Forensic Psychology: Investigative Techniques, Eyewitness Memory, Deception, and Interrogations

Comprehensive practice flashcards covering policing representation, investigative profiling, lie detection and cognitive load, eyewitness memory and lineup procedures, legal rights under detention and arrest, and interrogation models including Reid, PEACE, PIM, and Mr. Big operations.

According to 2019 data presented in lecture, what percentage of police officers in Canada were women?

Women represented only $22\%$ of police officers in Canada in 2019.

What systemic issues within the RCMP led to the 2017 Merlo Davidson class action settlement?

Janet Merlo and Linda Gillis Davidson brought lawsuits against the Canadian government for injuries caused by systemic sexual harassment and gender discrimination, resulting in an independent review that examined over 30 years of complaints, conducted $644$ interviews, and assessed $3{,}086$ claims.

What was the "LGBT Purge" in Canadian public service and military history?

A sanctioned practice from the 1950s to the mid-1990s in which LGBT members of the Canadian Armed Forces, RCMP, and federal public service were systematically discriminated against, surveilled, interrogated, and dismissed.

What are the three sequential steps of the criminal profiling process?

Step 1: Information Gathering (evidence, photographs, victim/witness statements); Step 2: Profiler Review & Evaluation (evaluating patterns and insights); Step 3: Profile Delivery (written report with recommendations).

How do clinical and statistically-oriented approaches to criminal profiling differ?

The clinical approach is deductive, case-by-case, and relies on an individual profiler's judgment and experience; the statistically-oriented approach is inductive, applying empirical psychological theories and statistical models of offending across cases.

What three behavioral clusters of serial sex offenders were identified by Goodwill et al. (2016)?

Cluster 1: High violence/Victim specific; Cluster 2: Low violence/Victim specific; Cluster 3: High violence/Victim unspecific.

What is the Distance Decay Hypothesis in geographic profiling?

The spatial principle that an offender's probability of committing a crime is highest close to their home base and decreases as the distance from home increases.

What is the difference between a "Marauder" and a "Commuter" in Canter's Circle Hypothesis?

A Marauder operates out from their home base into the surrounding area to commit crimes, whereas a Commuter travels outside their immediate residential area before offending.

What geographic profiling software generated this colour-coded map (GeoProfile) developed by Dr. Kim Rossmo during Operation Lynx?

Rigel.

What are the four primary assumptions and corresponding limitations of the Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System (ViCLAS)?

1) Reliable data (suffers from low inter-rater reliability); 2) Accurate data (frequent data entry errors); 3) Behavioral consistency and distinctiveness (overreliance on classic trait theory); 4) Link identification (analysts often fail to identify links, causing linkage blindness).

In crime linkage analysis, how are Area Under the Curve (AUC) values interpreted according to Fox & Farrington (2018)?

AUC values below $0.50$ indicate very poor performance, $0.50$ to $0.70$ indicate low accuracy, $0.70$ to $0.90$ indicate good accuracy, and values exceeding $0.90$ indicate high accuracy.

How is deception defined in forensic psychology?

A successful or unsuccessful deliberate attempt, without forewarning, to create in another person a belief that the communicator considers untrue.

What did DePaulo et al. (2003) conclude regarding non-verbal and para-verbal cues to deception?

Stereotypical behaviors such as fidgeting, gaze aversion, speech disturbances, and speaking rate are bad cues with no reliable association with lying; slightly better indicators include an elevated voice pitch and being less direct, relevant, or clear.

What did Oberlader et al.'s (2016) meta-analysis conclude about Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA)?

Analyzing 55 effect sizes ($N = 3{,}399$), CBCA yielded an overall effect size of $d = 1.01$ (95% CI [0.77, 1.25]), demonstrating strong discriminative ability between truth-tellers and liars.

What three interview strategies comprise the cognitive approach to lie detection proposed by Vrij et al. (2017)?

1) Imposing additional cognitive load; 2) Encouraging interviewees to provide more detail; 3) Asking unexpected questions.

What did ten Brinke et al. (2014) discover regarding indirect versus direct lie detection?

Indirect, unconscious detection measured via the Implicit Association Task (IAT) significantly outperformed conscious direct self-reports across both experiments.

How does the American Psychiatric Association define malingering, and is it a mental disorder?

The intentional production of false or grossly exaggerated physical or psychological symptoms motivated by external incentives; it is not classified as a mental disorder in the DSM-5.

How did prosecution psychiatrist Dr. Martin Orne uncover Kenneth Bianchi's malingering?

Dr. Orne demonstrated through specialized hypnotic techniques that Bianchi was fabricating his hypnosis and feigning Multiple Personality Disorder to escape the death penalty.

What are the five sequential stages of eyewitness memory processing?

Perception/Attention stage $\rightarrow$ Encoding stage $\rightarrow$ Short-term memory $\rightarrow$ Long-term memory $\rightarrow$ Retrieval stage.

According to Innocence Project DNA exoneration data ($N > 375$), what are the three most prevalent causes of wrongful convictions?

1) Eyewitness misidentification ($69\%$); 2) Unvalidated or improper forensics ($43\%$); 3) False confessions ($29\%$).

What legal precedent regarding hypnosis in criminal investigations was set in R. v. Trochym (2007)?

The Supreme Court of Canada imposed an absolute ban on the admissibility of eyewitness evidence elicited through hypnosis.

What core techniques are utilized in the Cognitive Interview protocol (Geiselman et al., 1986)?

Mental reinstatement of context, reporting everything, changing the order of recall, changing perspectives, eye closure/gaze aversion, sketching, memory jogs, and open-ended/probing questions.

What did Loftus and Palmer (1974) demonstrate regarding the phrasing of questions in car accident recalls?

Varying the verb used (e.g., "smashed" versus "hit") systematically changed speed estimates and led participants in the "smashed" condition to falsely remember broken glass one week later.

How did exposure to misinformation affect military personnel in the high-stress mock POW study by Morgan et al. (2013)?

Misinformation drastically increased false recollections (e.g., false reports of a telephone rose from $10\%$ to $98\%$) and drove false identifications in a target-absent lineup from $53\%$ to $91\%$.

What Canadian policing model is illustrated in this diagram, outlining officer perception, tactical considerations, and force options based on subject behavior?

The National Use-of-Force Framework.

What is the distinction between system variables and estimator variables in eyewitness identification?

System variables are procedural factors under the control of the criminal justice system (e.g., lineup design), whereas estimator variables are situational and personal factors over which the system has no control (e.g., lighting, presence of a weapon, witness age).

How do simultaneous and sequential lineups differ in terms of cognitive decision-making?

Simultaneous lineups present all members together, encouraging relative judgment; sequential lineups present members individually, promoting absolute judgment.

How did the presence of a distinctive facial sticker impact the weapon focus effect in Carlson & Carlson (2012)?

The weapon focus effect was eliminated/reversed when the perpetrator had a large sticker on their face, as visual attention shifted back toward facial identification.

What are four key recommendations made by the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS) in 2020 for lineups?

1) Use sequential lineups; 2) Double-blind administration; 3) Select fillers based on match-to-description; 4) Obtain a confidence statement immediately following an identification.

How do Canadian Charter rights differ from American Miranda rights during police interrogations (Patry et al., 2017)?

In the US, suspects have the right to counsel present inside the interrogation room and police must stop questioning once rights are invoked; in Canada, suspects have no right to counsel during questioning, and police may continue interrogation after initial legal advice.

What does Section 10 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantee upon arrest or detention, and what does it exclude?

It guarantees the right to be informed immediately of the reason and the right to retain and instruct counsel without delay; it does not provide the right to counsel of choice if unavailable, continuous contact, or counsel presence during interrogation.

What is the legal difference between the American Corpus Delicti rule and the Canadian Voluntariness rule regarding confessions?

The US Corpus Delicti rule forbids convictions based solely on an uncorroborated confession; the Canadian Voluntariness rule requires the Crown to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the confession was voluntary.

What interrogation framework follows the nine-step sequence shown in this flowchart?

The Reid Technique (specifically Phase 2: Accusatorial Interrogation).

What is Step 7 (the alternative question) in the Reid Technique?

Presenting the suspect with two incriminating explanations for the crime—one socially acceptable/face-saving and one repulsive—where selecting either alternative constitutes a legal confession.

What are the five stages of the UK PEACE Model of investigative interviewing?

Planning & Preparation, Engage & Explain, Account, Closure, and Evaluation.

What empirical benefits of the PEACE model did Snook et al. (2010) identify over accusatorial interrogations?

It produces comparable rates of true confessions while resulting in fewer false confessions and fewer inadmissible statements or denials.

What is the RCMP's Phased Interview Model (PIM), and what are its six phases?

A hybrid framework blending non-accusatory and accusatorial methods consisting of: Phase A (Review, preparation, and planning), Phase B (Introduction and legal obligations), Phase C (Dialogue), Phase D (Version challenge), Phase E (Accusation and persuasion), and Phase F (Post-interview).

What are the four operational stages of a Canadian "Mr. Big" undercover investigation?

1) Intelligence probe; 2) Introduction; 3) Scenario development; 4) Evidentiary scenario (confessing prior criminal involvement to the fake syndicate's crime boss).

What legal threshold for Mr. Big confessions was established by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Hart (2014)?

Mr. Big confessions are treated as presumptively inadmissible, requiring the prosecution to establish that their probative value outweighs their prejudicial effect due to the high risk of eliciting unreliable confessions.