Truth is at hand: how gesture adds information during investigative interviews

Abstract

The accuracy of information obtained in forensic interviews is critically important to credibility in the legal system. Research has shown that the way interviewers frame questions influences the accuracy of witnesses' reports. A separate body of research has shown that speakers gesture spontaneously when they talk and that these gestures can convey information not found anywhere in the speakers' words. In our study, which joins these two literatures, we interviewed children about an event that they had witnessed. Our results demonstrate that (a) interviewers' gestures serve as a source of information (and, at times, misinformation) that can lead witnesses to report incorrect details, and (b) the gestures witnesses spontaneously produce during interviews convey substantive information that is often not conveyed anywhere in their speech, and thus would not appear in written transcripts of the proceedings. These findings underscore the need to attend to, and document, gestures produced in investigative interviews, particularly interviews conducted with children.

Figure 1

Examples of the types of questions used in the scripted interviews. Numbers refer to the 8 types of questions asked.

Figure 2

Mean number of event details children affirmed during the four scripted interviews (top) and the final free-recall interview (bottom), categorized according to type of question asked in the scripted interview. The number beneath each bar corresponds to the numbered examples of the 8 question types in Figure 1.