensitive information (Davis, Soref, Villalobos, & Mikulincer, 2016; Dawson, Hartwig, & Brimbal, 2015). Here, we sought to examine whe...

In the first empirical study on the topic, the authors examined the ability of investment professionals to distinguish between truthful and deceptive statements. A random sample of 154 investment professionals made judgments about a series of truthful and deceptive statements, some of which involved financial fraud. Investment professionals' lie de...

This chapter explores the role of scientifically-grounded interviewing approaches in criminal investigations and prosecution. It develops a “case construction” perspective, in which the effectiveness of interviewing techniques can be evaluated based on their usefulness for accurately distinguishing between innocent and guilty suspects and for provi...

This review presents new ways to conceptualize and investigate how the questions an interviewer asks during a custodial interview can affect a suspect’s thought processes. A basic overview of research on perspective taking, common ground, inferences, and psycholinguistics is provided and applied to interview settings. Research on suspects’ counter-...

The Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) approach is a framework for planning and executing suspect interviews with the aim of facilitating judgments of truth and deception. US law enforcement officers (N = 59) either received training in the SUE approach or did not. Each officer interviewed a mock suspect (N = 59) who had either committed a simulated s...

As the Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) technique becomes more widely taught to practitioners, it is important to investigate possible countermeasures to the technique. It is possible that guilty suspects who are aware of the SUE technique will employ forthcoming verbal strategies to make themselves appear innocent. Mock suspects committed a richly...

Research on implicit cognition has found that activating mental concepts can lead people to behave in ways that are consistent with the primed concept. In a pilot study we tested the effects of priming attachment security on the accessibility of disclosure-related concepts. Subsequently, we tested whether activating disclosure concepts by priming a...

In this article we introduce a novel interviewing tactic to elicit admissions from guilty suspects. By influencing the suspects' perception of the amount of evidence the interviewer holds against them, we aimed to shift the suspects' counterinterrogation strategies from less to more forthcoming. The proposed tactic (SUE-Confrontation) is a developm...

Research suggests that interpersonal deception is a common phenomenon in many settings. However, to date no research has examined lying and lie detection in the financial industry. This paper presents an empirical examination of investment professionals' beliefs about deception. We obtained survey data from 607 CFA Institute charter holders across...

This chapter focuses on beliefs about deceptive behaviour. That is, what behaviours do people associate with lying? In what ways do they believe that liars differ from truth tellers? The chapter provides an overview of the available research on subjective cues to deception. It then discusses the methods employed to map beliefs about lying and the p...

In this chapter, we review the research on the bourgeoning field of suspects’ counter-interrogation strategies. We argue that such research is fundamental to the development of empirically supported interview methods, specifically, interview methods designed to distinguish between truth telling and lying suspects. The chapter begins by illustrating...

The past decade has seen a new wave of research centering on strategic ways of interviewing suspects in order to elicit cues to truth and deception. The Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) technique has pioneered this new line of research. In this chapter, we will present a current conceptualization of the SUE technique. We will make clear the differen...

We propose that suspects' counter-interrogation strategies vary as a function of their perception of the interrogator's knowledge about the events in question. The present study investigates the verbal behavior of guilty and innocent suspects when they are aware that there may be incriminating evidence against them. Participants (N = 143) took part...

This chapter provides an overview of research on non-verbal lie detection and some new meta-analytic findings. The chapter begins with a review of classic theories of deception which predict the existence of non-verbal cues to deception. A brief overview of the empirical findings on behavioural cues to deception based on meta-analytic findings is a...

Despite the importance of judgments of veracity in many settings, research suggests that it is difficult to detect lies. In this meta-analysis, we assess the detectability of lies from constellations of multiple cues, with a particular focus on whether lie detectability increases as the conditions approach real-life, forensic settings, as some crit...

The purpose of this chapter is to review the available research on Human Intelligence (HUMINT) interrogations. We will argue that there has been a recent paradigm shift in the approach to HUMINT interrogations. We will describe the conceptual, methodological, and practical implications of this paradigm shift. The chapter will be structured as follo...

This chapter describes the Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) technique - an interview method aimed at eliciting cues to deception, and thereby improving the chances of correct judgments of deception and truth. The chapter begins with a general overview of research on deception and its detection, in order to provide a context for the SUE technique. Th...

In the post-9-11 world, assessing credibility at portals that control entry to countries, public transportation, and large public venues has become a major concern for governments. In response to this concern, the US Government has invested heavily in developing and applying new technology for credibility assessment at portals. The Government's eff...

Research shows that there are few objective cues to deception. However, it may be possible to create such cues by strategic interviewing techniques. Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) is one such technique. The basic premise of the SUE technique is that liars and truth tellers employ different counter-interrogation strategies, and that the evidence ag...

Through a novel application of terror management theory, we investigated the effect of mortality salience and reminders of terrorism on people's perceptions of the effectiveness and acceptability of interrogation techniques. A dimensional structure by which people perceive interrogation techniques was identified. Mortality salience was found to ind...

Purpose. Research on real‐life suspect interviews shows that disclosure of evidence is a very common tactic and that it occurs in all phases of the interview. It is therefore remarkable that there is hardly any research on the effectiveness of different disclosure tactics. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of three different disclosu...

Most victims of domestic violence are abused repeatedly over time. Hence, investigative challenges arise concerning victims' ability to recall particular events. This research focuses on investigators' understanding of memory-based problems associated with repeated victimization and their strategies to facilitate recall. Eighty-one Swedish police o...

Previous research has demonstrated that the strategic use of evidence (SUE) approach of interviewing criminal suspects is effective at eliciting cues to deception. This study aims at expanding on the SUE approach by testing the technique of general-to-specific evidence framing. We conducted an experiment using a mock terrorism paradigm. Guilty part...

Despite the importance of credibility assessments in forensic settings, research shows that forensic professionals are mediocre at this task. This study tested the efficacy of a 2.5-hour training workshop on Assessment Criteria Indicative of Deception (ACID), a system of investigative interviewing and credibility assessment using verbal content ana...

The strategic use of evidence (SUE)—a method of using case information to elicit different verbal responses from guilty and innocent suspects—has been shown to increase cues to deception and lie detection accuracy. This study manipulated the timing of evidence presentation to determine its effect on cues to deception, lie detection accuracy, and co...

This research empirically tested belief in a just world (BJW) as an explanation for the phenomenology of innocence. Two studies tested the impact of BJW on innocent suspect behaviour and lie detection judgements. In Study 1, BJW was measured as a trait and experimentally primed in innocent mock crime suspects. Suspects with stronger BJW trait score...

Research on deception has consistently shown that people are poor at detecting deception, partly due to lack of consistent cues to deception. This research focuses on eliciting verbal cues to deception when questioning suspects who deny crime and how such cues differ due to type of questioning. An experiment examined verbal differences between inno...

Decades of research has shown that people are poor at detecting lies. Two explanations for this finding have been proposed. First, it has been suggested that lie detection is inaccurate because people rely on invalid cues when judging deception. Second, it has been suggested that lack of valid cues to deception limits accuracy. A series of 4 meta-a...

Purpose . Children's testimonies can be presented to the court in many different formats, for example, live, videotapes, closed‐circuit television (CCTV) or transcripts. However, little is known about how different presentation formats affect the observers' processing of the testimonies. This study investigated how two different presentation modes...

Research has shown that cues to deception are more salient as an effect of strategic use of evidence (SUE) during interviews. This study examined the feasibility of the SUE-technique for eliciting cues to children's deception. Experiment 1 investigated verbal cues to deception as a function of early vs. late disclosure of evidence. Eighty-four chil...

The aim of this study was to increase understanding of the psychology of deception by mapping the reasoning of guilty and innocent mock suspects who deny a transgression. Based on previous research, we proposed that suspects will engage in two major forms of regulation: impression management, which requires the purposeful control of nonverbal and d...

Lawyers’ litigation forecasts play an integral role in the justice system. In the course of litigation, lawyers constantly make strategic decisions and/or advise their clients on the basis of their perceptions and predictions of case outcomes. The study investigated the realism in predictions by a sample of attorneys (n=481) across the United State...

The White Paper suggests important reforms that will reduce the likelihood of false confessions resulting from police interrogation. The research underlying these suggested reforms has yielded significant advances in our understanding of factors associated with false confessions. As we move forward, we encourage the development of empirically based...

Associations between childhood sexual interactions with other children, and preferred and actual age of sexual partners, as well as adults' sexual interest in children, were explored in a sample of 1312 Finnish male twins. Experience of sexual interaction with other children was associated with lower minimum age of preferred and actual sexual partn...

To be able to assess the veracity of statements offered by suspects, witnesses and alleged victims is of paramount importance in legal settings. The aim of this paper is to provide an initial piece of scientific support for the idea that psychologically informed mind-reading can improve people's ability to detect deception. To this end, a theoretic...

Deception detection has largely failed to investigate guilty and innocent suspects’ strategies. In this study, mock suspects (n=82) were interrogated by police trainees (n=82) who either were or were not trained in the technique to strategically use the evidence (the SUE technique). Analyses revealed that guilty suspects to a higher degree than inn...

Research on deception detection in legal contexts has neglected the question of how the use of evidence can affect deception detection accuracy. In this study, police trainees (N=82) either were or were not trained in strategically using the evidence when interviewing lying or truth telling mock suspects (N=82). The trainees' strategies as well as...

In an experiment, nonverbal indicators of deception in police interrogations of mock crimes were examined. Both vocal and nonvocal behaviours were scored. Thirty participants were subjected to long interrogations (over 9 minutes) conducted by 30 experienced police officers, asked to interrogate as they normally do. Although the liars reported being...

This article reports two worldwide studies of stereotypes about liars. These studies are carried out in 75 different countries and 43 different languages. In Study 1, participants respond to the open-ended question “How can you tell when people are lying?” In Study 2, participants complete a questionnaire about lying. These two studies reveal a dom...

The study investigated how different presentation modes (live vs. video) affected observers’ perception, veracity assessments and memory of children’s appearance and their statements. Six children experienced an event and eight children learned about the event by hearsay. Two weeks later the children testified about the event as if they had all exp...

The interrogation of suspects is considered to be one of the most crucial stages in the investigative process. Cases of miscarriage of justice have led to public outcries for studies on the procedures, effectiveness and ethics of police interrogations. This article provides an overview of such studies of interrogation, and sheds light on two differ...

The study is an experiment examining how different presentation modes (live vs. video) affect observers' perception, veracity assessments and memory of witnesses and their statements. Three weeks after seeing a staged accident, six truth telling and six lying witnesses testified about the event. Mock jurors (N = 122) viewed the witnesses' testimony...

This paper examines beliefs held by Swedish legal professionals about eyewitness testimony. In a survey including questions about 13 key issues of eyewitness testimony, three groups were investigated: police officers (n = 104), prosecutors (n = 158), and judges (n = 251). The response rate was 74%. Examples of findings are that the beliefs were in...

Deception detection research has largely neglected an important aspect of many investigations, namely that there often exists evidence against a suspect. This study examined the potentials of timing of evidence disclosure as a deception detection tool. The main prediction was that observers (N = 116) would obtain higher accuracy rates if the eviden...

This study investigated beliefs about deception held by Swedish Migration Board personnel working with asylum cases (n0/67), and by a control sample of students (n0/69). A questionnaire including both closed and open-ended questions was used. The purpose was to achieve further understanding of Migration Board (MB) officers' beliefs about deception...

The study investigated experienced police officers' (N = 30) lie detection accuracy. Each police officer conducted an interrogation of a college student acting as a suspect either guilty or innocent of a mock crime and made a veracity judgment of the suspect. The police officers had the opportunity to conduct the interrogation in the manner of thei...

This study is a quasi-experiment focusing on the deception detection ability of prison inmates (n=52) and college students (n=52). Participants made veracity judgments of videotaped statements of witnesses either lying or telling the truth about an event. In line with findings on criminals' beliefs about cues to deception, it was predicted that pri...

Purpose. This paper is a survey examining beliefs about cues to deception held by prison inmates, prison personnel and students. In line with the ideas about more beneficial learning structures in the environment of criminals and findings from previous studies, we predicted that the beliefs held by prison inmates would be most consistent with the g...

Research has shown that both Jay people and presumed lie experts are mediocre at as­sessing veracity. However, research on deception detection in legal contexts has largely failed to take into account how interrogation styles affect deception detection. This paper focuses on the strategic use of evidence during interrogations. It is proposed that e...