Question

Describe the psychological processes that are involved in deception then explain the two approaches to interrogations. In your opinion, which approach would be more likely to result in a false confession? Does the possibility of a false confession mean that law enforcement should not use any such techniques? Or perhaps just not under certain circumstances? Why or why not?

Answer 1

Deception is melange of various cognitive processes one of them being working memory and the acute observation of social cues in a given setting. These combined are decisive forces in deception and it's use for benefit.

During interrogation there are two most famous techniques used, one is threat and fear, this could be means of speech. The other is use of physical force to extract truth. The latter is the weaker measure as this can lead to potential wrong confessions - for pain is a big precursor for people for avoidance, and thus for people to act in self defense by any means possible, be it admitting to a crime they haven't committed.

This technique should not be used under specific circumstances such as when dealing with normal crimes or with untrained individual, for instance a common man. For if there is a wrong suspect in custody, this could have deleterious consequences as the person wouldn't have any professional force training, which is essentially why physical force is used as a technique. It's more applicable in the scope of those who are trained criminals as a normal interrogation would not be able to get through to them.