Forensic Psychology For Dummies (46 page)

Inappropriate non-verbal utterances, such as laughter.

Filled pauses, for example, ‘eh’, ‘erm’ and so on.

Computer programs have been set up to measure the frequency of paralinguistic cues and the relationship to a person’s emotional state. Researchers have found that big differences exist between people in their paralinguistic characteristics. If these variations are allowed for, paralinguistic cues can produce results that give a reasonably accurate indication of a person’s emotional response, most notably fear. But whether or not this relates to lying, depends on the individual and whether or not the circumstances of their utterances are so demanding that these cues will be revealing.

Studying semantic assessment

When you’re looking closely at a suspect’s statement and you believe that he’s deliberately setting out to deceive, you’re dealing with what I call the
semantic assessment
of deception. Semantic assessment involves examining each significant word in the statement for meaning and how that word is being expressed. In this section, I look at what you need to do when you’re carrying out a semantic assessment, the difficulties you can come up against when trying to get to grips with what’s being said, and the plausibility of the statement.

Experts have drawn up useful checklists setting out the valid points you need to keep in mind when carrying out a semantic assessment of a suspect’s statement. Some countries, notably Germany, use these checklists for examining children’s accounts of sexual abuse. The idea behind these checklists is that what you describe from actual experience will contain information that is usually not present when you invent a description.

Here are the sorts of things that you should look for to determine if a statement is an imaginative creation or the truth:

Is there an overall logic to the account in which each aspects makes sense with every other aspect?

Is the way the statement is given disorganised or does it have a clear unfolding structure to it?

Does it have enough convincing detail?

Is the context in which the event occurred clear?

Where other people are present, how well are the interactions with them described?

Is any conversation reproduced in a plausible way?

Are unexpected complications described?

Are there any unusual details?

Are some of the details given superfluous to the main account?

Does the person giving the statement describe aspects of what they were thinking or feeling at the time?