Categories
podcast

The push for science-based interrogations, with Maria Hartwig and Christian Cory

In real or fictional criminal interrogation scenes, you’ve probably seen the approach where police barge in and confront the suspect with the evidence, trying to get them to crack and give a confession. In this talk, Maria Hartwig and Christian Cory explain why that doesn’t work well, and why a strategic use of evidence (SUE) approach, involving planning out the reveal of evidence, gets much better results. Maria is a well known researcher and trainer of criminal interviewing, and Christian is a 26 year law enforcement veteran. I talk to them about their and others’ attempts to promote more science-based approaches to interviewing and interrogation. They are Co-Directors at the Aletheia Project (project-aletheia.org), which brings together researchers and law enforcement practitioners to improve interview techniques.

We talk about their view that “old school” interrogations are built around a misguided “confession obsession,” why bad ideas and exaggerated claims about nonverbel behavior and lie detection are so persistent and popular, and the downsides of deceiving suspects about evidence. We talk about what the science really says about micro-expressions, the uses of the polygraph, and we explore why people seem so drawn to false, exaggerated ideas about reading behavior.

Episode links:

Resources related to or mentioned in our talk:

TRANSCRIPT

(some of transcript is AI generated and so will contain errors)

Maria Hartwig: ” it’s such a persistent delusion that we can read body language… There’s no nonverbal signal of deception… Cues to deception are faint at best.”

Maria Hartwig: “ There has never been an empirical demonstration even of the existence of microexpressions. Uh, there has been no demonstration that they’re indicators of deception, again, they barely seem to exist.”

Maria Hartwig: “ You have to be, uh, quite well-versed in the scientific literature, uh, to know that the– that so many of these claims are untrue. Ironically, people are truth biased, so they’re inclined, they’re credulous, uh, and- I don’t think it occurs to people that a book written by a former law enforcement professional would just be full of shit.”

Zach Elwood: Hi, I’m Zach Elwood, host of the People Who Read People podcast, which you can learn more about at behavior-podcast.com. You just heard some clips from my talk with Maria Hartwig and Christian Cory, both of whom work on promoting better techniques in law-enforcement-related interviews and interrogations. If you’re on LinkedIn, you might like following Maria and Christian there as they are often sharing interesting observations about interrogation ideas, deception, nonverbal behavior, and more. Christian and Maria are co-Directors of Project Aletheia, which is an effort to bridge the gap between the science and practice of interviewing and interrogation by bringing researchers and practitioners together. Maria represents the research side of things, while Christian, as a former police officer, represents the practitioner side. You can sign up to get updates about Project Aletheia on the project’s site, which is at https://project-aletheia.org/. Aletheia is spelled ALETHEIA. 

In TV shows and movies, you’ve probably many times seen the police interrogation approach where police barge in and confront the suspect with all their evidence, trying to get them to crack and give a confession. In this talk, Maria and Christian explain why that doesn’t work well, and why a framework called the strategic use of evidence, or SUE, gets much better results. We also talk about their views on why focusing excessively on getting confessions is counterproductive. I get their thoughts on the immense amount of pseudoscience and bullshit in the nonverbal behavior-reading space, and we talk about why there is such an enormous hunger for that bullshit. We talk about micro-expressions and what’s the deal with those things, and we touch on quite a few other topics.  

A little bit more about Maria Hartwig: She’s Co-Founder and Co-Director of Project Aletheia. She is a Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where she has been on the faculty since 2006. Her scientific expertise is in the psychology of interrogation and the related topic of the psychology of deception. She has produced significant amounts of research, partly with the support of and in collaboration with various government agencies and entities, including law enforcement, the Department of Defense, and the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG)… 

A little bit about Christian Cory: He recently retired after more than 26 years with the Wichita Police Department, where he served as Commander of the Crimes Against Persons Bureau. Over the course of his career, he worked in Homicide, Sex Crimes, and the Gang/Felony Assault Unit, and led the department’s Crisis Negotiation Team. He holds a B.S. in Criminology from Kansas State University and an M.A. in Forensic Psychology from the University of North Dakota. Today, Cory is the Co-Director of Project Aletheia and a Visiting Scholar at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where he advocates nationally for ethical, effective, and science-based interview practices. 

Okay here’s the talk with Christian Cory and Maria Hartwig. 

Zach Elwood: this might be kind of a broad question to start with, but, uh, what do you see as the, the biggest, uh, areas where practitioners are doing, um, known bad or counterproductive practices that you’re trying to, to remedy?

What do you– What, what, what comes to top of mind for things you see as some of the worst and most common practices, would you say? 

Christian Cory: Well, I think, I think we need to start there with the most, most common. 

Zach Elwood: Hmm. 

Christian Cory: Because when I came on, there was one way to interview people, there was one way to interrogate folks, and we have to remember that this is not about malice.

That’s the training we were given. And, uh, we’re again told, “Hey, this is the best practices. Do this.” Now, what a lot of practitioners will tell you is, “This doesn’t feel right. I don’t like how this goes. I don’t wanna be, uh, doing some of these things. I wanna interview my way.” And I think that just that intuition there is where a lot of what is science-based, what we put under the umbrella of science-based interviewing is.

And again, w- I think there’s some misnomers from the past about a confession being the lone, uh, hallmark of a case or the lone metric of an interrogation, when in fact that’s not true at all. 

Zach Elwood: Hmm. 

Christian Cory: And, uh, it kind of limits the scope. So when we look at our history, we have to understand that and that it is gonna be a kind of winning of the hearts and minds, but also winning it with what the research is showing us and, and redefining what it is and what success means.

Success can’t be a c- only a confession because case after case, detectives will tell you, “Hey, I didn’t get a confession. This guy wasn’t gonna confess.” Okay, so then what do we look at? 

Zach Elwood: Hmm. 

Christian Cory: Um, so I th- I think we have to go back and redefine what it is just based on the history and just the, the amount of poor training that is out there, and that’s, that’s one of the biggest, uh, issues now is we, we still have these trainers coming in and, and reinforcing these ideas that are just not how people communicate with each other.

Zach Elwood: Yeah. Maria, I’m curious on that same topic, I mean, if I had to guess, I would say some of the, some of the things, the main things you’re trying to correct are, for example, yeah, o- overly aggressive approaches, um, the focus on, you know, getting the confession, which seems to be, could be related to the overly aggressive approaches, and then also the, the focus on non-verbal behavior I know is often a, um, you know, often a topic.

But I’m curious what comes to mind for you for the, that same, that same question of what the most common and, and counterproductive approaches are? 

Maria Hartwig: Yeah. Uh, the, I’d say the confession obsession. 

Zach Elwood: Hmm. 

Maria Hartwig: Um, I’m not saying much, anything much differently from Christian here, but, uh, the notion that the primary goal of an interrogation is to get a confession and that A non-confession outcome, uh, anything other than a non-confession, anything other than a confession outcome, uh, i- is a bad one or a failure that we have to move away from.

Um, there’s overwhelming evidence that the science-based techniques that are not actively confession-seeking, they yield as many confessions as techniques that are designed to elicit confessions. Mm. So, uh, we tend to put, uh, the… Another term for science-based interviewing is information gathering, uh, interviews, where the objective then is information.

Um, and if you carry out, uh, an interview, interrogation, I’m using those terms slightly interchangeably. 

Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. 

Maria Hartwig: Um, if you conduct an interview in line with science-based practices, again, your chance of getting a confession, if that is your objective, um, is equally high. Mm-hmm. So you do not lose anything at all by moving from the confession-oriented, uh, old school pseudoscientific tactics to the science-based ones.

Zach Elwood: Hmm. And am I understanding correctly that it’s, it’s basically about shifting from seeking confession to seeking, uh, drawing information out of people? Um- Yes … is that, is that a correct synopsis? In, 

Maria Hartwig: yeah. In, in- Yeah … information is the chief currency of an investigation. So to maximize the amount of information, quantity and quality of information is the goal.

Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. Um, I’m curious, I mean, I, I’ve read a lot, including from your, both of your LinkedIn posts, that the, uh, strategic use of evidence is a big part of this. Uh, Kori, would you care to talk about what the, you know, most up-to-date thinking is about, um, you know, summarize what the, what the strategy is for the slow release of, of information?

Christian Cory: Yeah. Well, and y- again, you have to go back. You look at the history and how you’re taught to, to use evidence, and this is a big one ’cause in seminars and speaking across the country, um, I, I poll the crowd, and this is– I– If those conferences allow me to poll people, I do have some numbers, but a lot of people have never heard about the strategic use of evidence, which is a crime in of itself because, um, we- when we talk about the confession obsession, how do we use evidence in our interviews?

Sometimes we’re supposed to, uh, use it to overcome objections, um, but somet- sometimes it’s used as a shortcut. “Hey, I wanna get right to it. We got this guy dead to rights.” What- whatever, whatever my thinking is. But when we contaminate those statements with the evidence, we’re allowing someone that could be adaptable to that to come up with an explanation where they couldn’t before.

And SU is sometimes reduced to a late disclosure tactic, which it is not whatsoever. You’re missing bigger investigative points when it comes down to better questioning, planning for your interview, because when we have evidence, we have to know what that evidence says exactly if we’re gonna challenge points.

And then if we really wanna talk about credibility assessment, that’s how you really assess credibility and you can go testify to in court versus, uh, your eyes are looking the wrong way or, uh, microexpressions are, are drifting to the east or something that day. Whatever it is, uh, that’s not stuff… And, and I’m– Right now I’m batting 1,000% over the last two years.

No one is raising their hand saying, “Yeah, we’re testifying to this stuff in court about credibility.” But everybody testifies to a contradictory statement, two things that can’t be true at the same time. I wasn’t there and there’s your DNA, or there– I wasn’t at the Quickie Mart. Yep, there you are on camera.

Zach Elwood: Hmm. 

Christian Cory: And it helps leverage those interviews for more information. Mm-hmm. Um, just quick anecdotally, we had a, a large case. The interviewers went in, did a nice long hour and a half interview, nothing. They went in and used the SU technique. We worked on an evidence disclosure plan because the detective had said, “Ah, I’ve never had luck with SU.”

I was like, “Well, let’s try this again.” We went in there and instead of disclosing the evidence right away and saying like, “Oh yeah, well, I’ve got you here,” and creating a situation like that, it was just simply leverage for more information even prior to the actual disclosure of that information. Hmm. And that, that extended the life of that interview and more information is better than less information every single time 

Zach Elwood: Yeah, the, uh, I mean, I watch a good amount of interrogation videos on YouTube.

I’m interested in that. And ever since I learned about the, the Sue ideas, when I watch these interrogations, it, it does stand out to me. The– Some people will just barge in there and be like, “We got this evidence on you,” which s- yeah, and now that I’ve, I realize this idea, it’s like, yeah, that seems very counterproductive in, in multiple ways even because, yeah, it prevents you from being able to get information out of them that might conflict and then make them feel uncomfortable and more likely to tell you things, and it also puts them on defense more.

You know, there’s like multiple reasons it seems bad. Uh, would you agree with that synopsis, Maria? 

Maria Hartwig: I would absolutely agree with that synopsis, and, um, I’m glad that you now have that reaction because it, it, it is one of those things once you understand why that’s not wise, uh, every damn TV show- Yeah. … and also, uh, so often in, in, uh, in real life too.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh, the throwing evidence at people, uh, before they’ve had a chance to provide an account is bad for at least two reasons. Um, the first one is that you’re helping the guilty suspect create a plausible narrative that accounts for the evidence that I suppose now you have to go and investigate whether that is true or not.

Um, so you’re giving, uh, guilty people, uh, an upper hand. You had an upper hand, uh, in knowing things that the suspect didn’t, but now you don’t because now they know as much as you do. 

Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. 

Maria Hartwig: The second, uh, reason why it’s not a good idea, uh, it’s unfair to, uh, I would argue, to innocent suspects to deprive them of the opportunity to explain, uh, the evidence.

Um, so- If, um, when we have, uh, conducted experimental studies, uh, on the Sue technique, um, where we know with 100% certainty, uh, that this statement is false and this one is true, which we rarely do in real life, the universal pattern when evidence is disclosed early is that liars and truth-tellers or gu- guilty and innocent suspects both give some sort of plausible, um, explanation for the evidence and you can’t tell them apart.

Zach Elwood: Hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Maria Hartwig: I, I think what underlies the impulse to disclose evidence is k- kind of, “Ha, I got you. Uh, now you’re gonna confess.” Hmm. Except when has that ever happened? Uh- Mm-hmm. 

Zach Elwood: Or, or like Christian mentioned, it’s like a shortcut too. It’s like, “We’re in a hurry, let’s cut to the chase.” 

Maria Hartwig: Yes. Yeah, yeah. 

Zach Elwood: Uh, 

Maria Hartwig: and I- I, evidence disclosure is sometimes done, uh, when the person doesn’t know what else to do.

Uh, there’s a term called evidence s- s- stimulation, which essentially is just, “I’m not sure how to get Zachary to say something, so I’m going to throw some evidence at him.” Mm-hmm. Uh, n- not thoughtful. Um- Mm-hmm Thank you, Christian, for pointing out, uh, that reducing, uh, the Sue technique to just late disclosure is, um, is flattening the concept.

Uh, it’s strategic use of evidence. It’s the questions that you ask when a s- suspect is in a state of uncertainty or ignorance about what information the interviewer has. 

Zach Elwood: A- a- and it does seem like, correct me if I’m wrong, but it does seem like a big part of the, uh, why it can yield, uh, confessions is it, is it really by, by m- having people make their statements and then they get caught in various contradictions, it does really ramp up the stress that they’re feeling too, and makes…

It seems like, I gather that it makes them more likely to feel like, “Oh, I’ve trapped myself in these various statements and I, I just gotta give up now,” kind of thing. 

Maria Hartwig: Yes. We have, uh, not conducted any scientific studies on the production of confessions after a, a Sue interview, primarily because, uh, uh, well, I, I’m, I confess I’m not particularly interested in confessions.

And I think the at- uh, the attempt to get confessions m- m- might be inherently bordering on the problematic. But- 

Zach Elwood: Hmm … 

Maria Hartwig: uh, I think you’re absolutely right that there is a

There’s a likelihood, uh, again, we haven’t measured it, but that a person after an interview where they have trapped themselves, um, that they will actually confess. Uh, the biggest predictor of whether somebody will confess or not is the perceived strength of the evidence against them. So after a Sue interview, um, the s- the guilty suspect who have told lies to contradict the evidence, they face not only the evidence but also their own statement, which is conflicting with the evidence.

So yes, I think if you want to get your confession, uh, a Sue, um, interview probably prepares pretty well for that. 

Zach Elwood: And, and Christian, uh, I’m curious, would you agree that another benefit of the strategic use of evidence is that it, uh, makes it less likely that you’ll get somebody in a false confession because you’re keeping s- the evidence that you have from them longer, so they’re less likely…

You’re, they’re more likely to, uh, or less likely to say details about the case that only the guilty person would say if I’m, if I’m getting another, if I’m, if I’m gathering that that’s another benefit theoretically? 

Christian Cory: Yeah. Well, and the gold standard of the Sue technique would be to have something where you, you have an uncontaminated statement.

You haven’t messed up your statement by feeding information that you want from the person and then getting them to reflect it back to you. But then it’s already corroborated with your evidence. Their, their story’s l- legitimate. Uh, you have something to test it with or leverage it for more information.

And it should also be noted that at this time in history, we’ve never– detectives, investigators have never had more evidence, but we’re supposed to still treat it like we did 70 years ago? Uh, that doesn’t work for me. You can’t tell me there hasn’t been an upgrade. And now they have more opportunities to use the Sue technique, more opportunities to actually test credibility that they can testify to.

And because, uh, Maria brought it up, uh, and you have to remember, lying is, is information that tells you something when you know it’s, uh, not factual, if it’s contradictory to the evidence, and juries don’t like liars either. We’re gonna, if you never confess, we’re gonna show you that video. Uh, they’re, they both can’t be true.

There’s physical evidence. Physical evidence can’t lie to us. So, uh, we gotta remember that’s, that’s gotta be part of your interviewing strategy. You can’t just hear the first lie, call somebody a liar. It might get redacted in your state anyway as being prejudicial, and then, uh, power forward as if you won something.

Uh, take it in as information, make the judgments, go back later and ask them to talk about the contradiction. Sometimes, especially if it’s a statement to statement contradiction, they may just have to clear something up for you as the investigator. 

Zach Elwood: Hmm. Um, Maria, what, uh, what does the science, um, and research, research say, or maybe just your own thoughts also about, um, deceptive approaches of, uh, you know, saying something or implying something untrue to suspects to get information out of them or get a confession?

I imagine that goes along with, you know, your, your views on the overstated importance of confession, but curious what you would say to that. 

Maria Hartwig: Yeah. And so you can take, uh, a pragmatic a- approach to it. Uh, does it work? Uh, well, uh, you, you’ll have to define what you mean with, uh, does it work. Uh, does it work, uh, to tell lies about evidence, for example, to induce confessions?

Yes. It, uh, increases the probability that a statement will be a confession, but this is true for both, uh, innocent and guilty people. So the use of false evidence, uh, ploys, uh decrease the diagnosticity of a confession expressed differently, um, and l- put more simply, um, it increases the risk for false confessions.

Mm. So from a, again, assuming that we don’t want false confessions, which I don’t think we do, um, from, from a practical point of view, it’s not a good idea. Uh, I also think that there’s an ethical component, uh, where, uh, it’s, it’s unpalatable notion, uh, that, mm, the police are, are allowed to, uh, make up stuff.

Um, again, especially when we know that it has harmful effects. 

Zach Elwood: Mm. 

Maria Hartwig: Uh, so I s- they are a big part of the legacy tactic sh- package. Um, but I, again, numerous reasons why I think you, you really shouldn’t do that. Um, Christian, what do you- 

Zach Elwood: Oh, and I, I might, I might add something here too. Christian, I’m curious, would you agree with, uh, the idea that another, um, downside of using deception in those cases is that you risk really harming the rapport?

Like if they know that if you say it’s something that they know is false, that seems like another even just a practical, uh, bad outcome of, of using deceptive information, especially if you’re not sure of it. 

Christian Cory: Right. Well- 

Zach Elwood: Yeah … 

Christian Cory: you’re taking a risk too because if you’re talking to somebody that’s guilty, uh, or somebody that knows a scene better than you or something, you, they may really, you may verify to them that you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Zach Elwood: Exactly. That’s what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. 

Christian Cory: Yeah. And if you’re gonna lie to them, that’s, you’re certainly gonna damage your rapport. They c- they can’t trust you. It’s, it’s part of an, uh, it’s not the, it’s a relationship in the interview room, not like our personal relationships, but, but there’s certainly a relationship there and you’re gonna destroy that.

Uh, the other problem is, is you put yourself in that, put yourself in that scenario. Why are you lying about evidence to get a confession? And that goes back to what we were talking about, the confession obsession, is that if I have to have a confession to, to win the case, right? Is, is it provable another way?

Wha- uh, if, if the answer is yes, then I’m just getting a confession for what? Just for vanity reasons so that they can’t have an appeal? So I don’t know what it is. Right. If we can already win that case. 

Zach Elwood: Yeah, I realize, yeah. It’s 

Christian Cory: risky. 

Zach Elwood: Yeah. You, I realized you were mentioning something slightly different than I mentioned.

Yeah. It’s like the, the harm to the rapport, that’s, that’s one dimension. And then yeah, you were saying it can actually make them realize that you don’t know what you’re talking about and make them more comfortable that they can keep quiet and yeah. So two different, yeah, I realize that that was two different ideas there.

Uh, just wanted to clarify that. Um, would, would you both agree that the polygraph, the, the main use of the polygraph is basically as a, as a tool of intimidation? I’m curious what you both think of that. That, that’s how it occurs to me because I’m like, it’s, we know it’s far from 100%, but I’m curious, would you agree it’s mainly used as a cudgel to get information out of people?

Maria? 

Maria Hartwig: I think mainly might be an overstatement. 

Zach Elwood: Hmm. 

Maria Hartwig: Uh, is, is the polygraph used as part of the confession-obsessed package of techniques? Yes. Uh, and sometimes people are told that they failed the polygraph when they didn’t. I don’t think that’s the polygraph’s fault. I think that’s, again, an issue with the systemic, uh, a systemic issue with- Yeah

these, uh, old school techniques. Um- 

Zach Elwood: Like the more deceptive, uh, use I’ve seen of it where someone… The, the polygraph examiner basically says like, “I know you were lying,” you know, like 100%- 

Maria Hartwig: Yes … 

Zach Elwood: kind of framing of like, “We know based on that alone that you’re lying,” that kind of deceptive use. Yeah. 

Maria Hartwig: It’s, again, it can be used as, as part of the, a wide set of ruses.

Mm-hmm. The polygraph isn’t a monolithic thing. Uh, as I’m sure you know, there are multiple kinds of polygraph tests, different test protocols for different purposes based on different logics. So, um, I would, uh, possibly take up all of the time, uh, describing, uh, the complexities of the polygraph. Um- 

Christian Cory: Hmm … 

Maria Hartwig: it, it’s just very hard to say anything general about the polygraph test because there’s s- dif- different kinds of tests that rest on different, uh, premises and use different, uh, questions.

So- Hmm … uh, but do I, do I agree that it is, uh, uh, used, uh, to induce confessions? Absolutely. Hmm. Uh, especially, uh, the false feedback that- Hmm … you f- you failed. Mm-hmm. 

Zach Elwood: Uh, Christian, would– Do you think, um… I know it’s a broad, as Maria mentioned, it’s a broad topic that we could spend a long time on, but do you think, uh, polygraphs have their place in, um, science-based, uh, interrogation and, and investigation work?

Christian Cory: Well, I think they have their place in investigations. Um, but y- like Maria said, if it’s, if it’s just a, if it’s a ruse, then I would agree with the question that, uh, yeah, if they’re gonna fail this no matter what and we’re gonna drive for a confession in this case, then, um, it’s, it’s like you said, a cudgel- 

Zach Elwood: Hmm

Christian Cory: for that. 

Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. Um, I wanted to pivot to the, um, the behavior, the non-verbal behavior especially aspect. And as you both know that I’ve devoted a good amount of time on this podcast to talking about some of the, uh, bad and downright egregiously, uh, wrong and distorted information that people share about using non-verbal behavior.

And I think in my view, it can range all the way from well-meaning and kind of understandable uses of it to just straight up charlatan claims about like what you can do with, uh, you know, non-verbal things in the interrogation room or elsewhere. But, uh, I’m curious what, uh, what, what comes to mind for what you’re combating with the Aletheia project and with your work in general, Maria, uh, on that, uh, on that use of non-verbal behavior in, in, uh, law enforcement interrogation settings?

Maria Hartwig: It’s a consistent, uh, and chronic beast to grapple with, um, and it’s a constant fight. Uh, um, what I w- what I mean with fight here is There is, there are so many, uh, training programs, uh, people, books, uh, that claim to be, um, informative about nonverbal behavior and deception. Uh, so it’s a, a, a game of Whac-A-Mole in, in, in some sense.

Uh, this, this pseudoscience is highly problematic. Hmm. Uh, it– nonverbal behavior draws, uh, attention away from what’s more important, which is the content of the statement. 

Zach Elwood: Hmm. 

Maria Hartwig: Mm-hmm. And, I mean, I, I– there’s so much, uh, that could be said about this, but- 

Zach Elwood: Yeah. It’s a big, uh, big… Obviously, we could spend many, many days on this, yeah.

Maria Hartwig: Yes. Uh, I think the one point I wanna make, I’m happy to answer more questions, of course, but, uh, I think one of the reasons why it’s such a persistent, uh, uh, delusion that we can read, um, body language in, uh, an inherently sci- pseudoscientific term, um, we want to believe that. 

Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Maria Hartwig: Um, it, uh, makes us feel good, I think- Hmm

uh, to think that If somebody’s lying, it’s going to show and, uh, the lies are going to be detectable. It fits with our notion of the world as being a fair and just place. Uh, so the idea that somebody can tell you an awful lie straight to your face and you can’t tell, uh, it’s not an idea that we’re comfortable with, even if it’s true.

Zach Elwood: Yeah. I think the other main, uh, distorted, uh, thinking that, that leads to people wanting to embrace these ideas is, you know, we all know that people in everyday life can behave in anxious ways, so the thinking goes like, “Oh, well, maybe we can read these anxious behaviors and they can tell us something in these interrogation settings or whatever.”

But I think the fundamental flaw there, and I’m curious if you agree, Kristian, the fundamental flaw is th- is that these are au- already high-stakes, tension-producing scenarios. So there’s an assortment of reasons whether they’re anxious throughout or whether they get anxious about a specific question.

There’s all sorts of reasons why somebody who’s innocent and has nothing to hide or may not, in any case, may not be the, uh, the per- person they’re looking for can have reason to be anxious. I think that’s the fundamental flaw because you often hear people defending these ideas saying like, “Well, we’re not claiming that we’re reading them lying.

We’re, we’re claiming that we’re gonna use their anxiety in some way to, to, to, to deduce what they’re thinking, which may include lying,” right? But I think the fundamental flaw is like there’s just so many reasons somebody can be anxious in these high-stakes settings. But I’m curious if you agree with that, Kristian.

Christian Cory: Well, yeah. I remember a time a detective came out of the interview room and, uh, another- he’s approached by somebody else who was watching the interview and said, “You know, she crossed her arms right when you brought up…” And he goes, “Yeah, ’cause it’s absolutely freezing in there.” And he, he just walked off.

And, uh, we had a, we had a couple interview rooms that were never comfortable for the season. Um, but, but what is it, right? And, uh, just a kind of a fun, fun fact about me, uh, I don’t know if you know this, but I have the same batting average as many Major League, uh, hitters when I was growing up, right? It’s like, well, 

Zach Elwood: why 

Christian Cory: didn’t you 

Zach Elwood: get- Is this a lie?

I’m just kidding. 

Christian Cory: No. 

Zach Elwood: I thought I was, I thought I was supposed to deduce a lie or something. Oh, 

Christian Cory: man. 

Zach Elwood: I’m just, I’m just kidding. 

Christian Cory: You detected it. You detected it 100%, right? 

Zach Elwood: No. 

Christian Cory: But, but you detected it. Um, what’s the difference between myself and these really great hitters? Why wasn’t I called up to the majors?

Well, the difference is, is we kept, uh, Major League Baseball kept tri- track of how many times these guys missed, right? And there’s the problem. It’s always, “Hey, I got a cue. I, I, I found a liar and found out later and, and, and, uh, I was right.” But you never talk about the times you miss. 

Zach Elwood: Right. 

Christian Cory: And that’s, that’s, that’s one of those things is like, well, are you near perfect?

Well, almost perfect. But what’s your, what’s your base rate on insert the cue here? 

Zach Elwood: Right. 

Christian Cory: Uh, ’cause we’re told by these lie wizards that they’re near perfect, and then they’ll train us how to be near perfect or whatever. In- insert your authority there. I used to be a homicide detective. I was from a three-letter government agency.

I, uh- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm … was, you know, you insert what- whatever appeal from authority you want there But nobody keeps track of their misses. 

Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. 

Christian Cory: And nobody, nobody has any idea what their batting average is, and that’s, that’s the thing. Now, I said my batting average earlier was 1,000. When I ask people, I said, “How– who is testifying to this stuff in court?”

And nobody raises their hand. 

Zach Elwood: Hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Christian Cory: Uh- 

Zach Elwood: Yeah. I think, I think, uh- I 

Christian Cory: just- 

Zach Elwood: Oh, go ahead. 

Christian Cory: I j- I just don’t see it as informative, and I would ask, you know, my, my detectives that if you wanna go to this training, are you able to do an evidence disclosure plan? Do you know how to ask, uh, elicit free narratives?

Do you know how to ask neutral questions? Uh, what are your objectives for this interview? Have you fully planned? But then you’re gonna go in there and look for microexpressions or neuro-linguistic programming? 

Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. 

Christian Cory: It lines rarely a yes/no proposition, so. 

Zach Elwood: Yeah, I mean, I think, uh, the thing that stands out to me, uh, I was recently rereading Navarro’s first book, the one that, you know, got– was his main one that he sold a lot of copies.

I, what is it? “What Everybody Is Saying.” “

Christian Cory: What Everybody Is Saying.” 

Zach Elwood: Yeah. And I was, I’m, uh, I like to focus on what are the, what are the practical anecdotes that you can pull. What are, what are people saying that you can actually do, right? And when you look at a lot of these, these works from people, I just…

There’s, like, a lack of, like, where, where did you actually apply this? Because you would think if it was actually useful, you would have, like, a smorgasbord of, uh, anecdotes to pull from, like, very specific examples. But the fact is, you don’t really have that. You have, like, a few, like, to me, claims, a few, a handful of claims about, like, amazing things that were done.

But, like, when you actually think about those examples, it’s like there’s a number of reasons why you wouldn’t use those approaches and, like, most people wouldn’t be good at reading those amazing, you know, examples that they give. So just to say, yeah, the… I’m always focused on, yeah, where, where are the practical anecdotes?

They– You would think if this was so powerful, they would be all over the place, and you just don’t see those specific anecdotes. But, um, that’s just my observation. But I, I wanted to ask- Or this, this is what I think a lot, and I’m curious to get both of your takes on it. I think the other reason that these things can be hard to talk about and why people can perceive a lot more stuff in the non-verbal, a lot, a lot more importance in the non-verbal area, is because I think it’s fundamentally hard for people to separate the non-verbal behavior from the content of what people are saying.

So, for example, say you’re an interrogator, you’re talking to someone, and their story doesn’t add up, you know, getting back to what they say is the most important thing. And so their story’s not adding up, and along with that, you’re, you’re noticing some non-verbal anxie- clues of anxiety, right? And, uh, and so I think that leads some people, some practitioners to think like, “Oh, they were acting so strange,” like, “I noticed that they were acting so strange.”

But I think the thing is, if you replaced what they said with much more reasonable and non-suspicious content, and you only had their non-verbal, I don’t think those people, the practitioners wouldn’t clue into the non-verbal as much e- because they’d be thinking like, “Well, their story makes sense, so, uh, you know, uh, uh, maybe they were just nervous.”

And so the fact that, you know, they’re basically combining the meta level of all of these different things, including what they say, which, you know, I think we’d agree that’s the most important thing, and it, and it’s leading them to falsely perceive that, “Oh, there’s something to this non-verbal stuff because I’m– when I do get suspicious of people, I’m noticing these other things that, that are in the mix,” right?

But I’m curious what you think of that, Maria, as far as the difficulty that even the practitioners, the, the law enforcement professionals can… The reasons why they can think like, “Oh, there is a lot to this non-verbal stuff. I see it all the time when I see signs of anxiety.”

Maria Hartwig: Non– There’s– It’s very hard to be silent non-verbally, so there’s always something to interpret, um, and there’s always something to project something on. Uh, non-verbal behavior is highly ambiguous. Uh, words, uh, as opposed to body language in, in ordinary language, words have more or less fixed meaning. If I say car, you know what I mean.

If I do that, you don’t know what that means. So, uh, non-verbal behavior is always present, um, meaning, uh, it, it– you can, again, always, uh, form a judgment based on it. Um, and if you subscribe to these beliefs, which many, many people do, that, uh, non-verbal behavior, uh, tells us, uh, the truth, um, then again, there’s an ongoing stream of this behavior that you can interpret, uh, to your heart’s content.

Uh- Related to Christian’s point about batting averages and, and counting misses, uh, in reality, that there’s no ground truth. We do not know in a given case whether that statement was deceptive or not. Um, so I think, uh

I think you’re being too kind when you’re, uh, suggesting that it’s, that p- uh, an, uh, an im-im-implausible or, or f- uh, funky story will influence people to think that the body language nonverbal behavior is also dubious. If anything, I think Nonverbal impressions drive perceptions of the statement. 

Zach Elwood: Oh, yeah. 

Maria Hartwig: I think, yeah.

And if, if you’re a believer in- 

Zach Elwood: Right … 

Maria Hartwig: uh, in that human beings, uh, can be read. Now, uh, uh, we read people all the time, um, try to infer, uh, how they feel, uh, what they’re thinking, et cetera, on an ongoing basis in, in social life. Um, and we’re not completely, uh, operating, um, at chance level when it comes to reading others, but consistently we, uh, we vastly overestimate our ability to read, uh, nonverbal behavior.

Zach Elwood: Especially in high stakes. There’s a big difference between our social situations versus like a high stakes anxiety producing situation. Yes. Yeah, yeah. 

Maria Hartwig: There, there is. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, the, the real issue with, uh, deception and nonverbal behavior is that there is no signal of deception. There’s no verb- nonverbal signal- Mm.

Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm … 

Maria Hartwig: of deception. 

Zach Elwood: It’s not a language. Yeah. It’s not a, it’s not a body language. 

Maria Hartwig: It’s not a language. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, uh, there is nothing there to detect. 

Zach Elwood: Mm. 

Maria Hartwig: Cues to deception, uh, are faint at best. 

Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. Um, Christian, I’m curious, uh, I mean, when I, when I’m thinking of, uh, when I’ve gotten in conversations about this, including with law enforcement professionals, I, it seems to me like s- say people, say an interrogator does get…

‘Cause we all know that everyone’s gonna make their reads of, you know, what someone is thinking. Uh, in, in practice, they’re all gonna direct their, uh, line of questions in various ways depending on how the conversation goes. But, um, if we were thinking of like the, the most you could do with nonverbal behavior, like if you, if you thought about how if there was a, a useful, uh, use of it, a practical use of it, it tend, it seems to me that the u- the main use it could occasionally be used for is like, I asked a question and somebody suddenly seemed much more nervous, and so you ask a few more questions.

That seems to me to be like maybe the, the limit of what you could do with it. But I’m curious, i- is that, is that what you would see as like the upper theoretical band on somebody actually using it? You know, just, and not, not reaching a con- a firm conclusion about anything, but just asking a few more questions.

Christian Cory: Yeah, that’s usually the out. Quite frankly, that’s usually the out a lot of these instructors use when they’re teaching. Um, well, I just do a tad, then I ask more questions. It’s, it’s signaling something. But I would say that there’s a lot. I’ve had interdiction guys come up and talk to me about this while they’re teaching body language here, and I had a guy once that was nervous and then– or I had a guy in the interview room and he was Do an XYZ.

Think about all the other data points you have. You have their route of travel, you have that the plates don’t match, you have that the story couldn’t make sense with what you know. But I think we come back to body language and, and put so mu- there’s so much information there that, uh, um, it’s gotta be true.

Zach Elwood: Yeah. It’s like a sexy, it’s a sexy topic that gets all this attention when we know, I mean, most people know that all the information is, is, uh, or, you know, all the useful information is, is elsewhere. Yeah. 

Christian Cory: Yeah. I was, uh, I tell Marie, she’s heard me say it a million times, I think it’s more of a lesson in, in business school than it is in psychology.

Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Christian Cory: How to, how to sell classes and how to sell, uh- 

Zach Elwood: Yeah. Because it is a sexy, in-demand topic. I mean, I think that’s, you know, that, that’s what accounts for so much of it, all the– I mean, I see all these low-quality books on Amazon that have a bunch of sales and, I mean, there’s a huge demand for it.

I, even, what comes to mind is I, I was looking at, uh, Amazon reviews on Tim Levine’s book about, you know, his, his book on deception detection, which is great, “Duped.” Uh, and they’re you know, one of the one-star reviews is, like, somebody angry about the book. They’re, you know, they’re like, “All these people writing all of these, you know, these law enforcement people saying there’s so much to behavior.

They can’t be wrong. I’ll listen to the, uh, practitioners, you know, doing the, the actual work.” But, which I think it helps explain why there is so much demand because there is this perception that somewhere someone’s doing amazing things with this, uh, with this nonverbal stuff, you know, that even, even if the examples of what’s happening are few and far between.

But there is this wide perception, and people wanna think that they can get that special skill for whatever, you know, uh, application. Yeah. 

Christian Cory: Yeah. I’d, I’d- I don’t know, and, and, and we’re supposed to apply it to situations where we’re gonna change somebody’s life. We have to get it right. We have to put it in affidavits.

I don’t see it going into affidavits. And, um, I, I, again, like you said, it comes down to, hey, we, we wanna prescribe more to it. We wanna have this skill, uh, because people are always like, “Oh, you’re a cop. You know how to read liars.” You just end up dealing with a lot of liars, I think, but we all do on a daily basis.

And, uh, I, I just, yeah, I just think it’s– we like the idea of it more than it’s actually useful. 

Zach Elwood: Well, to your– When I interviewed, uh, I mean, I’ve interviewed a few law enforcement people who said basically, like, they never used, you know, behavior in, i-in a way that made a difference in interrogation. And Eric Robinson, a retired FBI guy I interviewed, he, he said even in the cases, like even in extreme cases where you very much can get a read that something is going on, it’s like, what is the use of that?

Because you still have to get the information, right? He g- he gave an example of showing a picture to someone, and, and this guy basically, like, bowed his head in an extreme way, and then that’s an extreme reaction. And it’s like, even if you were sure that that meant a lot, it’s like, what do you do with that?

Like, you already probably had evidence to pursue him as a suspect anyway, right? So it’s like, what, what, what good do-does that do? You’re not gonna put it in court that he bowed his head or whatever it is, you know? So it’s like even in the, e-even in those cases where it makes you confident, it’s like, how often do you not also have a bunch of evidence pointing in, you know, a good amount of evidence pointing that direction, you’re, you’re pursuing that anyway.

So that’s, that’s what occurs to me. But, uh, I don’t know if you have anything to respond to that, Maria, before we go on. Y- 

Maria Hartwig: I, uh, earlier you said that, um, I, I totally agree it’s very sexy and everybody, uh, likes it, and the notion that if I buy this book, I too can be, um, an expert in this stuff. Uh, but and then you said even though, uh, we know that it most of it’s, uh, junk.

Uh, I, I think most of us don’t. 

Zach Elwood: Right. Yeah. 

Maria Hartwig: Uh, the You, you have to be, uh, quite well-versed in the scientific literature, uh, to know that the– that so many of these claims are untrue. Um, ironically, people are truth biased, so they’re inclined, they’re credulous, uh, and- 

Zach Elwood: That’s a 

Maria Hartwig: good point. Yes. Um, so I don’t think it, uh, occurs to people that, uh, a book written by a former law enforcement professional would just be full of shit.

Zach Elwood: Right. And multiple books, you know, and multiple YouTube channels, multiple books of so-called experts, you know, the best- Yeah … behavior experts in the planet on the behavior panel, you know. Uh, yeah, there is this truth bias thing. I, I mean, I see it all the time in the comments when I’ve done my work on behavior panel and Chase Hughes related content.

People are like: “Wait, not all, all these people can’t be, you know, telling us lies about these things,” you know? Like, there is this very major truth bias aspect. Uh, I should– I wanted to ask you, Maria, because the reason I initially wanted to talk to you was about your, uh, your work on microexpressions and your views on microexpressions.

So maybe you could summarize your view. Uh, uh, I, I was– Even when I first learned about them years ago, I was skeptical because they flew in the face of my own understanding of, uh, people’s behavior. But I’m curious if you can summarize your view on microexpressions and if there is anything there, and if there’s any practical use of studying them.

Maria Hartwig: I can sum, I can do that, that very quickly. Uh, there is nothing there. Uh, there has never been an empirical demonstration even of the existence of microexpressions. Uh, there has been no demonstration that They’re indicators of deception, again, the, because, m- m- that they barely seem to exist. Mm-hmm. Um, now, uh, I haven’t conducted much, uh, research, uh, or any research on microexpressions other than evaluate, uh, Ekman’s microexpression training tool, uh, where, uh, participants watched.

They were either received this training or not, and they viewed, uh, a variety of lies and truths, some of them very high stake, uh, some of them laboratory, uh, derived. Uh, no effect. Um, uh, I haven’t studied, uh, microexpressions ’cause I just… There’s no reason to think- Mm-hmm … that they, that they exist. Mm-hmm.

And again, the, the little empirical data there is, uh, suggests it’s, to the extent that they exist, extremely low base rate phenomenon. Right. Right. So, um- 

Zach Elwood: Yeah. There was one major study that, uh… I know there was a few studies, but there was one major study in particular, I can’t remember who it was or when it was, but there was one major study that basically said, “Yeah, couldn’t find any, any significant correlation with anything with the microexpressions.”

Are 

Maria Hartwig: you thinking of Porter and TenBrink? 

Zach Elwood: Yeah, that’s the one. Yeah. The logical 

Maria Hartwig: science. Yes. Uh, so if I recall correctly, they analyzed 647 frames, uh, and found 14 partial. They found zero full-blown microexpressions out of those, uh, uh, 600 something. Um, and 14 partial microexpressions occurring either in the lower half or the upper half, but n- none of these full-blown, um, full-fledged expressions that Ekman, uh, was talking about.

And they occurred with the same frequency when people were displaying ge- genuinely what they felt. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So- Mm-hmm … to the extent that they even exist, they’re not associated w- only with deception. It’s- Right. 

Zach Elwood: Right … 

Maria Hartwig: um, meaningless, uh, facial twitches that, again, attract attention away from what’s more im- important, which is- Mm-hmm

the, the statement. 

Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. I’m curious. Yeah, on that front, I mean, I, I often, when people ask me, because I worked on Poker Tells and because I do this podcast, I often get people asking me, “Like, what, what’s the best-” uh, work on behavior. And I honestly, I was thinking about that recently. I was like, aside from like Tim Levine’s book, “Duped,” I don’t, I don’t really recommend anything when it comes to like general reading behavior, but I’m, uh, kind of books.

I just don’t– I think so many of them are bad. They’re written by people with, uh, incentives to sell you some, uh, distorted and exaggerated information. But I’m curious on, on deducing, uh, learnings that we might get from what people say, do either of you have, uh, recommendations on resources or books that relate to, you know, reading, uh, tr- trying to put some deductions together about what people are saying or what they’re not saying?

Does anything come to mind in that realm for you?

Maria Hartwig: There’s a very good book called “Mindwise” by Nicholas Epley. 

Zach Elwood: Hmm. 

Maria Hartwig: Uh, that is a popular scientific overview of, um, a vast literature on reading people. Hmm. Uh, it’s very good, very, uh, uh, it’s anchored i- in science ’cause- Hmm … Epley is a scientist. 

Zach Elwood: Nice. 

Maria Hartwig: Uh, that’s a very, very good, uh, overview of, uh, the extent to which we can’t read each other.

Zach Elwood: A quick note about something kind of funny and also very irritating to me. I recorded this talk with Maria and Christian weeks ago and just now happened to look up the book Maria recommended, titled Mindwise. I found out that that book has the same cover concept that I’d been working on the last few weeks for my own work-in-progress book, which will be titled Read People For Real. The concept involves the old illusion where two face silhouettes are on the left and right facing inward to each other, creating a vase-looking object between them. I’d had the idea to create the face silhouette color to be the exact same shade as the background color on Amazon, so as to create an interesting effect, and that book Mindwise also did the same thing. Anway, I just wanted to share this publicly, in case people saw my public posts the last few weeks and thought that I’d stolen the idea from Mindwise. I guess the lesson here is that if you’re creating a book cover, do a lot of research on what’s already been done; I tried to do that by looking at a bunch of books, but I maybe should have looked even more. It would have been nice if I had immediately checked out Mindwise a few weeks ago when Maria mentioned it; I would have maybe saved myself weeks of thinking about this, and paying more $1300 in design work. Still a chance i might use the design, but not feeling as good about it. Anyway back to the talk. 

Zach Elwood: Mm. Mm-hmm. Do you have any, uh, recommendations on that front that come to mind, Christian? 

Christian Cory: No, I think mine would be more in the realm of, of interviewing and, and getting the statement out there, um, uh, not specifically on non-verbals. I, I don’t even think it should be in the same literature as, like, interview and interrogation, but it’s been placed there and we’ve been– Now we have to deal with it.

Zach Elwood: Right. 

Christian Cory: Um, and, uh, so yeah, that’d be mine. 

Zach Elwood: Yeah. Um, well this has been great. I, I appreciate both of you coming on here. Um, it was very interesting, and I think people will like this. Uh, do you wanna, any of you, uh, either of you wanna say anything else before we wrap up? 

Maria Hartwig: Join Project Aletheia 

Christian Cory: Hmm. 

Zach Elwood: Yeah. I’ll share the website, uh, make sure people have that, uh, share that prominently on the, on the episode.

Yeah. 

Christian Cory: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, uh, one of the thing we advocate for is we, we wanna get these science-based interviewing techniques in the hand of practitioners today. Uh, because what we’re told to believe, whether it’s about non-verbals or how we interview and interrogate, uh, folks, is we have to believe that we can- we can’t have an– we haven’t had an upgrade for well over 50 years, and we can’t have an upgrade ’cause the old ways are still good.

And the final point I’ll make is it’s not just about false confessions. A lot of these same techniques, and I’ve written about this, are turned onto victims, the credibility assessments. Uh, so you’re having false recantations as well, um, whether or not a witness has credibility. So it, it, it has effects across, um, interviewing.

Hmm. And, uh, I think that’s where it’s just so problematic in that, uh, this is not how we should be interviewing folks. 

Zach Elwood: Okay. Thank 

Maria Hartwig: you both. And it’s connected to that. Sorry, one last point. 

Zach Elwood: No, go ahead. Yeah. 

Maria Hartwig: Um, Christian mentioned false confessions. They’re the worst, uh, possible outcome. Um, but, uh, short of that, uh, there’s so many problems with these old techniques, the legacy techniques generating false information, um, just corrupting the quality of the investigation.