NOTE TAKING DURING AN INTERVIEW
When participants see video-taped interviews at our seminars,
it is obvious that our interviewers take a written note following each response
offered by a subject. The Reid Technique advocates active note taking during a
structured interview for three reasons.
First, taking a written note following each response slows
down the pace of questioning. It is much easier to lie to a series of questions
asked in quick succession than the same questions asked five or seven seconds
apart. The reason for this is that when questions are asked rapidly, the
deceptive subject does not have time to internally respond to his lie; that is,
once a lie is told, rather than having time to experience a fear that the lie
may be detected, the suspect's attention is immediately directed to the
investigator's next question. When questions are not separated by a period of
silence, the accompanying behavior symptoms of deception are greatly reduced.
Innocent subjects are comfortable with the silence note
taking creates. They realize that the investigator is writing out their answer
and they simply wait for the next question to be asked. Deceptive subjects, on
the other hand, are uncomfortable with this period of silence. Because their
original response to the question was less than truthful, they may modify or
qualify it during the time in which the investigator takes a written note. This
behavior, in and of itself, can be a good indication of deception.
Second, taking written notes helps the investigator focus on
key aspects of the subject's behavior during a response. In this regard, the
notes following a response should not be a verbatim record of the subject's
answer. Rather, the essence of the response should be documented, along with any
significant behavior symptoms. This is illustrated below, where the entire
question and answer is first reproduced, followed by the investigator's written
notes:
I: "How do you feel about being interviewed concerning this
allegation against you?"
S: "Well, it makes me scared, you know. I don't understand
why everyone, well not everyone, but the people at the agency, why they think
that I would do this to my step daughter." (Shift in the chair)
Attitude: It makes me scared. I don't understand why people
at the agency would think I'd do this to my step daughter. SIC
Notice that the investigator's question is underlined. It
makes little sense to only document the subject's responses during an interview
-- the investigator's questions must also be documented.
In this example, a standard abbreviation for the question is
used. The SIC following the essence of the subject's response indicates a shift
in the chair. At the conclusion of this article are other suggested
abbreviations to document nonverbal behaviors.
Finally, by taking written notes during an interview, an
investigator can review an interview days or weeks after it was conducted and
reconstruct the subject's significant verbal and nonverbal responses during the
interview. This is especially beneficial when a number of possible suspects have
been interviewed on the same case in that the investigator can make
intra-suspect comparisons to help identify who can, or can not, be eliminated as
a suspect.
As a caveat to this entire discussion it is important to
emphasize that if written notes are taken during an interview, they need to be
taken following every response. Conversely, if sporadic notes are taken
following only selected responses, this will have the effect of causing the
subject to be guarded and hesitant in offering further information. Sporadic
note taking alerts the subject as to the apparent importance of a particular
response and results in less meaningful information.
Possible Note Taking Abbreviations for Nonverbal Behavior
=> Break of gaze to the right
CT Clear throat
DB Deep breath or sigh
... Delayed response
DII Direct eye to eye contact
e Early response
Grm Grooming behavior
Ill Illustrators
! Loud or emphasized
Lgh Laugh (erasure)
SIC Shift in chair
Back to Tips & Training
