Forensic Psychology Exam 1

Brain Fingerprinting

Basically the same as guilty knowledge, but instead of a polygraph it uses p-300 brain waves.

What should lying during a polygraph test do?

Cause a rise in blood pressure, an increase in skin moistures, and changes in heart rate and breathing patterns.

What did Galton argue?

He argued that fingerprints are unchanged across a lifespan and that every fingerprint is unique.

What was a problem with the RIT Test?

It created too many false positives.

Describe what we have learned about handwriting analysis.

It is often wrong because handwriting can vary from time to time, a person could have an injury on their hand that changes his or her handwriting, the person could try to disguise it, etc.

Two Categories of Empirical Studies that test the Accuracy of Polygraphs

Lab studies and field studies.

Confirmation Bias

Once we form a strong belief about someone, we tend to both seek out confirmation of that belief and dismiss any information to the contrary. Ex: If an interrogator believes a suspect is guilty, he/she will do this.

What is one type of "appropriate adult" that has proven to be ineffective?

Parents because they might pressure their child to confess, thinking it'll make their punishment easier, or other things like this.

Evidence Ploys

Police can cite real or false evidence that makes the suspect look guilty during the interrogation.

Lies of Commission

Saying something that is not true.

During a CQT Test, what is the scoring like?

Scale of -3 to +3, with positive indicating truth and negative indicating deception.

Simple Match

The expert says that the trace and the source share certain class characteristics. Ex: A tiny shard of glass found in the suspect's car matches the glass from a broken window of the victim's bedroom.

Psychometrics

The measurement of psychological characteristics.

False Positive Rate

The probability that an expert will conclude that a match exists when, in fact, there is no match.

Mock Crimes

These are used in lab studies and are when people are randomly assigned the role of guilty or innocent. The guilty have to commit a pre-arranged crime and then all suspects are told to deny it before given a polygraph.

Disadvantage of a field study

We often can't be certain who's not lying.

3 Conclusions to Testify for Fingerprint Examiners

1. Inconclusive 2. Suspect is excluded as the source of the print 3. Individualization

List the 4 Miranda Rights.

1. You have the right to remain silent. 2. You have the right to an attorney present during questioning. 3. If you can't afford an attorney, you can have one appointed to you prior to questioning. 4. Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you?

6 Degrees of Certainty of Bite Marks

1. inclonclusive 2. suspect is not the source 3. it is improbable that the suspect is the source 4. possible that the bite mark came from the suspect 5. probably that the bite mark came from the suspect 6. source attribution to a reasonable medical certainty

What are the four basic influence strategies of the Reid Technique?

1. loss of control 2. social isolation 3. certainty of guilt 4. exculpatory scenarios

4 Categories Used when Testifying about Tool Mark Impressions

1. trace is unsuitable for microscopic comparison 2. trace characteristics eliminate the tool as the source 3. some agreement between trace and the source 4. identification - the high level of agreement between trace and source indicates that the mark was produced by a specific tool

Qualitative Statement

A relatively subjective statement that a match of trace evidence to a suspect is weak, moderate, or strong.

Trial by Ordeal

An ancient technique used where a suspect who denied committing a crime was required to put his or her hand into a pot of boiling water and pull out a stone. After 3 days, if they burn wasn't infected, it meant he was innocent because God intervened.

Why do police prefer confessions to other types of interrogations?

Because it saves time and often causes the person to plead guilty and it almost always gets a conviction.

People frequently wave their Miranda Rights. Why?

Because they either are not guilty and think they have nothing to hide, guilty and don't want to seem uncooperative, or police used certain ways of listing their rights in a way that seems unimportant.

Countermeasures

Biting your tongue, pressing your toes to the floor, etc. are all ways to suppress arousal during relevant questions or increase arousal for irrelevant questions.

What have we found about bullet matching that keeps us from using it in courts today as evidence?

Bullets found at a crime scene could be very chemically similar to bullets in boxes it did not come from, or very chemically dissimilar to bullets found in the same box it did come from, so we can't match bullets from a scene to bullets from a suspect properly.

Scientists who examine physical traces compare what?

Class characteristics and individual characteristics.

In order to avoid the typical issues that come with polygraphs, what should the examiner do?

Convince the examinee that the polygraph is flawless by asking a series of questions he knows the answers to ahead of time and then pretending like it was the test that knew when he/she was lying or telling the truth.

Authentic-Voluntary False Confession

Delusional people confess to crimes they didn't commit.

In a study using college students and detectives, who was better at determining whether a person is lying?

Detectives actually did worse, but were more confident in their answers.

Polygraph

Detects physiological changes in response to examiner's questions.

Guilty Knowledge Test

Detects whether someone knows facts only a criminal would know. Ex: Shown 10 pictures, one being of the victim, and the murderer should have a physiological effect greater than when viewing the other photos.

What has fMRI's shown about lying?

Different types of lying produce different patterns of brain excitation, like spontaneous lies vs. rehearsed lies.

Loss of Control

Every aspect of the situation seems out of the subjects control, removing the psychological comfort of familiar surroundings.

Individualization

Expresses the conclusion that a trace found at the crime scene came from this source to the exclusion of all other sources in the world. Ex: The left index finger of the defendant.

Individual Characteristics

Features presumably unique to a single object, like the specific scrapes, scars, and wear patterns on a suspect's specific running shoes.

Class Characteristics

Features that are common to a general class or category of objects, like a pattern of tread on a particular style of women's Nike shoes.

Alleles

Genetic characteristics that are variations of a DNA sequence at a given locus.

Excluded

If analyses reveal substantial inconsistent features between samples, like the two fingerprint samples aren't exactly the same, then the source is excluded.

What is the goal of an interrogation?

If it is a suspect (in other words, the police believe the person is responsible for the crime), then the goal is to get a confession.

During video filming of interrogations, what is a factor that causes jurors to think confessions were less coerced?

If the camera is focused only on the subject because they discount situational pressures.

What would be one way to help decrease the number of false confessions?

If there was a time limit, because false confessions tend to have much longer interrogations.

What is the most common form of false confession?

Instrumental-Coerced

EEG

It can read neural impulses continuously in milliseconds s it can tell exactly when a change occurs, rather than just where.

What has been proven of lying as it relates to evolution?

It comes naturally to us because it has actually been a great survival tactic in the past.

Lies of Omission

Leaving out crucial details that might reveal the truth.

What is a common thing police do, and are allowed to do, to help get a confession?

Lie - they can produce false evidence, tell them a polygraph test was failed, tell them their friend ratted them out, etc.

Credibility Assessment

Lie detection

DNA

Miniscule, tightly coiled strands that carry the genetic instructions for all living cells.

Laser Doppler Vibrometry

Monitors physiological stress with a near-infrared light beam aimed at the neck of a subject a few hundred feet away. This is beneficial because it can be done without the subject knowing.

High Definition Infrared Thermal Imaging

Monitors shifts in the heat of the human face. Lying will cause warming around the eyes.

The advantage of a field study

Realism - the consequences of failing the test are very serious.

What are some problems with polygraph tests?

Someone guilty could have great emotional control and not react differently, someone innocent could react strongly because they are generally more anxious, guilty people might not believe in the test and are therefore not afraid to lie, innocent people might not believe the test and are therefore scared of failing, and standardization is an issue because the content of questions, number of questions, demeanor of the examiner, etc. could change every time.

What is a problem with the guilty knowledge test?

Sometimes guilty people can't remember the crime, if evidence was widely publicized before the test then anyone could know about it, and their should be enough facts for the test to be produced. Also, if a person was involved with a crime but not the one who committed it or, for example, a man walks home and finds his wife dead, those people will also have guilty knowledge and could be falsely convicted.

Certainty of Guilt

Starting the interrogation off by accusing the suspect and making it seem as though they definitely are getting convicted.

Social Isolation

Suspects are almost always interrogated alone, depriving the suspect of emotional support and minimizing contradictory information.

fMRI

The "action" of the brain is captured by taking pictures of how much oxygen is being used during lies vs. the truth.

What is the Reid Technique also called?

The 9 steps of interrogation.

What did The Report on Lawlessness and Law Enforcement lead to?

The allowance of abuse during interrogations that wouldn't leave a physical mark, like holding a suspect's head under water or stacking telephone books on their head and banging it.

Random Match Probabilities (RMPs)

The calculated estimate of the frequency of each allele in an appropriate reference population.

Anthropometry

The first identification technique hailed as scientific that takes 11 measurements, called the Bertillon measurements, of a person's body.

Liar's Stereotype

The idea that when lying, people tend to avert their eyes, squirm, touch themselves more, stutter etc. but this doesn't actually help people determine whether a person is lying because honest people can also get nervous and produce these symptoms.

Biometrics

The identification of an individual based on measurable anatomical traits. Modern day biometrics uses patterns in people's fingerprints, iris, retina or face.

Cognitive Privacy

The legal problem of how to determine at what point lie detection devices invade people's right to privacy or violate their right not to incriminate themselves.

Forensic Identification

The process of linking a piece of physical trace evidence to an individual, usually a criminal suspect.

Totality of Circumstances

The standard by which the decision is based on all the surrounding facts of the case to evaluate the "voluntariness" of the confession.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to attribute other people's behavior to dispositional causes (like traits or personality) and to dismiss the situational pressures acting on the person. So, we tend to discount how pressured a person was when he or she provided a confession.

Short-sightedness

The tendency to give priority to the short-term goals of escaping the interrogation room and appeasing the interrogators over the long-term goal of not getting convicted.

Field Studies

These use situations with real suspects of a crime.

In studies where police officers watch video clips of real interrogations and make judgments about deception, how did they do?

They actually did worse when they based their decisions upon verbal and nonverbal cues emphasized in their training.

How do jurors feel about interrogation tactics?

They agree that the tactics can be coercive, but still think the tactics can get innocent people to confess.

Describe the use of jurors as a lie detector.

They are used to determine whether a suspect is lying in court, but studies have shown that they are not very accurate and there is no set standard to determine how to tell the difference.

Authentic-Coerced False Confession

They become convinced that they did it but that they just don't remember it happening. In rare cases, they actually come up with scenarios of the crime in their head as if they remember.

What is a huge problem with interrogations?

They frequently cause false confessions.

What is one issue with the video recording of interrogations?

They often show the end product, the confession part only.

Describe the study done based on jurors reactions to interrogations.

They were shown real videos of low pressure and high pressure interrogations. When shown high pressure, jurors claimed that they disregarded the confession as evidence. However, the verdicts said otherwise, with an overwhelming majority choosing "guilty."

Suspect Vulnerabilities

Things that make the suspect more likely to falsely or truthfully confess. Ex: mental illness, easily dominated personality, low intelligence, sleep deprivation, etc.

Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE)

This Act was passed in England and states that interrogators are not allowed to use false evidence.

The Report on Lawlessness and Law Enforcement

This book talks about abuse by police during interrogation and how we should change it.

Trace Evidence

This can be left at a crime scene, like fingerprints, hair, skin cells, or fibers from clothes, or can be transported from the crime scene, like carpet fibers or hair or blood from the victim.

United States vs. Scheffer

This case claimed that we don't know if polygraph evidence is scientifically valid and that there is concern that the jury should be the lie detector and we shouldn't use a machine.

Unscored Buffer

This is the first question in a GKT that is thrown out because people react more strongly to the first question asked.

Exculpatory Scenarios

This is when interrogators suggest that the crime was an "accident", the person robbed the store because his parents need money help, etc., implying but not explicitly saying that a judge would be lenient. When creating these, the interrogator needs to appear sympathetic to the suspect.

Equal-Focus Camera Perspective

This shows both the suspect and the interrogator, making it easier for jurors to decide how voluntary or coerced a confession was.

Daubert vs. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals

This was the ruling that admissibility of polygraph evidence must be determined by a case by case basis.

Eye Movement Memory Assessment

Tracks visual attention to a scene based on eye movement, scanning path, pupil dilation, and gaze fixation to help assess guilty knowledge.

How many alleles does every person have at each genetic locus?

Two - the first is inherited from the maternal side and the second is inherited from the paternal side.

Comparison Question Test

Uses comparison questions, also known as "known lie" questions, like "before the age of 21, did you ever do something dishonest or illegal?" Because these are so broad, almost anyone who says no would be lying. They can then compare that physiological response to other questions that are relevant.

Relevant-irrelevant test

Uses non-arousing questions that are not relevant to the behavior being investigated like "Is today Thursday?" and relevant questions that should be especially arousing to the person who committed the crime like "Did you kill him?"

Match Plus Statistics

Uses statistics that give information about how rare or common a particular matching characteristic is in the relevant population. Ex: If a red hair is found at a crime scene and the suspect is a redhead, this information carries much more weight than if a black hair is found and the suspect has black hair, because statistically the probability is higher that the red hair came from that person.

What is becoming more popular during interrogations in order to help decide how coercive the interrogation was?

Video Recording - they show them to jurors before a decision is made.

What are false positives?

When innocent people are misclassified as guilty.

Source Attribution

When samples of trace evidence match samples taken from a suspect or a tool used by a suspect, indicating that the two samples came from a common source.

What is the Appropriate Adult?

When someone in the interrogation room is specialized to sit in with the youth and/or disabled to determine what is okay.

Instrumental-Voluntary False Confession

When suspects knowingly implicate themselves in crimes they did not commit in an effort to achieve some goal. Ex: If a parent were trying to save their child from going to prison, he/she might confess to the crime.

Inconclusive

When trace evidence is incomplete, contaminated, or impossible to analyze with precision, the two samples are ruled inconclusive.

Good-cop bad-cop approach

When two interrogators work as a team. The "bad" cop uses words and nonverbal behavior to show anger and express his or her belief that the suspect should receive severe punishment, while the "good" cop shows the suspect sympathy and understanding. Then, when the bad cop leaves the room, the good cop is more likely to get a confession.

Instrumental-Coerced False Confession

When, as a result of long or intense interrogation, suspects confess to crimes they did not commit.

What is the main thing that has a huge impact on results of an interrogation?

Youth - though the younger are more likely to falsely confess, they are still treated the same as adults during interrogations.