Guy at party said upon learning a detective was in the group: "I always wanted to be an investigator -- I can talk to anyone!" The problem is not talking to anyone; the skill is getting others to talk to you in a genuine way. Reid offers some tips on listening skills:

1. Avoid assumptions before actually doing the interview. Listen fully to answers.
2. Recognize the difference between a personal judgment and a factual statement.
3. Do not assume every verbal slip-up is an admission of guilt. Develop context and follow up with specific questions in the area of concern.

Tags: lie detection, interviewing

New York Times reports some researchers are focusing on speech content instead of body language as a better indicator of when someone is lying.

Tags: lie detection, interviewing

A surefire way to detect a liar is to watch the eyes move-- you have seen this claim in books, movies, cable tv shows, blogs, etc. When someone looks up and to the left , they are accessing a visual memory, etc.

One problem: research shows it doesn't work. Here is one expert discussing NLP, which was never intended for use in witness interview settings.

Tags: lie detection, eye movement, nlp

Last week, traveled to Argentina with the Boston Braves Football Club, and played against retired veteran from legendary clubs Boca Juniors and River Plate, as well as others. We did OK (no scores please), but the rat-a-tat-passing and superior ball skills of the Argentines was impressive . With help from my amigos, I witnessed an interesting incident at a Buenos Aires shop whereby an owner grilled an employee over suspected theft (in the open-- a slight departure from USA custom). Owner asked, "What do you think I should do to the person who stole the . . .?" This was interesting: many US interview courses teach this as a key component during the interview process. Called the punishment question by some (Reid), truthful suspects are open to some degree of appropriate punishment.

Tags: interviewing, interrogation, lie detection