Drawing on Foucault and the sociology of science and technology, this thesis traces the curious attempt that has been made over the last century to capture one of the most elusive social acts - the lie. This endeavour was made possible by the emergence of the human sciences, whose guiding belief was that the subject's inner life could be made apparent by means of physiological measurements and therefore be controlled. My thesis follows the development of the 'embodiment' of the lie within early and recent psychology as a means of detecting the subject's guilt. It examines the disconnection of lie detection from its academic origins and its re-positioning within criminal investigation which engenders the development of polygraphy as a separate profession. In this, it elaborates on the special roles played by instruments in lie detection practices - the 'lie detector' and the 'polygraph' - and analyses changing epistemological aims and models of 'scientific' expertise. In accounting for its contested status, the latter analysis is connected to an evaluation of the continuous exclusion of lie detection as scientific evidence from the courts. The thesis examines the changing functions of the polygraph examination in systems of social control as their logic moves from reform to increased containment and control: from a confessional technique mediating the efficient processing of a delinquent population from the 1920s, to a disciplinary technique controlling employee behaviour from the 1930s. In recent years it has become a 'truth facilitator' in the management and containment of the monstrous individual: the sex offender. In a broader consideration of the power/knowledge mechanism of lie detection, the thesis applies Foucault's notion of grotesque knowledge, arguing that the ensemble of the lie detector/polygraph and psychological expert/interrogator is Ubuesque as it implements an absolute power in the 'diagnosis' of the lie, which is disqualified at the moment of its verification through confession. The thesis demonstrates how Foucauldian analyses and the sociology of science can be fruitfully combined to comprehensively explain both the dynamics of contested expert knowledges and the ways in which psychological techniques operate in shaping the subject. Having traced the emergence of the lie as an object of knowledge and intervention, the thesis concludes by providing directions in an historically informed sociology of the lie.

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This thesis examines the discursive interaction between the police officer and the suspected paedophile in the investigative interview. A review of the literature revealed that paedophiles talk about their offences in terms of conventional relationships, personal bonds and emotions whilst being discrete about the sexual aspects of their activities. In the investigative interview, police officers must establish accountability, avoid emotional talk and encourage paedophiles to discuss their criminal activities in terms of direct, agentic detail. Given these two distinct approaches to the description of unlawful sexual contact, there is the potential for difficulties to arise in the elicitation of information in the investigative interview. This thesis explores how police officers and paedophiles negotiate an account of `what really happened' whilst managing conflicting descriptions of the offence. This thesis also evaluates the relative effectiveness of interviewing strategies used by the police for maximising admission in suspected paedophiles. Eleven interviews conducted at Leicestershire Police Constabulary were transcribed using the Jefferson system of notation. The offenders were male and aged between 34-54 years. The victims were male (n=5) and female (n=6) and aged between 5-13 years. Content analysis confirmed that police officers and paedophiles do describe sexual acts between adults and children differently. A `physical' repertoire of explicit sexual terms was used more frequently by the police officers, while the suspects exhibited a preference for an `emotiörial' repertoire of relationship talk and euphemisms (x2 = 125.518; df = 1; p<O. 01). Discourse analysis explored what was happening when . the police officers and suspected paedophiles used these repertoires. The analysis identified two distinct styles of interviewing with implications, not just for eliciting information from the suspect but also for admission and denial. Suspect admission was associated with `open' police interviewing, where the officer invites the suspect to `tell the story' using open-ended, relationship questioning. The suspect subsequently constructs an inappropriate, self-serving account, which the officer is able to reformulate to confirm sexual contact and secure admission. On the other hand, suspect denial was associated with `closed' police interviewing, characterised by the officer recounting an explicit sexual narrative and eliminating suspect intervention with the use of linguistic devices to hold the floor. The suspect, rather than being invited to tell the story, is only asked to confirm the police officer's version of events. The police officer cannot reformulate the suspect's narrative and subsequently increases opportunities for the suspect to deny the accusations. The analysis represents a distinctive qualitative understanding of how language clashes shape the progression of the police interview. The findings provide a vocabulary for skilled police officers to both reflect on their own interviewing practices and communicate their skills to less experienced officers. This thesis also offers hope to police interviewers by suggesting that if they interview effectively they can make a difference to the outcome. The methodological implications of the study, strategies for future research and suggestions for a discourse-based police interviewing training programme are outlined.

This thesis used a ‘cognitive load plus’ approach to explore whether deliberate interventions, (e.g. secondary tasks and unanticipated interview questions) would (i) affect liars and truth tellers cognitive load differently during an interview and (ii) lead to differences in behaviour between liars and truth tellers which could be used to detect deception. Chapter 1 provides a brief introduction to the cognitive load approach to detecting deception and the growing body of research in this area. Next, Experiment 1 is reported in which a computer based target tracking secondary task was performed by (N = 45) lying and (N = 45) truth telling interviewees while they responded to an interviewer’s questions about a mission briefing they were given prior to being interviewed. Truth tellers described their true mission to the interviewer whereas liars gave a fictitious cover story. The main findings, supportive of the cognitive load approach, were that (i) liars made significantly less frequent eye-contact with the interviewer than truth tellers and (ii) liars’ behaviour was rated differently to truth tellers by an independent observer. However, against prediction, there were no differences between liars and truth tellers in terms of their computer task performance or in the numbers of details provided in their verbal statements. These findings informed the design of Experiment 2A which examined the effect of asking unanticipated interview questions on lie detection. In an activity room truth tellers (N = 40) performed five simple tasks (e.g. pairing up playing cards). Liars (N = 40) observed the activity room through a window and were asked to generate a story in which they would claim to have performed five tasks. The interview schedule included four thematically related pairs of questions. The first question of each pairing was easy for interviewees to anticipate as it reflected how events are typically recalled (e.g. in normal chronological order). The second question included a perspective shift (temporal or spatial), which made the question harder for interviewees to anticipate (e.g. recalling the event in reverse order). Eye-gaze was also manipulated by asking half the interviewees to maintain constant eye-contact with the interviewer. Lastly, interviewees’ performed an object sorting secondary task while answering the interview questions. Compared to truth tellers, liars’ verbal responses showed a greater net decline in details, (termed Verbal decline), across three out of four question pairs. Liars also sorted significantly fewer objects per minute on the secondary task. However, there was no relationship between eye-gaze and veracity. In Experiment 2B, 80 observers each saw a single edited video clip of either a liar or truth teller answering one pair of Expected/Unexpected questions from Experiment 2A. Observers were instructed to make a veracity judgment while focussing only on the presence or absence of Verbal decline in the interviewee’s statement. Observers’ accuracy for detecting deception was compared with accuracy rates obtained from a discriminant analysis of the manually coded Verbal decline in Experiment 2A. Observers identified liars with 65% accuracy which compared favourably with the 67.5% accuracy of manual coding. However truth tellers were identified by observers with 60% accuracy which was significantly below the 82.5% rate of manual coding. Experiment 3 retained the sorting task, eye-gaze manipulation and activity room scenario from Experiment 2A while introducing three new pairings of Expected/Unexpected interview questions and two further unpaired questions requiring interviewees to (i) estimate the durations of two tasks they claimed to have completed and (ii) to suggest a future task completion strategy for one task they claimed to have performed in the activity room. Once again liars sorted significantly less correct objects per minute than truth tellers and there was a partial replication of the Experiment 2A findings for Verbal decline. For the new questions: liars showed greater Verbal decline than truth tellers on one of the three new question pairings and liars were significantly less accurate than truth tellers at estimating duration. However, against prediction, liars’ suggested task strategies did not differ in complexity from truth tellers and again there was no relationship between eyegaze and veracity. Overall, the present thesis’ findings were largely supportive of the theory that lying can be more cognitively demanding than truth telling and that monitoring secondary task performance provides an objective measure of an interviewee’s cognitive load. Also it was demonstrated that strategic use of perspective shifted interview questions elicited a cue (Verbal decline) which could be used to detect deception. The practical and theoretical implications of the present experiments are discussed in a final chapter.

The research in this thesis is the first of its kind to describe in a significant level of detail the actual police interviewing of serious crime suspects, with a specific focus on who is being interviewed. The principal information source was 407 real-life audio-tape recordings of interviews with 56 different suspects. Suspects were interviewed for offences that included murder (and attempted murder), sexual assault and serious assault. Tape recordings were obtained from 11 Police Services across England and Wales and were analysed using a specially designed coding frame that captured a range of interviewer and suspect behaviour. The research described how suspects respond during police interviews and examined the interactions between suspect response, interviewer behaviour and case characteristics. Finally, the research assessed the presence and contribution of legal advisors, Appropriate Adults and interpreters. Based on this novel research, the thesis brings out some key findings, highlights where the work is limited and where further exploration is needed, and suggests where interviewing practice might be strengthened. This research is intended to be of interest and practical value to both the research community and the police service.

The study evaluated the questions used in a polygraph test. It focused on criminal investigative tests (also referred to as “criminal specific tests”), those tests conducted when a criminal offence has been committed and the in-test phase questions (those test questions asked to address what is under investigation). To conduct a successful criminal investigative polygraph test, it is important that polygraphists be familiar with the types of questions used in a polygraph test and how they should be formulated for more effective outcomes. The recognition of these questions and how they are formulated is of utmost importance as it determines the success of the criminal investigative polygraph test. / Police Practice / M.Tech. (Forensic Investigation)

The study evaluated the questions used in a polygraph test. It focused on criminal investigative tests (also referred to as “criminal specific tests”), those tests conducted when a criminal offence has been committed and the in-test phase questions (those test questions asked to address what is under investigation). To conduct a successful criminal investigative polygraph test, it is important that polygraphists be familiar with the types of questions used in a polygraph test and how they should be formulated for more effective outcomes. The recognition of these questions and how they are formulated is of utmost importance as it determines the success of the criminal investigative polygraph test. / Police Practice / M.Tech. (Forensic Investigation)

This dissertation, which is both exploratory and descriptive in nature, initially describes the development of the polygraph against a background of understanding society's rejection of the lying phenomenon. The theoretical foundations of polygraph thinking are then presented as forerunner to practical illustration of polygraph use in the private sector. The criminal justice system represents the sphere of polygraph ulitization central to the research. With strong American accent, polygraph use in all four components of the system is described in such a manner so as to provoke thought on the part of criminal justice functionaries as to polygraph possibilities in the execution of their functions. Research findings and recommendations aimed at stimulating thought and improvement in the field of polygraphy conclude the dissertation. / Criminology / M.A (Penology)