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20 Deception at Work

TRANSACTIONAL ROLES mealy-mouthed words such as ‘paradigm
shifts’ and ‘sonomic responses’. The
As a probably irrelevant aside, it is detective appeared to shrink and take on the
interesting to note the way that academics role of an Adaptive Child.
are taken seriously and robotically adopt
the role of Critical Parents when dealing Possibly he was so exhausted and
with the great unwashed. In one encounter, dispirited that he did not have the energy
a brilliant police detective with years of to object or maybe he was genuinely
success interrogating criminals and terrorists impressed by the spotty youngster’s
of all shapes and sizes was counselled by a qualifications and emblems. Either way
young, spotty academic who told him his what was being suggested was impractical
methods were ‘outdated and ineffective’ but rubbish
suggested no alternative other than a few

Precision and proof is supposedly in the blood of academics, yet their own conclusions
on deception are almost entirely based on artificial tests under laboratory conditions using
innocent, compliant subjects: they are not for real.

DEAFNESS IN FROGS great enthusiasm but when they cut off their
legs they did not respond. This proved that
The research is much like the experiment frogs detected sound through their legs
concerning deafness in frogs. Scientists found
that when they said ‘jump’, frogs did so with

In research all findings have to be proven, except your own

A possible exception in the case for alleging academic irrelevance is the recent study by Dr
D.D. Langleben and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, which used functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor brain activity during simulated deception.
If the results can be validated in real-life situations with real liars, we might be getting some-
where, although any practical benefits in improving interviewing skills are likely to be decades
away.

Sometimes academics can go too far and get too carried away. Robert Matthews, a British
statistician, published a truly amazing article in the Daily Telegraph:

FALSE LOGIC dragged off the street and accused of
murder and questioned for days on end?
In an article headed: ‘Logic says that a Indeed the only logical conclusion one can
confession often spells innocence’, Robert draw is that the existence of a confession
Matthews proposed an ‘Interrogator’s increases the probability that the person is
Fallacy’. In the case of IRA bombers called innocent.’ This is much like the experiment
‘the Birmingham Six’, he wrote: ‘who is involving deafness in frogs and overlooks
more likely to confess when subjected the facts of the particular case.
to extreme (interrogation) methods?
A committed terrorist trained to resist
interrogation or some innocent person