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. 2021 Oct 11;44(10):zsab124.
doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsab124.

Sleep and interrogation: does losing sleep impact criminal history disclosure?

Zlatan Krizan  1 , Anthony J Miller  1 , Christian A Meissner  1
Affiliations

Sleep and interrogation: does losing sleep impact criminal history disclosure?

Zlatan Krizan et al. Sleep. .

Abstract

Study objectives: Despite centuries of using sleep deprivation to interrogate, there is virtually no scientific evidence on how sleep shapes behavior within interrogation settings. To evaluate the impact of sleeplessness on participants' behavior during investigative interviews, an experimental study examined the impact of sleep restriction on disclosure of past illegal behavior.

Methods: Healthy participants from a university community (N = 143) either maintained or curbed their sleep (up to 4 h a night) across 2 days with sleep monitored via actigraphy. They were then asked to disclose past illegal acts and interviewed about them. Next, they were reinterviewed following an example of a detailed memory account (model statement). Disclosures were blindly coded for quantity and quality by two independent raters.

Results: Sleep-restricted individuals reported similar offenses, but less information during their disclosure with slightly less precision. Model statement increased disclosure but did not reduce the inhibiting impact of sleep loss. Mediation analysis confirmed the causal role of sleep as responsible for experimental differences in amount of information, and participants' reports suggested impaired motivation to recall information played a role.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that even moderate sleep loss can inhibit criminal disclosure during interviews, point to motivational factors as responsible, and suggest investigators should be cautious when interrogating sleepy participants.

Keywords: disclosure; interrogation; interviewing; model statement; sleep.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Distribution of interview-targeted offenses as a function of sleep-restriction.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Quantity (top) and quality (bottom) of disclosed information as function of sleep restriction and the model statement instructions.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Sleep duration as a causal mediator of the impact of sleep-restriction on the number of details initially disclosed.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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