In the following two studies, Vrij and Mann (2001) and Mann, Vrij, and Bull (2004), respectively, researched police officers abilities to detect deception in real-life, high-stakes scenarios. They also looked at the behavioural cues which were used to come to these conclusions.
In the first study by Vrij and Mann (2001), participants were comprised of 52 police officers in the Netherlands, 28 male and 24 female. The officers had an average age of 30, around 9 years of service, and rated themselves at an average level of experience in interviewing at 3.4/7, with 1 being no experience and 7 being the highest amount of experience. They were asked to watch 8 short fragments from press conferences where individuals were either asking for the public’s help in finding their missing relatives, or, in situations where the body had already been found, asking for help in finding the murderer. They then needed to decide whether or not that person was telling the truth. In five of these cases, the person asking for help had later been found to be the one who murdered their loved one. The other three acted as fillers and were not used in the data. They were used because if only the five videos of deception were presented, it may have tainted the results in that it is not likely …show more content…
Neither one solves a limitation which was presented in the other. The second experiment did find higher accuracy rates than the first due to factors of the videos watched, however, I believe it is necessary for research to be done in multiple kinds of scenarios, not just those which may make it easier for police to detect deception. Future research may want to include longer clips so that participants get a better understanding of the situation at hand. They may also want to look into using in-person interviews, instead of just videos, to make the experiment closer to a real-life
In the first study by Vrij and Mann (2001), participants were comprised of 52 police officers in the Netherlands, 28 male and 24 female. The officers had an average age of 30, around 9 years of service, and rated themselves at an average level of experience in interviewing at 3.4/7, with 1 being no experience and 7 being the highest amount of experience. They were asked to watch 8 short fragments from press conferences where individuals were either asking for the public’s help in finding their missing relatives, or, in situations where the body had already been found, asking for help in finding the murderer. They then needed to decide whether or not that person was telling the truth. In five of these cases, the person asking for help had later been found to be the one who murdered their loved one. The other three acted as fillers and were not used in the data. They were used because if only the five videos of deception were presented, it may have tainted the results in that it is not likely …show more content…
Neither one solves a limitation which was presented in the other. The second experiment did find higher accuracy rates than the first due to factors of the videos watched, however, I believe it is necessary for research to be done in multiple kinds of scenarios, not just those which may make it easier for police to detect deception. Future research may want to include longer clips so that participants get a better understanding of the situation at hand. They may also want to look into using in-person interviews, instead of just videos, to make the experiment closer to a real-life