Psychology Personality disorders Mood related disorders, Study notes of Psychology

Download Psychology Personality disorders Mood related disorders and more Study notes Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! 1 24/07/2019 POLICE INTERROGATION 2 ASPECTS 1. Process of Interrogation- Understood as any psychological interview or questioning session with the perspective of eliciting a confession from a suspect. Interrogation is to obtain a valuable information which can lead to a conviction (not always of the person concerned but of someone else). Interrogation and confession are related notions. Confessions are the most damaging piece of evidence that can be entered in a criminal trial or a court of law against the person and thus confessions becomes an important area of psycho legal study. (The false confessions given by individuals might actually be at times believed to be true by the person itself. So the person who has not committed the crime at times may confess to committing that particular crime and at the time of giving the confession the person might be believing that he has actually committed the crime when he has not actually committed it.) As far as interrogation or the process of interrogation is concerned there are multi- faceted issues. Issues to do with specific procedures which are followed during the interrogation like the conditions which are created at the time of interrogation to facilitate a confession in an individual, the validity of the waiver to the rights which are given by the suspects, the warnings given to the suspects (this has to do with the rights of the suspects- right to remain silent, right to an attorney), the validity of the confession itself. An underlying aspect, for which all of these conditions can be used and have implications for is to do with the notion of Psychological Coercion (is abroad term and any technique used in order to build a pressure on a suspect or in order to influence the responses of the suspect specifically facilitating a confession on the part of suspect which are non-physical in nature is qualified to be a part of psychological tactic and if it is extreme then it is psychological coercion). The notion of Physical Notion is widely accepted in the field of law. There are many cases where courts have rejected evidence from an interrogation which have been physically coercive. Confession through prolonged physical violence, through beatings or the use of any physically coercive technique is considered to be an absolute no in the field of law. Even western cases (prior to the 1950s) there are trend where the courts have consistently rejected invalidated confessions which have been elicited by the use of physical coercion. But the Psychological Coercion is a concept which has found acknowledgement post the 1950s. Looking at the evolution of the acceptance of psychological coercion, gradually there was an increased acceptance and then there was a decline. So there is still acceptance but over a period of time the specific techniques which the courts have used to limit the use of psychological coercion has declined over time. 2 *The courts have now recognized the psychological tactics are inherent in the process of interrogation but the extent to which they are used needs to be restricted in order to ensure that they do not have manipulative impact on the responses of the suspect. To what extent the psychological pressure building tactics are ok and when do they qualify to be psychological coercion and they need to be stopped. Although there is no single defining line but it’s still very fluid. SAUL KASSIN (American Forensic Psychologist) in 1997 gave a list of 6 specific categories, which according to him were qualified to be coerced confessions. 1. Use of Physical Abuse- specifically the use of grouped force and confession resulting from it would essentially be a coerced confession. The other 5 do have a physical element to it because a person is involved and there is some amount of physical discomfort and have an underlying physical element to it but do not qualify to the use of physical violence/abuse/force. 2. Any confession elicited out of prolonged isolation- Individual isolated for a very long time and the response or confession given by the individual post that. 3. Prolonged deprivation of sleep and food- Individual who has not been allowed to sleep for a long time and hasn’t been given food for a long time. It can be argued that not giving food to an individual is a physiological aspect and not allowing a person to sleep is again physical in nature to a certain extent but only so much and beyond that sleep deprivation can have a psychological impact on the decision making of the person as well. 4. Use of promises of leniency or immunity- Here there is manipulation through promising leniency and thus the person ends up confessing falsely with the expectation that he might be left and thus chooses to end up the interrogative process by confessing falsely and is involuntary. 5. Use of threat of punishment or harm- Is clearly a psychological technique with no underlying physical aspect and the interrogator is trying to obtain a certain kind of response by using threats of harm. These responses may or may not be true but either which ways these are involuntarily (individual is promised something in response to a confession then it is involuntary because a manipulative factor was used here) given. Had the confessions been made voluntarily then are admissible in the court of law. 6. Barring exceptional circumstances without giving the warnings with regards to the rights of the suspect- *Miranda Warnings. Miranda v Arizona- Miranda rights speak of a few specific rights and is to do with informing the suspect of his rights (highlighted in the case)- right to remain silent, telling the person that anything said by him could be used against him, right to an attorney and if the person cannot arrange for an attorney then the State would do it for the person. 5 But once the focus of the interviewing shifts from investigative to accusatory one then the attorney should be allowed to be present physically and is essential from the perspective of preventing any kind of psychological coercion or misuse of any psychological tactics. One of the underlying reasons- the presence of an attorney will itself guarantee some kind of psychological security to the suspect who is being interrogated and attorney oversees that psychological pressure is not built.  MIRANDA V ARIZONA (1966) The court in this case specifically came up with rights of the suspect during the interrogation and the warnings to be given to the suspect prior the interrogation. The court acknowledged that psychological pressure tactics are used explicitly during interrogative processes and these tactics can have a forceful impact on the responses of the suspect and resulting in manipulation. The courts also stated that- psychological coercion is actually more widely used then physical coercion. Physical coercion is used in order to ensure psychological coercion. Courts stated-‘The blood of the suspect is not the hallmark of an unconstitutional inquisition’ meaning only if the individual is physically abused does not imply that it would result in an unconstitutional confession. Even without blood/physical abuse the confession can be unconstitutional if it is psychologically abused. In this context the court said that there should be certain rights of the suspect and the person before beginning with the interrogation the suspect shall be informed of the existence of these rights and any confession taken without informing of such rights or without the person voluntarily signing the waiver of these rights would be inadmissible in the court. 4 RIGHTS GIVEN IN THE CASE- 1. Right to remain silent 2. A warning which comes along with the right to remain silent that anything said by the suspect can be used against him. 3. Right to an attorney 4. Right to get a state appointed attorney (if the person cannot afford an attorney). These rights were brought in as a safeguard against psychological coercion and would give a sense of security and would go on to alleviate to certain extent the psychological coercion which would take place during the interrogative process. Looking at the evolution of acceptance of psychological coercion in the field of law, initially there was a strong position that was taken by courts when the acknowledged the existence of psychological coercion but gradually it dwindled off and faded away. So initially not only in the case of direct interrogation but also in a functional equivalent of interrogation (any process which the court decided was a functional equivalent of an interrogative process) had to use the Miranda rights prior to getting any information from the suspect.  BREWER V WILLIAMS (1977) 6 In this case the suspect who was known to be a very religious person had murdered a 10 year old girl and he had hidden away the body. Murder happened close to Christmas. He was arrested and while his way to the police facility the policemen who were travelling with him started discussing the murder and went into the conversation with the man and highlighted how if the case wasn’t solved until Christmas and if the body wasn’t discovered until Christmas it would be extremely sad if the girl would not receive a Christmas burial. For the religious ideology that the man had the Christmas burial was very important. And in the process of the conversation the person in a way admitted to have killed the girl and told the police where the body was hidden. The court in this case rejected the confession given by the suspect and inadmissible in the court and highlighted that the Miranda warnings were not given to the person prior to gathering any information from him. Although it wasn’t exactly an interrogative set up/process but it was a functional equivalent of interrogation. There was a direct exchange of dialogue between the law enforcement personnel and the suspect. The personnel knowing of the suspect’s religious convictions manipulated him into giving a confession and disclosing where the body was. The court ruled that even though it wasn’t typically an interrogation but it was a functional equivalent. INVALID CONFESSION. There was conviction and the person was convicted of murder because the body was discovered and there were a lot ancillary supportive evidences. And court labelled the discovery of body as an ‘inevitable discovery exception’. So although the confession itself does not lead to conviction but information obtained without giving the Miranda warnings has in a way indirectly led to the conviction which is in essence contradictory to Miranda verdict in itself but it was Inevitable that the evidence was there. The exceptions associated with Miranda warnings have grown with the period of time.  RHODE ISLAND V INNIS (1988) The person was arrested for robbing a taxi driver and the robbery happened very close to a school and the weapon used by the robber went missing. And was suspected that the weapon was lost somewhere closer to the school. Here in this case too, on his way to the police facility the police officials were discussing amongst themselves how the robbery had happened close to a school and the weapon was somewhere there and being close to school the children were at threat. The suspect heard the conversation and ended up telling them where the weapon was and they discovered the weapon based on his information. In this case too the Miranda warnings were not given but this case was not considered to be a functional equivalent of an interrogation because the conversation in this case was happening amongst themselves rather that directed towards the suspect. And therefore in this case ‘totality of circumstances clause’ was used, which essentially means that while deciding whether Miranda warnings applies to a particular case or not it is important to consider all the facts of the case rather than just the fact that Miranda warnings were not given and all the facts direct that there was a conversation amongst the police officials and there was no active manipulation and the police officials could not have predicted the impact of the conversation on the suspect. 7 Miranda warning clause does not apply to this case. You look at all the facts of the case and the circumstances rather than just one aspect that for instance in this case that Miranda warning was not given and use this only to determine the case, No. All the facts need to be considered. 10 (Internalized Guilt/Need to punish oneself) Excessive internalized guilt causing the need to punish oneself is another important factor which psychological research highlights. This guilt resulting in punishing oneself further results in the individual committing a crime because he would know that this might lead to conviction and some kind of punishment. Because all of these forces are internal, these confessions are considered to be voluntary in nature. This can be perceived as an inner pressure that the person is exerting rather than external pressure. And this can be psychological coercion coming from within.  INVOLUNTARY FALSE CONFESSION/ COERCED FALSE CONFESSION- ‘Coerced’ because it is assumed that if the person is confessing to something without the willingness and forced into confessing a crime, then there is some level of coercion that is involved and is not restricted to only physical but psychological coercion as well. Coerced Compliant Confessions When the individual is trying to comply externally with certain behaviors which are desired out of the individual. COMPLIANCE IN SOCIAL BEHAVIOR- Compliance explains the behavior when the individual just changes the external behavior in response to certain demands that are placed on the individual but does not necessarily change the internal behavior or beliefs. Changing or altering one’s social behavior even though the internal beliefs are different from what is expressed. 2 Types- (Putting an end to the strenuous process of interrogation/ threatening by causing harm) This might be the case where person might confess to put an end to all the abuse and coercion that the person is going through. (Promises of leniency or immunity offered) In an alternate situation if the person confesses due to immunity or leniency that is promised to the person again the person confesses not because he believes in that but because he feels that there will be certain benefits that he would get if he would confess to the crimes that he hasn’t committed. Coerced Internalized False Confessions An internalization means that the individual actually starts believing in something which might not necessarily be true in the case. These are cases where the individual confesses to the commission of a crime and at the same time also starts believing that he actually did commit the crime when he actually did not. This typically is the case where an individual who is tired of interrogation and is also confused because of all the harsh conditions that he is subjected to (food and sleep deprivation, prolonged isolation) and is exposed to, leads to some kind of cognitive hampering or damaging of rationale decision making of the person. And this cognitive damage (all the harsh conditions during interrogation resulting in a cognitive hampering) combined with ‘interrogative suggestibility’ (Gud Jonsson coined this term) - very suggestive interrogative techniques which are constantly 11 feeding in this information on the person that he committed the crime. This results in a situation where the person starts actually believing that he indeed committed the crime. For Gud Jonsson, a case of Internalized Coerced Confession is simply a game of pressure tactics and confidence game (inducing cognitive confusion) In an experiment done by Kassin where he set up a lab and told his examinees that he is performing an experiment which is to test the reaction time of the examinee. They were supposed to simply sit in front of the computer and when a certain kind of stimuli flashed on the screen (stimuli were to do with alphabets), the examinee was supposed to hit the related alphabet key on the keyboard. Along with this they were told to not press the ‘alt’ key and if they pressed it the computer would crash. The computer was programmed to crash after 10 seconds. So after the experiment started, irrespective of the keys that the examinees pressed the computer would anyway crash after 10 seconds from its commencement. This was followed by this freaked out examiner entering into the lab and blaming the examinee for pressing the alt key. In all of the cases the examinee had not pressed the ‘alt’ key. Results indicated that initially all the examinees denied that they had pressed the ‘alt’ key but once the experimenter explicitly manifested how freaked out and distressed he was, 69% of the examinees went onto agree that they had pressed the ‘alt’ key. Later they were given a questionnaire where they had to respond, 28% of the examinee who agreed to press the ‘alt’ key, actually internalized the fact. The content analysis of their responses showed that they were agreeing to it not because they were under pressure by the examiner but because they actually started believing that they had pressed it. In about 9% of these cases, people actually ‘confabulated’ (Confabulation- filling in the gaps. While recalling an event if there are gaps in that event then as part of the cognitive processes implied in memory, the person is likely to make up the information to fill in those gaps) which meant that when they were asked to give a narrative of what had happened they actually made up the stories and filled in the gaps and came up with their own explanations about how they went on to hit the ‘alt’ key. Also the experiment shows that when the high rate of presentation of stimulus (quickly flashed on the screen) was passed, then the probability of agreeing to having pressed the ‘alt’ key was high as compared to a slow stimulation presentation case where the stimuli was presented slowly and is a relatively less stress inducing situation. In a high stress situation the possibility and probability of internalizing is way more. Research suggests that when you use these conclusions in an actual set up, it might be difficult to differentiate between all of these types. So a lot of times it is not possible to gauge the real motive behind a false confession and therefore a clear cut classification is mostly not possible. And also a lot of internalized confessions are momentary states of believing in something. Once the process is done and over with and the person returns to a relatively normal situation and starts reflecting back again, gains his ability to reason then the realization might dawn that he never really committed the crime. So in a lot cases the internalization might be temporary and might resolve at a later stage. 12 26/07/2019 The supportive evidence we get for most of the techniques thus not essentially come from empirical study (experimentation/artificial research). Most evidence that we have in support of these techniques is essentially procedural evidence (an analysis of actual interrogations taking place, a gradual modification in the specific methods used and study the positive and negative outcomes as a result of these modified methods and in turn coming out with a conclusion with respect to whether the techniques used are effective). PROCEDURAL EVIDENCE- In psychology, any evidence or any supportive conclusions we obtain out of actual behavior happening in the due course of the behavior rather than inducing an experimental manipulation of that behavior. Interrogative tactics haven’t been studied empirically or experimentally through research because an interrogation can’t really be simulated in an artificial setup even if one is told that he has been interrogated, it is never really possible to create that high stress situation that is there in a real setup where the suspect is actually being interrogated. Therefore, actual interrogations are studied rather than the artificial interrogation. A wide variety of psychological techniques are used with respect to interrogation but in most interrogations basically 3 psychological principles are implemented and focused upon (research suggests that if these 3 are implemented with efficiency then interrogation would be extremely effective in getting the expected psychological response out of a suspect). 1. PRINCIPLE OF CONTROL- Interrogation should exert a certain amount of psychological control on the suspect and the suspect through the mannerism and setup of the interrogation should be able to believe that he does not have any control and he will be doing whatever the interrogator wants. It proves effective. He also suppresses his certain emotions which if let out could worsen the situation. 2. PRICIPLE OF GUILT/STRESS INDUCTION- (tension building process) Most interrogative settings induce tension in a gradual way and depending upon the kind of interrogators, an optimal amount of stress/guilt is induced which is used in a particular interrogative settings depending upon the suspect concerned and his characteristics, specifically the emotionality. For some individuals, high levels of guilt induction is effective of others, a low level or rationalism might work. Most interrogations start at a relaxed pace and later an optimal guilt is induced. Guilt/stress individual is an integral part of the interrogative setting and an optimal level of it is required in almost every interrogative setting. 3. PRINCIPLE OF CONFIDENCE- The interrogator communicates to the suspect that he knows it all, who is in control and has a very clear picture of the crime that is committed and is very confident of the certain conclusions he has drawn about the crime. A lot of times some hints are dropped to the suspect which communicate that the interrogator is very clear about these assumptions, has conclusive evidence. They are specifically looking for a confession (that is what they show). 15 This technique however is a clear violation of an individual’s trust because neither the bad cop is so bad nor the good cop is so nice (they just exaggerate their roles). The very purpose of them acting like this is to gather information. This was challenged in Miranda verdict. Courts do recognize it as unethical but despite it is used and a very effective technique. Being unethical, it is not still illegal. Rapport formation is also very important in establishment of baselines. Baseline formation is very important for later understanding that whether if the person is trying to deceive. Establishing baselines means- an understanding of what the natural bodily reactions of the person are concerned with picking up non-verbal cues, so initiating a very normal conversation is going to tell the interrogator about the normal body language of the person and a recognition of these cues is very important because at a later stage any deviation from this initial relaxed body language will tell what impact has the interrogation process has on the person and whether he is trying to lie. So baseline behavior then becomes a comparative measure. Baseline is concerned with 2 areas of functioning- 1. BASELINE WITH REGARDS TO PHYSIOLOGICAL AROUSAL OR STRESS RELATED BEHAVIORS- Considering an interrogation session has some amount of stress since the very start. When stress has not been induced, there is already a certain amount of anxiety and it is important to establish the anxiety and the interrogator has to notice where the anxiety is going on from here on from when the stress is actually induced. The indicators of anxiety can be sweating, fidgety behavior, if person is sitting in closed postures- arms folded, legs crossed, then he is already becoming defensive and if this person sits with an open posture and post stress induction the posture is closed will exhibit that at the beginning not but now he is getting defensive. Some however tend to sit or stand in a certain way like legs crossed but at the beginning if he was open and switches his position during interrogation then it might be an indicator to compulsive behavior and some transition has taken place, eye contact- very little eye contact is when the person if trying to be evasive. Too much eye contact- person keeps staring in the eyes of the interrogator. Both are indicators of deceptive behavior. Evasive behavior is defensive in nature but too much of it means the person is trying to compensate. People who just keep staring shows over compensatory behavior. Shaking, trembling are also stress indicators. 2. DECEPTION CUES- If individuals in the beginning use ambiguous, evasive statements like- ‘I am not sure if that happened.’ (In criminal interrogation, either one is aware of certain facts or he is not- answer should be a clear YES OR NO). Usually people who are not guilty talk in very specific, assertive statements like- ‘I do not know about it’. ‘I have not done it.’ ‘I have not seen it.’ However individuals trying to be evasive talk in uncertainty and this ambiguity is usually there since the beginning. So a guilty person who knows he did wrong will try to evade and misguide the interrogative and he is pre- planning leads to evasive answering even in the beginning (rapport formation), such a person answers general questions with uncertainty even when they are sure of it. The pattern becomes pretty obvious which is evasive. 16 Research tells that frequent mentioning of god and religion by individuals, are often guilty if not entirely then at least they were involved to a certain extent or had knowledge of it. At the start, they try to put up this defense that they are involved in religion and therefore he will not do something like this or will not assist a crime. 17 27/07/2019 During rapport formation very neutral background questions are asked which the suspect can answer honestly without deceiving. It is important because it kind of sets the trend for non- deceptive answering and lays a ground work for honest conversation. CONTENT OF THE QUESTIONS-How are they asked, what specific questions are asked vary from situation to situation and upon style of interrogator but some important factors be kept in mind for questions to work are that of- Questions need to be non-suggestive in nature or non-directive- implies, at least, initially no need to suggest whether person did commit the crime, it is always required to allow some space to the person to come up with such responses for himself. Responses with regards to what extend was he involved in the crime. It also implies that use of specific terms with respect to the nature of crime should be avoided specifically labelling the crime. For example, statements like- ‘You committed the murder.’ And statements regarding the specific crime, such labels at least initially should not be announced explicitly. This is because these threatening terms can be inducing defensive behavior, even a normal person will get defensive hearing of such a crime label against him. So when a suspect is challenged on face, it will instantly put him in a defensive position and would straight forwardly deny. Once he begins to deny the responsibility for the crime then it is likely to lead to further denial during interrogation. In order to prevent defensive responding style- use of labels, direct challenge, associating labels with him should be avoided. Along with this if the labels are themselves suggestive in nature like saying ‘a murder has occurred’ is like painting a framework or a context within which the suspect will start responding from thereon. So instead of doing so and defining the range of responses for suspect would also limit his responses. It is thus important to engage in open ended questioning and wait for suspect to come up with what he understands of the crime and this gives the sense of his regarding the crime, it will let the interrogator know what he sees there, foe example, a killing like, as a murder, abuse, act of violence basically how he wants to label or tag it. Investigator should probe for specifics instead of painting a global broad picture of what happened- Probing for specifics gives a very important understanding of what extent the person is engaged in crime, his understanding of it and later to detect if he is lying. Because these specifics can later be challenged with respect to certain information where interrogator might have about the crime and also when one gets into specifics and minor details. When the person is asked to retain the crime later, it is more likely that if he is lying, he will be ending up countering himself giving some contradicting information. While questioning the EMOTIONALITY of suspect is important, it is also important for interrogator to start gauging the individual’s emotionality right at the rapport formation stage. Usually, extremely emotional individuals (neurotic individuals- anxious, sensitive, give-in stress situations, easy to anger, very sensitive in responding to environmental stimuli, more reactive 20 deceptive techniques continue to be used in court through the process of interrogation resulting in waivers and confessions. When individual is not guilty it is understandable why would they waive off their rights but so many suspects waive off their rights and offer potentially incriminating evidence against themselves. So these are individuals who probably did commit the crime and are still deciding to waive off their rights and it is clearly against their self-interest. So it is worth thinking why they actually engaged in that. 1 UNIT-II INVESTIGATIVE PSYCHOLOGY 02/08/2019 CRIMINAL PROFILING It is basically when one tries to construct a sketch of who the criminal might be. Establishing motive is one tiny part of it. It is a very long plus complex process where multiple psychological attributes of the person concerned are sketched plus evaluated. One primary goal is to narrow the area of focus with respect to the suspect. So, therefore, it is basically generating a psychological sketch of the criminal. ABC of Psychology A- Attitude B- Behavior C- Cognition And in the context of profiling we add a ‘D’ which is Demographic Features. So, while creating such sketch of a criminal or anyone, there are 4 important aspects included essentially, which are-  Affective Attributes  Behavioral Attributes  Cognitive Attributes  Demographic Attributes So, the potential criminal or the kind pf person who cannot commit a specific crime, profiling done for both cases- where crime is committed or in a situation where there is a potential for a particular crime to occur. E.g. Terrorism (kind of people or psychological sketch of such people who tend to become terrorists). Demographic variables could be anything regarding the background of the person like- age, gender, socio-economic background, nationality, culture, ethnicity, race, etc. Issue of the reliability of criminal profiling (specifically to what extent is it admissible in a court of law)- There is a very high level of subjectivity when it comes to reliability and validity of criminal profiling within the psychological fraternity as well as the legal fraternity. The specific term used to define profiling has a significant impact on perception of reliability plus validity of it. Criminal profiling is also sometimes called CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE ANALYSIS and a lot of research is done in evaluating the term criminal profiling vs. what technical or scientific terms and the series of these studies come from research work done by American Forensic psychologist- Torres et al (very recent studies, 21st century, 2006-07), they evaluated and perceived reliability plus validity of criminal profiling vs. criminal investigative analysis. Both of them describe same process and the result showed that the perceived reliability within the psychological community was way higher when ‘Criminal Investigative Analysis’ 2 was used as compared to ‘Criminal Profiling’. So, a certain amount of trust in the effectiveness and efficiency of procedure was way higher when a more technical term was used and these results were also replicated in legal community. Thus, usually the forensic psychologists who engage in criminal profiling strongly believe when scientific term is used, it is more likely to be admissive in a court of law. What courts have said about admitting evidence based on criminal profiling varies from case to case and the reasons stated are very valid based on the evidence presented. But if we talk about certain background psychological cognitive processes which significantly impact the judgment of the judge/jury with respect to certain evidence then the use of the term to begin with has a significant impact on how it is evaluated by the judge and in turn has an impact on whether it is admitted in court. If one looks at legal evidence, courts have cited legally valid reasons for either admitting or rejecting evidence based on criminal profiling but studies in psychology shows- even though the use of term in court is not cited as reason for rejecting it but because the term ‘criminal investigative analysis’ sounds more scientific, technical, therefore more likely to get accepted. Depending upon the purpose, factors, method, end goal of criminal profiling, there are basically 5 broad categories of criminal profiling. These 5 categories can further be divided into 2. When the criminal (suspect) is not known- 1. Crime Scene Profiling The next 2 are usually done when suspect is known- 2. Suspect Based Profiling 3. Geographical Profiling The next 2 for analysis of criminal and in turn the information is used for future crimes- 4. Psychological Autopsy 5. Psychological Profiling (a psychological assessment of criminal) CRIME SCENE PROFILING Psychological analysis of the elements present at the crime scene, in most cases it is like most other profiling but specifically crime scene plus suspect based plus geographical. Crime scene plus geographical profiling are mostly, usually done in case of serial killers, serial robbers, rapists, murders, thefts, etc. GEOGRAPHICAL PROFILING Mostly done in cases of violence, murders (crime against human), most effective in cases of serial rapists, murderers. Crime scene profiling is basically a process by which the affective, behavioral, cognitive and demographic features of criminal/suspects are denial based on analysis of the crime scene. It is based on the assumption that the manner in which the crime is committed, the elements present 5 03/08/2019 Usually in an organized crime scene, victim is selected beforehand whereas in disorganized crime scene, there is a greater likelihood that victim was just picked by chance and was a victim due to the situation. There is also an active recognition of Mixed Crime Scene that has elements of both organized and disorganized crime scene (an almost equal elements of both). In most cases where there are dominant plus elements of both then possibility is that the crime was planned but at the time of execution something unexpected happens and things go out of hands that results in disorganization. Example-  A serial killer locates the victim, plans crime, at the time of execution, the victim is maybe stronger or a third person might come over, resulting in disorganization.  A gang of robbers which engages in serial robberies and watches a house and behavior of individuals residing in it and notice that everyone leaves the place by 10:00 a.m. and finds it as a perfect time but when they in process of committing it, they figure out there is an elderly living in house. So this planned robbery could turn into a murder. Four important concepts from the perspective of psychological analysis and crime scene profiling- 1. UNDOING- A process wherein there is an active attempt on the part of criminal to undo the things that happened at crime scene. Undoing is very common in a mixed crime scene. Example- a robber, in a mixed crime scene commits a murder, as a result he will start cleaning blood, move the body, hide it or places it in a position which suggests that the death was due to an accident (portraying murder as suicide). His mentality is to portray that the crime did not happen. If murder is portrayed as it was an accident with a motive that no murder was committed, it will be undoing but it also has an element of staging, where death is portrayed as a suicide. 2. STAGING- Adding certain additional elements to crime scene. A crime happened but happened differently is staging. An elusive technique by criminal. 3. TROPHIES- Elements from the crime scene which criminals after committing crime take away with them and steal them. They draw a sense of achievement of it. Trophies even signatures represent elements wherein the individual has gone beyond what is required to actually commit the crime therefore they offer very valuable information about personality analysis of criminal. 4. SIGNATURES- Special aspects which the criminal either engages in or which he leaves behind being symbolic of the crime and simply a signature at crime committed. The criminal leaves it to portray his certain traits and it can portray valuable information about his personality. Signatures and trophies depict a more stable pattern of behavior and are reflection of more stable risk factors because they are consistent to a very large extent over a period of time. 6 MODUS OPERANDI OF CRIMINAL- Manner in which the crime is committed. Trophies and signatures form a part of modus operandi of individual which is why they are relatively stable. It is more likely to be in a stable position over a period of time and because of this the manner of commission of crime offer valuable information of criminal. Modus operandi can change over a time period like a psychopath while committing crime gains certain experiences might get him more skilled which might result in modifying means operandi, and can also change due to certain physical changes in body, like, if a serial killer ages, his physical activity lowers which might alter his modus operandi. In cases of psychopathy, changes in psychological make up of individual like psychological state of a person deteriorates over also tend to change. Example- Ted Bundy got skilled while he committing crimes, gained experiences which had an impact on his psychological makeup resulting in more emotionally aggressive crime and more planned crimes. 2nd Type of profiling: SUSPECT BASED PROFILING In criminal based profiling- Analyzing elements of crime scene in order to get an understanding of the traits of criminal. In contrast, in suspect based profiling, we analyze traits, characteristics of already known criminals in order to determine who is likely to commit a crime. There are 4 important elements from the perspective of getting an understanding of the- affective traits, behavioral traits, cognitive abilities and demographic features of the individuals. These features of known criminals are analyzed to get an understanding of who is likely to commit a crime. This is very frequently done in cases of terrorism, drug trafficking. People having history of active involvement in terrorism forms a basis of behavioral traits that can be analyzed in other individuals. Suspect based profiling is very prevalent, specifically in US. It is though a subject of criticism mainly due to most suspect profiling is appearance based. As so much information and factors are potentially available, so the most convenient factor that one can rely on is the appearance. Appearance Based Profiling- Profiling done on the basis of what a potential criminal/suspect may look like. It uses pre-dominantly demographic elements and descriptors of the appearance of the individual. Aspects like- age, gender, nationality, ethnicity, religion, manner of dressing etc., all of these aspects are useful but to certain extent but using purely appearance based profiling is also extremely problematic because like in case of terrorism- individuals who are dressed in a certain way or individuals who belong to certain nationalities and certain religion are more likely to be searched extensively, also strip searched at an airport. Appearance based profiling when done on the basis of race, ethnicity then also called Racial Profiling. Cases of racial profiling kind of peaked in the US after the attack on the World Trade Center. So individuals who were Sikhs were more likely to be harassed on the airport because the appearance fit Osama bin Laden. Also after this attack there was a phrase in the US that was doing rounds ‘Driving while black’. Originally the phrase being- ‘Driving while intoxicated’ but critics substituted intoxicated with black because in a lot of cases individuals who were of Hispanic origin or who were black were more likely to be stopped by the police personnel on some very basic minimal traffic violation and were likely to be extensively searched because it was anticipated that they were transporting 7 weapons (terrorism) or drug trafficking. In the US the typical description of someone who is likely to be trafficking drugs is that of an individual belonging to a middle class, usually and adolescent/teenager or and individual in young adulthood and an individual who is black. Lehman Brothers Collapse- A huge financial banking firm in the US and that led to the global meltdown and led to the collapse of not just the US economy but also a global collapse. The shares crashed tremendously and this essentially was a time of global financial crisis. Later analysis showed that essentially it was the financial crisis leading to unemployment which resulted in immigration from Mexico to US and at the same time there was rise in drug trafficking because a lot of Americans lost their jobs. Rising immigration and drug trafficking and are both correlated and basis that the law enforcement agencies are assuming that due to immigration the drug trafficking levels has increased. They are attributing a causal relationship between the two. But is not true. It is the unemployment which has led to increased immigration and it is the increase in unemployment which is also resulted in more and more people dealing in drugs because they had nothing to do. This essentially is the problem with Appearance/Racial based profiling. Lastly, Suspect based profiling that has to do with terrorism and to do with screening people for security at the airport. So, individuals belonging to a particular nationality, religion and dressed in a particular way are more likely to be taken aside for intensive checking. This principal is usually followed at the airports (appearance based profiling). People who are traditionally dressed (Asians in general)- Indian women wearing saree, jewelry and men in kurta pajama are way more likely to be intensively to be taken aside for a pat down and not only in the US but also in European countries and Australia. Appearance based checking and pat down is extremely common in airports in order to test for terrorism but a lot of research tells that it is not a very effective way for screening for terrorism. About 20 years ago there was a particular kind of behavioral screening in place called Computer Assisted Passenger Pre Screening techniques and abbreviated as CAPS. In US there is active recognition that appearance based profiling is not very effective as far as terrorism is concerned and what they started testing is a more behavioral based profiling – CAPS. Now being implemented and extensively used in the US. They are based on certain information which is generated from the passenger before the passenger actually arrives at the airport and boards the flight. Information related to very basic behavior of the passenger. Research tells that (info related to basically how many tickets are booked by the passenger, whether cards or cash used while booking the tickets) individuals who book single ticket, who book ticket for only forward journey and no return journey, passengers who use cash for booking (in US the use of card is more common sousing cash becomes a differentiating factor), passengers using cards and booking tickets of multiple people with different second names (not family tickets)- these individuals are more likely to engage in acts of terrorism. Although these systems are fairly high in effectiveness but they have low efficiency and that is the basis for a lot of criticism. Effectiveness means when we are using such technological or behavioral based mechanisms then the probability of actually locating a potential terrorist is way more. So the effectiveness is more than the simple appearance based profiling. Nonetheless the 10 seen in cases of psychopaths and serial killers and depending upon this spatial movement, if there is a pattern and depending upon this spatial movement if there is a pattern then the spatial movement can be categorized under one of the 4 categories. 1. HUNTERS- Are individuals who roam about their base and thus depending upon where there base is. They roam and step out specifically from their base looking for a victim and have a clear idea about who the victim is. They Have certain features in mind and thus roam to across an individual who fits the description which they have in the mind. They follow this target for a long period of time, plan out for how they would attack them and gradually execute their crime. They definitely have an image of the victim in mind. 2. POACHERS – Also, a similar category, the only difference being that the poachers were more transient as far as their spatial movement is concerned whereas hunters were more likely to roam about their base and their territory was usually smaller and attacked people who were closer to their base. Poachers are likely to travel longer distances and maybe spend a little more time at a place away from their base and then locate the victim and attack him. Other than the spread of the spatial location the pattern was exactly the same between the hunters and the poachers. High level of planning and control that was depicted in these crimes. 3. TROLLERS- These are very different from the hunters and the poachers in the sense that they do not set out with the intent of searching the victim. They do not actively go out on a hunt for the victim but as part of their everyday activities, they come across certain people who trigger some aggressive tendencies in them and because of this triggering, they end up committing the crime. The trigger happens at the moment but in case of hunters and poachers the trigger is a constant phenomenon. 11 08/08/2019 4. TRAPPES- A category in which the individual/criminal (very common in cases of psychopathy) where they create certain situations in order to lure the victim or to attract them to their base instead of actively going out in search of victim or just randomly coming across the victim. The situations herein are created to attract to the base of the operation. (Movie- Hostel typical example of trappers) There is an elaborate base that is set up with all the equipment so as to execute the crime after luring. To trap, like there can be fake advertisements in the newspapers maybe an ad for an interview which is not authentic-just to trap the people who would attend the interview. The first 3 kinds of criminal profiling which is where the suspects are unknown to us. In the other 2 kinds (psychological autopsy and psychological profiling), the criminal is known to us and that he is the one who has committed the crime and an analysis is conducted on the person simply to understand the psyche of the person concerned. In case where the person is alive and is readily available for conducting the analysis then in that case the psychological profiling is conducted but when the person is dead then in such a case, psychological autopsy is conducted. PSYCHOLOGICAL AUTOPSY- This is 3 folds and Is frequently called as ‘Reconstructive Death Analysis’ or ‘Reconstructive Psychological Analysis’ which is also frequently known as ‘Equivocal Death Analysis’. It is basically a procedure which is conducted to figure out the manner of death of the person. The focal point being the person who is dead and it is performed with the perspective of understanding what led to the death of the person or what was the manner of the death of the person. In this case the person/object of analysis is known and by way of understanding what led to the death of the person, the end goal is to differentiate between if there are people involved in the death of the person, then who these people are. Manner of Death- the term ‘Equivocal Death Analysis’ coined by Edmin Shneidman, in the context of the large number of cases of death that were coming up which were unexplained and unambiguous. And it is this when the services of Shneidman were utilized who then acted as a forensic psychologist. The procedure used by him- ‘Equivocal Death Analysis’ (equivocal’- unambiguous, something unclear). So the death being unambiguous and thus the procedure named so. With other various strategies also being used, there is a broader term used now, which is, psychological autopsy. Also explained the Manner of Death to imply something. Shneidman stated 5 manners of death of a person- 1. Accidental 2. Natural (illness-cancer, heart attack, etc.) 3. If neither of the above two then someone is involved in killing the person, and if himself then Suicidal. 4. Homicidal- when someone else is involved in killing the person. 5. Undetermined Death, the cause is unknown. Initially the idea of psychological autopsy or specifically equivocal death analysis was used and introduced in the area of undetermined deaths where the manner of death remained unknown. 12 Today it is most commonly used in area of Suicides, specifically used to determine the series of events that led to the commission of suicide in the individual. In this context there are 2 specific terms that are used-  ‘Suicide Psychological Autopsy’- The term used if used in cases of suicide.  ‘Equivocal Death Psychological Autopsy’- The term used if used in the area of undetermined death. Shneidman very actively differentiated between the ‘manner of death, and the ‘cause of death’. For instance, a person goes on hills for a vacation, falls off from the edge of the hill and ends up dying. The cause of death in this case would be- Falling off from the death. The manner of death could be accidental (if slips), could be a suicide (if himself jumps off), could be homicidal (if accompanied by few friends and they push him), could be natural (if had a weak heart and reaching the edge of the cliff gets a heart stroke if he is phobic of heights). So when it is known that what resulted in the falling then the manner of death could be any of the 5 but if it is not known then the equivocal death analysis is performed and potentially lead to what led to the death of the person. From a legal perspective, the cases in which psychological autopsy can be used- whether there were people responsible for killing someone, can be used by insurance agencies esp. the western ones to determine whether the death is a suicide or death is due to some other manner. If suicide then insurance can’t be claimed. Also can be used by legal agencies to determine the role that someone else has to play in a suicide. ‘Reconstructive Death Analysis’- Where the possible manner of death is being reconstructed psychologically. The procedure which is followed as part of psychological autopsy is a very wide open ended procedure and this is one major problem with performing a psychological autopsy that here is no standardized procedure which is followed to conduct a psychological autopsy. It, to a very large extent depends on the experience and expertise of the psychologist who conducts the psychological autopsy. One of the primary tool used as part of psychological autopsy is interviews with the relatives, acquaintances, friends, colleagues at work, and peers at school of the person who has died or anyone who could give valuable information in order to get the complete picture of the context of the death of the person. However there are major limitations of conducting interviews with relatives in case of suicide- that when you try to construct a narrative of the death of the person, then essentially you get a colored or subjective perspective about the person. A perspective which is shaped by the appraisals of the interviewee and the relative and there is no way to get an objective picture or understand how the person who has died interpreted the reality. So, you can get some vague understanding of the context of the person, of the environment of the person but that certainly cannot be same as the person himself. But if you integrate a large number of perspectives and data then to a certain extent it is possible to develop a potential narrative for the person who has died. The interview of the relative is the only aspect where the primary data 15 09/08/2019 MAJOR LIMITATION TO PROFILING The most important limitation of profiling which applies to all methods of profiling- that it is in essence categorical in nature and that in itself is problematic inherently from the perspective of categorizing human behavior. Human behavior is not amenable to categorization because any human trait be it a normal, deviant or an abnormal trait, varies along a continuum and therefore it becomes problematic when you are trying to make very concrete categories as far as human behavior is concerned. And therefore although in profiling we constantly talk about categorization of human behavior, it is more for the purpose of convenience and the ease with which we deal with the data rather than guaranteeing effectiveness and efficiency. So it might be at the cost of efficiency of understanding human behavior but because human behavior offers an entire plethora or range of variables therefore for us to be able to manage, handle and understand human behavior and to be able to make valid inferences out of it, it becomes important for us to categorize it but this categorization might not be a direct reflection of reality. Even the categorization of a crime scene as an Organized v a Disorganized crime scene should rather be understood as varying on a continuum than being two distinct categories because even if it is not a mixed crime scene (a crime scene which has almost equal elements of organization and disorganization), it would still have some elements of other categories. Thus it is productive to understand ‘categories’ as lying on a continuum rather than as distinct, concrete, watertight categories in themselves. It is desired that continuums be created rather than categorization but creating continuums adds to the complexities and adds to the number of variables which you recognize are present whereas, categorization is more convenient and gives us relatively fixed categories and easier categories to work with and understand human behavior. So, therefore in the name of convenience, in the name of ease of handling and managing and inferring data, categories are created but they might not be a direct reflection of what human behavior is actually entails. OTHER OBJECTIONS/LIMITATIONS TO PROFILING These are more applicable to crime scenes or geographical profiling rather than the other sorts. One of the major limitations of ‘crime-scene profiling’ is- The assumption that certain characteristics of the crime scene are likely to reflect certain specific behaviors or traits of an individual which are universally applicable. This assumption of one on one correspondence is based on certain universal generalized principles to the ignorance of individual differences. So, an awareness of the fact that human behavior is extremely varied and there might not necessarily be a one on one correspondence between what is seen and the trait which actually exists. The recognition of this limitation is extremely important which gives the investigator a certain amount of flexibility in drawing conclusions about behavior. Inflexible adherence to this (limitation) can lead to an inaccurate profiles which might be created and might be of no use in the process of investigation. So one needs to be 16 careful while drawing generalized inferences about human behavior on the basis of elements which are present on the crime scene. Another limitation applicable to both crime scene profiling and geographical profiling, more applicable to these is the assumption of Trans- temporal and Trans- spatial or tans- situational consistency of behavior. It is the assumption that the behavior of the criminal or the perpetrator is going to be same across situation, space and locations and across time. (The modus operandi or the manner of execution of the crime is likely to change over a period of time and also across situations). For instance, as the serial killer gains more and more experience with the commission of the crime, he is likely to lead to more refinement and at least some modification in the manner in which he executes the crime. So if we stick to elements which were seen in the first crime scene and the inference that were drawn from that then it shall lead to a misleading profile because the perpetrator is altering his behavior as time progresses through experience (like bodily changes- grows old, become weak and the manner of commission of crime changes. Initially maybe the weapon wasn’t used due to strength in the person but eventually one might find the use of arms in order to control the victims a little more.). Also there are trans-situational and trans-spatial variations are there. So depending upon what the situation has to offer, the modus operandi is also likely to change. Then one has to keep accounting for and acknowledging these changes over a period of time and across situations. As we keep introducing more and more variables, (for instance, accounting for trans-temporal variations is introduction of a variable where we say that the behavior varies on the basis of time as well) the process of profiling becomes more complicated. The purpose of profiling is to reduce variables and practice more control on the inferences one is drawing. And when one is trying to account for all these variables and process is becoming more and more complex, difficult to execute and therefore the effectiveness and accuracy might also be decreasing over a period of time. The unsustainable assumption about the power of personality of the perpetrator to overpower the situation. Esp. in crime scene profiling, for instance, we are constantly drawing a sketch of the personality of the perpetrator and essentially say that everything happening at the crime scene is a reflection of the personality of the perpetrator and therefore it is the personality of the perpetrator and the perpetrator which is responsible for everything happening at the crime scene. We function on the basis of a unilateral assumption wherein there is a perpetrator with a specific kind of personality and that personality in turn is affecting everything and is the sole determinant of everything that is present at the crime scene. And this assumption in itself is highly flawed because if the entire crime scene is looked at with a holistic global perspective, we would find that the perpetrator is just one element in the entire plethora of elements which are affecting the crime scene, which determine what is happening at the crime scene. Another very important element is the victim himself. So everything that happened at the crime scene also the manner in which the crime was executed is not solely the refection of the personality of the perpetrator. But is also a direct reflection of the victim. So, for instance, there was a robbery and breaking into a house and when the perpetrator actually went in he found that there was a woman present who was very strong and composed in the face of a crisis and 17 therefore able to put up a strong defense. So the elements found at the crime scene then would not only be a reflection of the perpetrator but also of the victim (he woman). Crime scene profiling is very significantly eliminating the role of the victim. So what is important then is to take perpetrator/offender perspective but also shift the perspective and take victim perspective into consideration. And both these perspective together in unity form an important element, an interdependent element of the crime scene. This in turn would lead to specific analysis with respect to what elements of the crime scene were responsible and are a reflection of the victim personality which in turn is likely to improve the final categorization of profile that we have because we have simply systematically eliminated the victim elements which are relevant from the victim perspective and therefore we have a clear unique offender perspective. Also geographical profiling- when we talk about the spatial movement of the perpetrator we assume that the spatial movement is almost entirely dependent on the likings of the choices which the offender has made. But to very large extent that might also be a reflection of where a perpetrator is finding the victims, where is a greater likelihood of locating the victim to begin with. So taking victim perspective becomes important. Specifically, the suspect based profiling, when we make very specific generalized principles then that becomes problematic. This is called- taking an idiographic approach vs. nomothetic approach. (an idiographic approach is about studying the uniqueness of an individual and drawing principles which highlight or focus on the uniqueness of individual behavior and differences rather than on drawing a generalized body of data. By contrast, the nomothetic approach focusses on drawing generalized principles about human behavior which are universally applicable rather than specific aspects which has to do with individual differences). When we take crime scene profiling we take an idiographic approach where you analyze data to draw principles about the traits or characteristics of one individual-the one committing the crime. So in the context of suspect based profiling it is always said that it should take a nomothetic approach wherein behavior based principles about a general category should be drawn, principles which apply to a large number of people rather than unique principles which apply to a very small group of people. Like- where description based on nationality is given, the moment we talk about nationality we kind of minimize the group that we talk about and this becomes idiographic in nature. (Also- style, religion, etc. minimizes the group because the principle talks of a specific group then). Because someone’s dress looks like that of Osama Bin Laden therefore that person is more likely to be a terrorist and this essentially is a very biased approach to suspect based profiling and needs to be avoided. A more nomothetic approach would be- passenger pre-assessment, wherein we say that it is the behavior of the individual rather than the general description of what the person looks like that should be basis for screening of terrorism. A description like- what is the behavior at the time of booking a ticket and what is the behavior which is more likely to make the individual a terrorist- booking a single ticket, booking tickets for multiple last names on the same credit card. So behaviors like this can be done by the entire population (global). And therefore we have a principle which technically is applicable to anybody and everybody who is flying without excluding any part of the population. This becomes a nomothetic approach. 20 10/08/2019 DECEPTIVE BEHAVIOR Trying to present a picture which actually is not true and could be about oneself or regarding anything at all. Within the criminal justice system deception and detection of deception is very common because whenever there are investigations, interviews with witness or potential criminals, then the investigator always has to be careful with respect to whether a person is telling the truth or not. So even when the person is not actively involved in using technique which are associated with detection of deception, in any criminal interviewing process, the awareness of whether the person is lying or not or focus on some queues that the person might be giving out which might be indicative of lying should always be kept in mind. A deceptive behavior has broadly been understood as ‘any behavior which is aimed at concealing or giving out incorrect information and could be complete concealment of information or misrepresentation of information with the intent to mislead the investigator or the criminal justice system. When incorrect facts are given out without the intention (out of no awareness, inadvertently, accidently giving incorrect facts) of misleading the justice system then that wouldn’t qualify to be a deceptive behavior. Establishing intent is difficult. To establish intent we end up using same queues and the same techniques that we used for detection of deception in general. The most basic question that arises is- Are people any good at detecting deception or lying? Familiarity with one particular person can play a role in you getting a feeling whether he is lying or not (like when you are friends with someone). But the general answer given by researches is- NO and people are not good and do not have the capacity to detect deception. In fact research tells that layman’s ability to detect deception is actually poor in most cases. A lot of this research is done by- Paul Ekman. He has done research in the field of psychology in non-verbal behavior and specifically started the research with the establishment of the fact that there are a lot of universal queues which are associated with certain emotions and therefore they are innate in nature. Ekman used people from multiple cultures and he used the pictures of these people emoting and exposed a lot of individuals with these pictures (shown them). This research essentially suggested that irrespective of nationality, ethnicity, race, color and the background- he was still able to gauge the correct emotions by the facial expression (the most basic expression- happiness so whenever anyone would see the pulled muscles on the face anyone would know that the person is happy and thus this being universal). He said that culture does not necessarily play a role in determining the expression of these emotions and therefore these emotions become universal in nature. This was the base how Ekman started his research in emotions. So in his research upon lying and deception by regular normal people he concluded that people normally don not have good abilities to detect deception and people are no better to detect deception in more than 60% of the cases. (This 60% in isolation might seem a significant number but purely basing the judgment on whether someone is lying or not on chance factors then what are the probability that you will be able to detect whether someone is lying or not). So when we 21 are asked that whether a person is lying or not then our chances of guessing it right would be 50%. So if your chance of 50% of being right and then your own logic amounting to 60% then it is not of significance. Another point brought up was that it depends on the experience of the investigator. A lot of research of Ekman tells that even when an individual has experience and an individual is very confident with regards to the accuracy of his response (whether someone is lying or not), even in these cases the figures are not very pleasing. And they are no better than a layman in detecting deception. 29% is the highest figure that Ekman has arrived at and says that 29% of experts in the field of detecting deception- individuals who have significant amount of experience in the area, even when research is done on these people-roughly not more than about 29% have accuracy rates greater than 80%. What differentiates one who has high ability in detecting deception from someone who is not doing as well? He says that individuals who actually had an accuracy over 80% relied on multiple queues and signals of potential lies which an individual was giving out. So, instead of relying only on non-verbal cues (cues which are more frequently looked at when one is trying to gauge whether there is deception or not) most good detectors rely on both non- verbal and verbal cues and multiple specific signals which the individual gives out and this increases the accuracy of detecting deception. He also points out that an individual who has a lot of experience (older investigators) were to a certain extent less accurate in detecting deception esp. in cases where proper training was not given to these individuals (only experience and no training). The first and foremost reason which Ekman gives for that is Functional Fixedness. It is a kind of a heuristic (heuristics are mental shortcuts, rule of thumb which we use frequently and rely on them because it is a convenient, quicker way of processing information and uses up fewer cognitive resources. But they might not necessarily be accurate.) and is a result of the usage of a lot of heuristics. When we rely a lot on heuristics then it might result in a particular form of or manner of thinking or appraising information which is called functional fixedness. And we have a tendency to use objects as they have been traditionally used or solve problems by using the same techniques which we have traditionally used to follow those problems and functional fixedness then restricts out of the box thinking. Functional fixedness restricts your creativity. Now applying this concept to this particular area, Ekman said that individuals who are old and have experience suffer from high level of functional fixedness which means they tend to appraise the cues which they get from an individual in very traditional ways (ways which have been used ever since) and this results in limited ability to come up with new and novel ideas to appraise cues and therefore the ability to detect deception is poorer than individuals who have just started and have little experience. This is the cognitive reason. The second reason that he states is poorer observation powers. So younger individuals have better observational powers, better abilities to gauge verbal and non- verbal cues from interviewees as compared to older individuals who because of age, monotony of work, lack of interest results in poor observational abilities. Ekman also pointed out that there are no real 22 gender differences in detecting deception in layman or an experienced individual. Men are as good as women and are equally at par in detecting deception. Experience and training do not go hand in hand. So individuals can be trained to become better at detecting deception if adequate training techniques and updated training techniques are used in training these individuals. So studies with respect to trainings give mixed results with respect to the impact of trainings. In fact most studies tells that when training techniques which are used are traditional and old and may be outdated in nature then that might actually lead to decreased accuracy rates as far as detection of deception is concerned. Studies show that a lot of detectors of deception who are trained in the Reid method of interrogation and observation do not actually perform better than individuals who are not trained. Reid method is a traditional method of interrogation and observation of cues and thus lead to poorer abilities to detect deception and one of the reasons why this happens is – functional fixedness because they have been trained in a certain way which might be outdated which is restricting them to those outdated traditional ways and they kind of do not use any new or novel ways of detecting deception. But at the same time what also is at work is the false confidence level which an individual gets and confidence has in most cases been negatively co-related with accuracy which means that if confidence levels are too high and individuals are not well equipped to detect deception then it is likely to lead to poorer accuracy rates in detecting deception in individuals. So poor training methods convey false confidence to people in their ability to detect deception which in turn results in poor accuracy. But if more up to date techniques are used to train individuals then training is definitely likely to have a positive impact in detecting deception. Truth Wizards- It is the term specifically used in the context of these people who have been well trained and are aware and use multiple avenues. And they have excellent accuracy levels. They use multiple cues to detect deception: non-verbal, verbal (good mix of both) , they also have training in multiple techniques of deception and because of this rich arena of techniques that they are aware of their accuracy rates are significantly high. Comparative studies which have been done on actual real life high stake situation tell us that the avenues which can be used to detect deception in high stake situations are actually very different from the avenues or cues which are used in low stake situations. So in high stake situations which is close to real life situations where risk is high uncertainty is high and emotions are intense, in these situations the emotional cues are very prominent. Emotional cues which give away signs of deception. Ekman proposed the theory of- Leaky Channels Theory and said that when individuals are experiencing very high levels of emotions then individuals tend to give away some cues through channels which are normally not used as part of communication. So in a normal, relatively relaxed situation people tend use certain avenues and these avenues are prominently verbal avenues and some basic nonverbal avenues for communication. But when stakes are high and is a high risk situation then very inadvertently in a very unconscious, automated way people start using certain channels which tend to leak certain cues which are associated with deception. These channels are emotional in nature and these channels might not always be used as part of communication. It is these emotional channels which can be capitalized 25 would be an indicator of deceptive behavior according to the emotional or affective approach. But procedural evidence suggests that gaze aversion and fidgeting are not really associated with deceiving in an actual high stake/stress situation. In fact the behavior which is depicted more often in these situations is just the opposite. There is a high likelihood that the individual who is likely to lie is actually fidgeting less and tend to engaging in lesser amount of gaze aversion. These behavioral patterns of lower gaze aversion and lower fidgeting behavior is better explained by the other 2 approaches. 2. The Cognitive Complexity/Capacity Approach- It is based on the fundamental assumption that individuals have limited information processing capacity. This idea was first proposed by Daniel Kahnman who gave the information processing models of human cognition and projected that individuals have limited mental or cognitive capacity to process information. (One of the theories of ‘attention’ talks about how we have limited information processing capacity which is why we are selectively attending to a set of stimuli and preventing another set of stimuli from entry into our cognition because we are incapable of processing and attending to all sensory stimuli which are impinging upon our senses and the theory goes on to explain what are the factors which determine which bits and pieces of information would be selected to enter into our cognition) and all the behaviors that we are engaging in are essentially utilizing these specific limited information processing capacity. Every possible behavior and also all the involuntary activities (the fact that you are breathing automatically, heart beating, lungs moving) are also utilizing that part of that limited information processing capacity in order to engage in any or every behavior, whether voluntary or involuntary. Considering, how the act of lying is in itself a cognitively demanding activity. Comparing the 2 situations- where someone is telling the truth and engaging in minimal information processing. So simply just drawing the truth from ones memory which would take up some information processing capacity but simply drawing information from someone’s memory and splitting it out versus the process of fabricating a lie which is a way more complex process which also engages several multiple processes at the cognitive level. So on one hand one is fabricating and at the same time trying to remember what one is saying. So it is a process of creation and formulation of a memory at the same time. So if I lie and tell a false story and telling a false story but I am also at the same time remembering or memorizing everything that I am telling you which is also cognitively engaging. One of the foremost reason for doing that- to remember what I have told you so that at a later point I don’t contradict myself. At the same time in an interrogative situation, while a suspect or an interviewee is fabricating or creating a lie and he is also taking into account that the interviewee explains or accounts for all the evidence which the investigative agencies have at hand. Again it is something which is cognitively more stressful. Along with all the verbals which the individual is creating consider all the nonverbal which the person is taking into account. So the person is also taking into account one’s own body language, the person knows that probably one’s body language and nonverbal can be indicators of deception. So a constant monitoring of one’s own body language and the indicators which the investigator is communicating in order to make sure that the investigator is actually buying what the person is saying and constantly monitoring the reactions of the investigator itself. 26 At the end of all, the very act of suppressing the truth. So the very fact that I know what the truth is and because I am lying therefore I need to suppress the truth and deny it. And suppressing the truth in itself is a cognitively demanding task. The pre frontal cortex is way more illuminated when the person is simply denying the truth as compared to person who is committing to the truth. Pre frontal cortex is the executive center of the brain and is the working memory and the part where all the cognitive information processing essentially takes place. A lot more cognitive resources are exhausted when an individual is trying to lie as compared to when a person is telling the truth which means that lesser amount of cognitive capacity or information processing capacity is then available to engage in all other kinds of behavior. So all the involuntary activities cannot stop (breathing, heart pumping, digestion, blood circulation all cannot stop) and what the person can do in stopping at a voluntary level, the cognition would try to conserve the limited processing capacity which is now available to person and this essentially then happens in cutting down other behaviors of the person which includes- blinking, moving one’s eye here and there which might increase the level of eye contacts, gaze aversion- a sign of stress and anxiety, the person is more likely to make speech related errors, speech latencies (taking more time between two words or two sentences than normal meaning that he has to think harder to use language in comparison to a normal person or person telling the truth) would add to cognitive load. Added to this the entire ideology of cognitive load essentially say that the cognitive load of somebody to test whether a person is lying or not if we further increase the cognitive load in some cases then it is likely to lead to an increase in the behavioral manifestation of cognitive load meaning that normally an individual is utilizing a certain chunk to lie or deceive and the increased information processing capacity which is required to lie then the size of cognitive load will increase manifold. And this essentially is done by the use of cognitive load induction techniques. Cognitive Load Induction Techniques- Simple techniques targeted at increasing the consumption of the cognitive capacity of an individual. One of the most commonly used techniques is after the individual has completed narrating the series of incidences, the individual is then asked to recall the incidence in a reverse order. Even for a normal person telling a series of events in a reverse order is vexing. Considering someone who is already exhausted a major chunk of the cognitive capacity this would take up another chunk of the cognitive capacity leaving very little cognitive capacity for the individual to process all other behaviors and this essentially would reflect in greater number of signs of cognitive load which the individual will then start manifesting. An as result speech errors, latencies are likely to occur because very less capacity is left to process the information. Also leads to movement in arms and fingers and thus the fidgety behavior. This is opposite to what the emotional approach says. Another way to increase cognitive load is by introducing secondary concurrent/parallel task along with the primary task which is the task of telling the story. This secondary task even if is simple, uses a lot of part of the information processing capacity of the person. So even if the task is simple, the research tells that in such a case the errors on both the primary and the secondary task is likely to increase. 27 Another technique which can be used for instance, after the person has narrated the series of events there is some unique evidence presented to the person at later stage and the person is then asked to account for that new evidence or info within the realm of the narration that he has already given. Now he has to engage in greater level of cognitive information processing and thus exhausting the cognitive processing. Along with fabricating the lie he now has to integrate this new bit of information which would be additional cognitive load. 3. The Attempted Control Approach- Accounts for lower gaze aversion or lower levels of fidgety behavior in a person who is actually telling a lie. This approach essentially says that individuals who are lying, most of these individuals are coming to the investigative set up with some pre-planning. The very fact that they know they have to lie, that they have to deceive, there is some amount of pre planning in the head which already is going on when he is entering the set up and if time is given to them then a large part of this planning is already happened before entering the investigative set up. Planning with regards to what to tell and how exactly they would tell it. Now when these individuals are planning they are also aware that the body language might disclose signs or indicators of deceit. So while they plan, they also plan that how they would behave, appear to the investigator. In turn what happens is that when they control and regulate their own behavior they end up over controlling and then engage in behavior which appears very regulative and pre planned and also rigid to a certain extent. Also lacks spontaneity. Because they have planned and regulated their behavior, they are not very spontaneously engaging, even in normal behaviors which truth tellers engage in. Research tells that when individuals are given the time to plan they actually may end up making longer eye contact than a normal individual would. This individual while planning is aware that less eye contact is an indicator of deception and lying. In trying to monitor their behavior they try to sort of cover up this gaze aversion by deliberately making longer eye contact and end up over regulating their behavior. Also one would be aware that excessive fidgetiness or any reflection or sign of uneasiness is likely to reflect deception or lie and therefore they end up in appearing very rigid and inflexible.. Research also tells that individual who are lying actually end up smiling more often than truth tellers in an interrogative set up. In order to mask their deceit they end up over controlling their behaviors . These are few of the important approaches which are used simply when direct observation is being used to detect deception without the use of any specific strategy or aid in order to detect deception. Also all these 3 might be happening at the same time. So the individual might be depicting signs of anxiety and physiological arousal, might be trying to over control for one’s behavior and also have exhausted to certain extent one’s cognitive capacity and thus show signs of cognitive load. Today there is active recognition that simply the use of observation in detecting deception without the use of techniques and aids is not a very effective way of detecting deception. 30  Location of crucial bits and pieces of evidence which are potentially incriminating and have enough potential to obtain a conviction against the suspect. Locate those bits and pieces which the suspect might not be aware that the investigator knows. The investigator is then expected to structure his questions around those bits of information and pose those questions to the suspect in a manner that the suspect is not aware that he is being pin pointedly being questioned about those bits and pieces of evidence.  Building questions around the pieces of evidence in a vague camouflaged way such that when the suspect is questioned he doesn’t feel that he is specifically being questioned about that piece of evidence. The process simply depicts- to get a free recall from the suspect with respect to the chronology of events that took place followed by a questioning by the investigator wherein the focus of the questions then becomes these pieces of evidences or information which are crucial for conviction but are not known by the suspect. If the investigator directly asks a question with respect to something that the suspect has avoided previously, the suspect shall switch from an avoidance to an escape reaction and he will deny it. And once the escape or denial reaction comes in, it sort of blocks the ability to collect any further information from the suspect. In case of innocent suspects then the suspect will probably mention all these bits of evidences that the investigator has sort of delineated and therefore there will be very little evidence of the avoidance reaction and no question of the escape response tendencies. The process of analysis here is simply targeted at locating statement-evidence inconsistencies. Research tells that when a suspect is guilty then during questioning at multiple times he is going to make a statement which is inconsistent or which counters the evidence which the investigator already has and therefore the number of statement-evidence inconsistencies are likely to be high in guilty suspects. On the other hand, individuals who are innocent, statement-evidence consistencies are likely to be high wherein these individuals are asked to explain any situation then they are likely to make statements which are consistent with the evidence which the investigator already possesses and therefore the statement-evidence consistencies are likely to be very high. Even at times if there are inconsistencies, even if the statement which the suspect gives is countering the evidence has the consistencies to be way higher. So if there is some incriminating evidence which the investigator has which makes the person a suspect, if the suspect is innocent then he is likely to adequately explain that evidence which he has. The avoidance reaction is not going to be there and if he is questioned about it in an indirect manner and even if there is an avoidance reaction (if the person forgets it or feels that it is not worth mentioning) then the escape reaction is not going to feature in because when he is asked to explain then he is likely to do it in an adequate manner if he is being honest and is innocent. The entire technique revolves around locating statement-evidence inconsistencies in guilty individuals. Research evidence offers very strong support for this technique and tells that investigators who are trained in the strategic use of evidence, in locating evidence which is of importance in the particular case and structuring their questions in an ambiguous manner- these investigators 31 are way more effective in detecting lies and deception as compared to investigators who are not trained so. Accuracy rates as high as above 85%- 90% have been seen. Another important element highlighted by research is that individuals who are trained in the strategic use of evidence are more efficient in increasing the cognitive load (cognitive load induction can be a technique of detecting deception and the behavioral response generated out of cognitive load induction can offer important cues whether a person is lying or not) of guilty suspect as compared to innocent suspect. This strategy also plays an important role in extent of cognitive load which is induced in a person, specifically, if the method of questioning is right then suspects who are guilty are likely to experience a greater level of cognitive load as compared to suspects who are innocent which is extremely desirable. 2. Reality Monitoring It is a way of content analysis. Initially it wasn’t even developed in the field of law and was developed just to see how people recall information. A process of analysis used in the area of cognitive psychology and specifically a methodology used in qualitative research analysis in psychology and a specific technique under the broader sets of technique that we call CONTENT ANALYSIS or NARRATIVE ANALYSIS. Basically there is some written content that we have and we analyze that content (book review, character sketch- a form of content analysis). Under this there is a specific technique which is called Narrative Analysis- an individual gives in depth account of something and this narrative is analyzed to get a sense of the psyche of the person (an analysis of the experiences of the trauma victims- detailed accounts of what happened with them, what they went through). One particular form of narrative analysis is reality monitoring and studies the difference between fictional content (been created out of the imagination of person) and factual content (actually experienced). This strategy finds application in the field of law wherein on the basis of the account which the suspect or the interviewee has presented (narrative), one tries to gauge whether this narrative has come from a real source of information or from a fictional source. Simply a process to determine that the statement which the suspect is giving is sourced from an actual experience (implying that the person is telling the truth) or if the narrative has elements which are reflective more of fictional creation. A process of assessing or judging whether a person attributes the source of a memory to an external event or an internal event. The statement made by the person essentially comes from the memory and is a recall of the memory. Memory coming from external source- what was actually happening, an experience (inference- that the person is not deceiving) Memory coming from an internal source- fictional, imagination (inference- the person is lying) 32 24/08/2019 Fundamental basis or the basic premise of reality monitoring is the fact that memories which have been gained through experience are qualitatively different from memories which have been created. The difference lies because when an event is experienced then the series of event’s information has been gained through external information (information taken in through sensory process) and then the account of that information is likely to be rich in perceptual or sensory information. A lot of this information comes from the study done by Maricia Johnson and Rayo. They were the first one to write in detail about the qualitative difference between an experienced memory and a created memory. How qualitatively different? Memories gained through perceptual information would be rich in perceptual processes (based on sensation- info taken in through the 5 senses). The starting point of any perception is sensation. Specific criteria/guidelines which will reflect whether a piece of information is high on perceptual information and studies suggest that these can roughly be divided into 3 categories- 1. SENSORY INFORMATION- Information or details about aspects which are related to the 5 senses. High on visual information, auditory info, on info which is to do with smell and the taste of certain aspect. So the descriptors would naturally include elements related to the 5 senses and also with respect to tactile information. 2. CONTEXTUAL INFORMATION- Information which reflects perceptual processes is high on contextual information, predominantly meaning the information which is to do with time and space (temporal and spatial information). How objects and people were placed around in the given space and when did the event take place and how long did the event extend (a chronological production of info would be an inherent natural part of that recollection) 3. AFFECTIVE INFORMATION- Details about feeling and would include details about feeling of the self (how did the person feel while witnessing the event) And also how did the other people in the setup feel. Because information has been gained from an outside source through perception therefore it naturally becomes rich in all of these elements. Another element associated with it is the element of vividness and clarity. Because an information is not created or fabricated and is actually witnessed, therefore the memory of it is more likely to be vivid and the info gained through perceptual processes is again likely to be clear in the description. By contrast the memories which are created, invented, essentially are not gained through perceptual experience. The person has not experienced the events through sensory perceptual process but at the same time has created these events. So because they are created they are likely to be high on cognitive (created in mind) processes rather than perceptual processes. Since the basis is cognition, these memories have a higher content of reasoning, analysis or thinking in general. For instance, a descriptive like- ‘I was wearing a coat, it was very cold that night’. In contrast to this a description which actually is exactly the same but instead of presenting sensory information the focus is on reasoning- ‘I was wearing a coat that night “because” it was very 35 processes. Ideally this should be the case but considering that when the memory in this case (repressed memory which is recovered at a later point) or when an individual is asked to recall an event which happened long time ago, then the constructive and the reconstructive processes are constantly at work to facilitate recall while at the time of storage or after the storage of the memory if a long time has elapsed, reconstructive processes would be at work and is also likely that reconstructive processes alter the memory which has been stored to facilitate retention of course and the alteration incorporated reasoning. So if these reconstructive processes actually change the memory in order to incorporate inferences and reasoning and therefore when an account of that event is produced, it will actually be high on reason and analysis rather than sensory information because over a period of time the memory has been altered in such a way to incorporate reasoning. For instance, I hear a glass and I actually experienced it and went upstairs and store a memory that as soon as I entered the house the glass broke. But over a period of time I think about this memory and at a cognitive level tell myself that when I entered the room I did not know that it was the glass that broke but I heard a loud noise and so therefore the reconstructive process is at work where actually when I start recalling the memory, if enough time has lapsed, I am more likely to say that when I entered I heard a loud noise and it probably was the glass that broke. So if reconstructive processes are given time they are likely to alter the memory. Also it happens the other way round, Considering that I have created a memory. If I am given enough time, I might imagine and over-imagine and keep planning about it and over a period of time again because I have rehearsed that memory so many times in my head that I am able to add details to that memory. So if long gap is given between the actual occurance of the event and interviewing an individual for it then it is possible that created memories might get a lot of perceptual sensory vivid information and memories which actually have been experienced might incorporate a lot of cognitive processes making it difficult to determine which process is a reflection of which process. So this reality monitoring as a technique is the most effectively used only when a lot of time has not elapsed between the commission of the crime and the interview. Third drawback, this technique cannot be used with children because they are very good with fantasizing and imagining. Children cannot themselves, at a cognitive level, differentiate between fantasy and reality. Therefore their cognition and sensation are overlapped. From the perspective of psychological analysis it is used for the analysis of narratives of children as well but when we talk about whether a person is deceiving from a legal perspective, it is not used in cases where children are used as witnesses. 36 28/09/2019 Forensic Hypnosis as a technique is used as a therapeutic technique in psychology and predominantly till date that is the major area in which hypnosis is utilized. There have been a few cases where hypnosis has been utilized within a legal investigative setup as a tool for investigation and not exactly to detect deception per se but as a tool to enhance the memory of the witness or memory of the individual who is trying to recall a series of events that took place, essentially the crime. So, hypnosis is traditionally not a tool to detect deception but is used with witnesses who are willing and is used as a tool to aid recall of an event or simply used as a memory enhancement tool, to increase the efficacy of memory or if there are gaps or some bits and pieces of information which the individual is unable to recall then hypnosis can be used as a technique to revive those memories. Hypnosis is grounded in typically psychoanalytical ideology which is Freudian school of thought but later on there was a neo-analytical movement (grounded in certain criticisms of Freudian ideology specifically the unconscious) and what followed is psychodynamic ideology by neo- Freudians or later Freudians had a lot to add to it. Initially hypnosis was used as a therapeutic technique by Freud under his school of thought of psychoanalysis. Hypnotic hyper amnesia or a way too enhanced memories or a way of remembering what had happened to an individual through the use of hypnosis was specifically termed as hypnotic hyper amnesia (amnesia-when you don’t remember something, a missing memory or an elapsed memory). Hyper amnesia- to increase the recall of something. So no recall is amnesia and less recall with lapses in memory or vague, unclear memory is hypo amnesia. Hyper amnesia is increasing the recall or enhancing what has been recalled by the individual. So, hypnosis was used as a tool to induce hyper amnesia or to increase the recall. Along with hypnosis, there were several other techniques that were used by Freud. Most of the basic key techniques used under psychoanalysis by Freud were directed towards enhancing the memories of the individual. These other techniques include- FREE ASSOCIATION and was perhaps the first approach to an individual and it was nothing but where the individual was asked to simply sit on the couch or maybe lie down and just say whatever comes to mind. And in the process one thought would trigger another thought which is why termed as free association. Leading to an individual giving a lot of details about a lot of varied things, talking about a lot of varied aspects about oneself and specifically the aspects which are important to the self. The basic ideology behind free association that when an individual is asked to freely rant, whatever the individual will talk about or whatever comes to his mind, will be a key reflection on the personality of the individual and in turn the person will also because he is freely associating be able to recall a lot of events. So each thought offers a contextual cue for the recalling of some other element. CONTEXT DEPENDENT MEMORY- The elements of the context of your surrounding aid in recall. Here the context is created by ideas and thoughts. So because an individual is recalling, the person is creating a set of ideas and thoughts which then would serve as important cues to facilitate recall. 37 FANTASY- Herein, again the person was made to sit and relax and vividly imagine events in a conscious state in contrast to hypnosis. And a person is given a lot of time to imagine an event and then begin recall. This imagination or fantasy would offer important cues to aid and facilitate recall. Visual cues which are aided and generated by the person to facilitate recall. 2 most important were technique of Free Association and Fantasy and the 3rd being Hypnosis. Hypnosis came in after free recall and fantasy. Also the use of other techniques used to aid recall was termed by Freud as Non-Hypnotic Hyper Amnesia. All of these techniques are to increase recall. The use of hypnosis would qualify to be hypnotic hyper amnesia and the use of all other techniques was classified under non-hypnotic hyper amnesia. As far as the process of inducing hypnosis is concerned and hypnotizability of an individual is concerned, so the first question is- Can everybody be hypnotized? Or Are there people who do not let themselves to hypnosis and therefore they cannot be hypnotized. The simple answer to this is that yes, everybody can be hypnotized but like all other human traits hypnotisability is also a trait which is considered to be relatively stable and enduring. Meaning that once the trait is formed like most other human traits it would take a lot of time to alter. So if an individual has developed and inclination towards hypnotizability or if an individual is easily hypnotizable then the person will probably be easily hypnotizable throughout life and if at all there is a change, it would take a long time for the person to change as far as the trait is concerned. Hypnotizability then from that perspective becomes a reflector of the personality of the individual. Hypnotizability follows like most other traits, the typical Normal Probability Curve. If the hypnotizability of a large population is traced then there would be some people who would be very easily hypnotized and some other who would be very difficult to hypnotize but most of them would lie on an average normal range which typically means that most people are neither very easy nor very difficult hypnotize them. What specifically determines how effectively the person is hypnotized and how quickly the person is hypnotized, is the motivation of the person to get hypnotized? So there are several factors which determine the extent to which the person is hypnotized and how easily the person is hypnotized. First one being the motivation itself. Typically it is not used as a tool to detect deception but to enhance the accuracy of recall. Because if somebody does not want to get hypnotized if in the case of legal investigative setup, if an individual refuses to get hypnotized then probably it won’t be possible to hypnotize that person at all. So the motivation or the willingness of the person to get hypnotized to begin with is an important factor in determining whether the person can be hypnotized or not. That along with a certain amount of trust in who is hypnotizing that person. So, usually the studies tell that even when the person is willing to get hypnotized but does not trust the hypnotist, the person will probably show a high resistance in getting hypnotized. Willingness and motivation coupled with trust that has been established within the client-therapist relationship in a typical clinical setup is important. What also plays a role is the context and the mental condition of the person. So the context within which the person is being hypnotized, by inference then in an investigative setup which in itself is slightly threatening and stressful, inducing hypnosis might be difficult. Along with context, the mental state- if suffering from some mental disorder then while inducing hypnosis 40 29/08/2019 There are 2 Predominant perspectives and these 2 look at hypnosis from 2 different very different perspectives. 1. HYPNOTIC TRANCE THEORY- The theory which is more grounded in the psychoanalytical perspective and it agrees with the psychoanalytical expression of phenomenon of hypnosis. This theory essentially posits that hypnosis is a special state of consciousness or rather the altered state of consciousness which is induced in a subject and in that state of consciousness while the subject is in this altered state of consciousness, the subject experiences very high levels of suggestibility and very high levels of awareness with respect to the surrounding of the subject. So the subject then regresses back to an early stage of life and that was the only kind of regression which initially hypnosis kind of propagated. The first kind of regression that hypnosis spoke is- *Age Regression which essentially means that a person regresses back or goes to the earlier stage of life and is able to recall events and happenings around that person at that stage. Essentially then the hypnotic Trance Theory stresses on the fact that in the process of hypnosis, once an individual is hypnotized, the person enters an altered stage of consciousness wherein the person has regressed back to an early stage and is able to experience the surrounding/environment from that earlier stage in a more vivid and clear manner and at the same time experiences high level of suggestibility which is why he is able to regress back (is able to take suggestions from the hypnotist). From this perspective then, age regression serves as a valuable recall of memory. Not just the experience of what happened but also there is scope to induce altered sensations. Meaning that since the individual is highly suggestible, there is also this scope that the hypnotist can induce high levels of sensitivity as far as the sensory functioning of the individual is concerned and with that the perception of something happening in the surrounding of the individual can further be enhanced. Example- it can be used as a tool to increase the visual perception of the individual with respect to certain elements which are present in the surroundings of the person or can be the auditory perception regarding the environment. Essentially saying that there is something which happened around the person at the time of commission of the crime. At that moment the person perhaps did not take active notice of something which happened but there was subliminal perception which took place which means that there is some piece of information which is entered in the cognition of the person without the person taking active cognitive notice of that information. Since the information nonetheless has become the part of the psyche of the individual, there is a memory but because the person has not actively processed that memory the person cannot actively recall or recollect the memory. In the process of hypnosis, once the person has delved into the earlier experience, the person can then also access those bits and pieces of information which were there which the person did not have active access to which had entered the psyche of the person but the person did not actively recollect those details. So, with the instructions or the suggestion of the hypnotist with respect to 41 the person hearing the conversation and focus on what is being discussed. With that kind of suggestion the person can actively focus on what is being discussed and recall the details of the conversation which he otherwise would not have been able to. One of the chief proponents of this theory specifically with respect to accuracy and the process from the perspective of forensic psychology were- Ernst Hilgard 2. COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL PERSPECTIVE- This clearly disagrees with the psychoanalytical perspective of hypnosis and says that hypnosis is not an altered state of consciousness, but is simply the game of expectations and motivations of the person with which he is coming into the therapeutic setting and along with this the attitude which the client carries with respect to hypnosis. It simply says that if an individual has a positive attitude towards hypnosis (that he actually believes in hypnosis), if he is motivated enough to get hypnotized (believing that it is going to benefit him or for fun) then the individual will get hypnotized and act in accordance with expectation that he had with respect to the process of hypnosis. This perspective calls for suggestibility and that suggestibility is nothing but the ability of an individual to think and behave according to the suggestion of the hypnotist and if the individual can think, focus all his attention and think about what the hypnotist is saying and act according to the hypnotist then the individual is behaving typically like one who is hypnotized. This perspective draws an analogy between the television and the movie during the behavior of an individual. Like sitting and crying along with the movie. Crying because there is an emotion which is expressed in a work of fiction and a conflict which is shown perhaps. But you feel that conflict to an extreme extent and that induces an emotional reaction and you express the emotion (this is the ability to think and act along with the work of fiction). And this perspective says that the process of hypnosis is very similar to that, instead of a work of fiction here there is a hypnotist who is sitting who administers the suggestions and the individual simply thinks along with him. Martin Orwe, within the paradigm of cognitive behavioral perspective used the social contract theory to explain the process of hypnosis. (Social Contract Theory- basically it is assumed that we have submitted our individual, absolute rights to the government and we have sort of accepted the government as is). This is essentially what the perspective and the use of the social contract theory within the paradigm of hypnosis is saying that when an individual agrees to the process of hypnosis, he/she is essentially entering into an implicit social contract with the hypnotist wherein the individual agrees in turn to renounce his critical thinking. For that moment for the process of hypnosis the individual has implicitly agreed to renounce his critical thinking. And therefore from that perspective, hypnosis can simply be seen as a role playing mechanism where an individual is no longer engaging in critical thinking and is ready to renounce his sense of reality for a particular time and just be guided purely by the suggestions which are administered by the hypnotist. Thus individual is role playing in that hypnotic setup and is just acting the way he expects an individual who is hypnotized to act. *What the individual gets as benefit? So, ‘Trust’ is very important for the process of hypnosis to take place and is one of the factors determining the efficiency of doing hypnosis. If the person believes that he will be benefitted with the session of 42 hypnosis (believing because the hypnotist has told him so), there is enough trust on the hypnotist. Also, some people just get hypnosis done to gain an insight into their life. This perspective uses the term- ‘Trance Logic’. Used to explain the reasoning process during the time of hypnosis. For that moment the individual develops a trance logic which is an altered kind of reasoning process and essentially that is a process when fantasy and reality kind of peacefully co-exist. So the individual is subtly aware of the environment (the reality) and at the same time the individual has also delved into this world of fantasy which is although very cognitive but not real. Now from this perspective, the fundamental assumption, specifically when we are using hypnosis in the field of investigation to increase the accuracy of recall is, that human beings are taking memories and they store memories very accurately. It is just that we do not have access to these accurate memories and therefore we cannot remember or recall. So, through the process of hypnosis we will simply gain access to these accurate memories and that in turn will increase the effectiveness of recall or memory in the individual. Now from the cognitive behavioral perspective this logic in itself is flawed. Because to begin with, in the context of memory, we acknowledge the fact that the storage of memory is a dynamic process and the cognitive psychology acknowledges and stresses the fact that human memory in itself is distorted and is susceptible to inaccuracies which are influenced by a lot of factors. First of all the assumption that the memory stored is accurate is a flawed assumption because the memory even if it is stored and even if we do not have access to it, the memory in itself probably is inaccurate and distorted because of several factors. Added to that, considering that the process of hypnosis is a process of inducing a high level of suggestibility, added to that, the memory which is already stored can be distorted and further be made inaccurate by certain suggestions which the therapist himself is administering and that essentially is a very ideal environment to lead to an increase in the inaccuracy of memory. So, the cognitive theorists predominantly discourage the use of hypnosis, esp. when the accuracy of memory is in question. Because they are saying that memory is in itself can be flawed and distorted and because of the high level of suggestibility which hypnosis induces that leads to a further scope of potentially distorting the memory which might further lead to inaccuracy introduced in the memory. 45 person because this person is strongly taking suggestions from the hypnotist and the hypnotist agreeing with person clearly tells that this must be very true. Along with that, individuals are also extremely prone to any extreme happenings in the environment. For instance, an individual who is hypnotized and who I recalling a scene that happened at a previous time specifically of a crime and there is a loud sound that takes place in the environment of the individual or the room in which he is the window there breaks, considering how that is a loud enough sound to evoke the attention of the person. That sound might be perceived as coming from within the set up which he is actually experiencing. And the person then in turn might recall that there was a loud sound or the window broke while the crime was taking place. Also any loud sound which is similar to a gun-shot the person might interpret a similar loud sound as a gun-shot and come up and create a memory which essentially says that there was a gun shot at the crime scene, where actually there might have been no gun-shot. Any stark loud or extreme changes in the environment which manage to evoke the attention can also lead to a fake memory, a memory which is woven into the experience which the individual is having at the moment. One then needs to be very careful about the place where hypnosis is taking place and ensure no distractions per se. LEGAL STATUS OF FORENSIC HYPNOSIS AND ACCEPTANCE WITHIN THE COURTS The first case where the evidence generated from forensic hypnosis was used in the court of law-  HARDING V. STATE (1968) This was a case of sexual assault in a state hospital and these were memories of the victim and the memories of the victim were enhanced through the use of hypnosis of the sexual assault incident. In this case the court openly admitted the evidence which was based on forensic hypnosis and therefore the court followed the criteria known as- ‘Open Admissibility Criteria’, meaning the evidence that is generated through forensic hypnosis will be admitted in a court of law. The first and the only case where open admissibility criteria was followed. In all other cases following them, for a very long time the criteria of ‘Per Se Exclusion’ was followed. Post 1968 in most cases in the US the per se exclusion criteria was followed which came to the forefront where there was a debate that was initiated with respect to the potential fake memories which can come up as a result of hypnosis, the debate around the accuracy of memory and specifically high levels of suggestibility and also the fact where in a lot of cases in a therapeutic setting because of the suggestion of the therapist a lot of cases of sexual assault were being brought up where there actually was no sexual assault but because of the suggestion of the therapist like a condition like this is usually because of some sexual assault during childhood led to people recalling sexual assault during childhood. There was very little way of proving or disproving it because it happened in a private set up and there were no witnesses and thus became controversial not only in legal psychology but also in therapeutic psychology. Eventually 46 led to, the courts simply rejecting the evidence based on hypnosis as admissible evidence and therefore ‘per se exclusion criteria’ was followed. In ‘per se exclusion’ criteria, if an evidence was a result of hypnosis then that evidence would be rejected from a court of law and considered inadmissible. Nonetheless this criteria was reversed and rather moderated in-  ROCK V. ARKANSAS (1986) Almost 20 years later the above case, the criteria was moderated. In the case, th court took note of the fact that a complete rejection of the statements (taken in the state of hypnosis) of the victim would lead to an unfair trial. Violated the right of the defendant to a fair trial. And in the light of the fact that every victim has the right to a fair trial, the court then brought into light the criteria which is followed in a lot of cases which is the ‘Totality of Circumstances Criteria’- essentially the evidence which is generated out of forensic hypnosis can be considered as one evidence and does not have to have an overpowering effect. Can be considered as one piece of evidence amidst an entire plethora of evidence which is presented in a court of law. It is upon the court to decide on a case by case basis depending upon the situation keeping the facts of the specific case in mind whether the evidence gained through the process of hypnosis is admissible in the court of law or not. The totality of circumstances criteria was followed for a very long time and is still being followed in the US. In 1995 there was an interesting debate around this criteria or the admissibility of the evidence based on forensic hypnosis and  BORAWICK V. SHAY (1995) this was a case of recovered memories wherein the victim during a therapy session had recovered a memory of sexual assault by her uncle and aunt while she was on vacation which was so far repressed. The lower court had rejected this piece of evidence as a basis of legal investigation. The argument which the plaintiff had ordered was that in this case the memories were recovered through hypnosis. But through hypnosis as part of therapeutic process and not an investigative process and because hypnosis is considered to be a scientific and valid technique within the field of psychology and psychotherapy and therefore any memory recovered through the process of hypnosis should be considered a valid ground for legal proceedings. So there was no debate as it was not part of an investigative process but a therapeutic process and thus the memory shall be admissible in the court and to be a valid ground to initiate legal proceedings. But lower court had rejected it. The lower court stated several reasons for this rejection and said that the memories recovered through hypnosis can be considered as valid ground for legal proceedings and admissible in a court of law if certain conditions were met. Conditions being- -that an individual performing the hypnosis should be qualified enough and certified to perform hypnosis -the hypnotist should not add any information to the memory of the individual, a guard against suggestibility -there should be a permanent record of the procedure which is followed during the process of hypnosis 47 -there should be other evidence to corroborate the hypnotically enhanced memory. Basis these grounds, the evidence was found inadmissible and specifically one of the reasons was that there was no recording of the procedure of hypnosis that was considered. During one of the hypnotic sessions the person recalled this memory, there was no recording of that hypnotic session or any permanent record that was kept. Also considering that this criteria may not be met in a lot of cases, wherein a lot of cases the recording of sessions is at the discretion of the therapist. When a memory pops up cannot be predicted and therefore recording of that cannot be pre-planned. Also what is specifically considered an addition to the memory of the individual is also quite a vague criteria because again in the process of hypnosis, the hypnotist is guiding the individual and making statements, statements which can be considered suggestive by certain courts? So what is considered suggestive and what is not considered suggestive or adding additional information is something that is totally an open criteria and there is no specific guideline of criteria which defines that. A vague criteria and open to interpretation. Last criteria is the presence of- ‘Corroborative Evidence’. Corroborative evidence is usually missing in most cases and an incident which happened years ago is recalled by the person and usually in cases of sexual abuse, child sexual abuse- private cases where there is no evidence. Then generating corroborative evidence might fairly be a difficult task. This verdict was appealed against and the appellate court took note of all of these restrictions and mentioned that all of these conditions are important and desired conditions but should not be restrictive conditions. Because the conditions within themselves are rigid and restrictive and therefore they are desired but should not be mandatory conditions. In turn the appellate court allowed for the admissibility of the evidence and the court again supported the open admissibility criteria. Since then the criteria that has been followed in the US is the totality of circumstances criteria with respect to hypnotically enhanced memories or admissibility of evidence which is generated through forensic hypnosis. 3 The third element after rapport formation and briefing is the setting of a baseline which maybe done at this stage ore done at a later stage. So this not a mandate and depends on the procedure and on the comfort of the administrator. The person is also exposed to the equipment which the person will be working with. The person is shown the functioning of the equipment at this stage. Most importantly and why this stage becomes most important is that at this stage the administrator also makes an attempt to persuade the individual and make him believe that the polygraph is actually a very powerful technique and this will actually work. Interestingly, polygraphy is a very controversial technique and most people, not just legal practitioners but also psychologists right outly reject the use of polygraph but invariably all researchers and all academicians agree that one of the reasons why polygraph works when it does work is because the person actually believes that the polygraph works and the belief makes him generate responses which are in line with the polygraphic test. Convincing the person of the power of polygraph can be done by suggestive techniques. Indirect suggestions where people talk about the fact that the polygraph is extremely effective or very direct techniques which are used in manipulating the belief systems of the person. Considering, where the administrator tells the person that he will give an insight into how a polygraph works and asks him certain questions and asks him to lie about them. Now these questions could be aspects which the administrator already has about. When the person lies, the administrator himself manipulates the reading which are being displayed on the screen and says that when you lie this is what happens. This is done to persuade the person that the machine can actually register when a person is lying. It could be a technique which is used multiple times. For instance there is a deck of cards from which the person is asked to pick one card but the deck of cards has all the same cards. So the administrator knows what card it is and in turn the administrator says that he is going to give multiple guesses- you either lie about that or do not lie about that by responding in terms of yes or no. So because the already knows what card it is, so again depending upon the response of the person the administrator actually manipulates the readings which the machine is showing in turn trying to convince the person that it is the polygraph which is actually at work. Using such manipulative techniques is very common. Psychological research which tells us that the belief systems of the individual are extremely important in determining the success of the polygraph has actually triggered the use of a lot of these manipulative strategies. 3. TEST ADMINISTRATION (actual conduction of polygraphic test)- There are multiple techniques which are used in a polygraph test but 3 techniques to be focused upon. One of which is the most initial or earliest techniques and 2 techniques, one of which is very robust technique of conducting the polygraph and the other one is the most frequently used to conduct the polygraph. First technique- RELEVANT-IRRELEVANT TECHNIQUE- one of the first technique that was used in the area of polygraph. In this technique there are 2 kinds of questions which are used. One set of questions which are relevant to the crime scene and the second set pf questions which are irrelevant to the crime at hand. They (irrelevant questions) are absolutely neutral 4 questions, could be a question as simple as “is it Tuesday’. They are absolutely unrelated to the crime and they could be just about anything. The underlying assumption behind this technique is that an individual will give a stress response to the relevant questions and the stress response will be lower or will not exist if an individual is otherwise calm and the rapport information has worked effectively then the stress response that the individual has to irrelevant questions will be non-existent so there would be no stress response to irrelevant questions. So every time when a relevant question is asked, could be anything related to the crime scene- what weapon was used to conduct the crime, where was the crime committed, where was the body found, who was the victim. When the individual hears these questions irrespective of the responses that the person gives, a criminal would probably lie to a response like that probably with a lie which simply denies the knowledge or would give incorrect information, irrespective of that the person who actually committed the crime would give a peak physiological response to a relevant question because the person knows that the investigators have this information that I might be caught or simply the fear of being caught. So high GPA to relevant questions vs. a lower GPA to irrelevant questions and that essentially if it happens it warrants a conclusion that the person is trying to lie or deceit. On the other hand if an individual is innocent, he has no knowledge of the crime. To begin with, perhaps he won’t be able to understand which questions are relevant because he does not know what transpired. And therefore the stress response is likely to be much lower and there probably won’t be much difference between the stress response of the person with respect to the relevant and the irrelevant questions. The problem with this assumption, the major drawback is that even a normal person would stress out when he is asked about a crime. An innocent person, to begin with, would be stressed out and anxious because of the high risk and anxiety provoking situation, and then when he is asked about the crime per se then even this normal individual would give a high GPA response. Also coupled with that if the questions are not well constructed which means that a lot of questions can be emotionally laden and those emotionally laden question will again trigger stress responses in an individual. Use of terms like- murder, weapon, knife all of these terms in themselves are emotionally laden. Hearing these terms in itself might induce a peak in the physiological activity of an individual and therefore this might mask any real differences between the individuals who are trying to lie and the individuals who are innocent and who are being truthful. As a recognition of this drawback a slight modification of the irrelevant technique was then used, which was called the RELEVANT-RELEVANT TECHNIQUE. Herein the irrelevant questions are fewer and the relevant questions are more in number. They are clustered together in terms of certain areas related to the crime. So there are these content categories which are created and questions for example with respect to like, if there is a robbery how did the break in happen. So the questions with respect to breaking in would be clustered together. Questions with respect to what actually was stolen how was the robbery actually committed, these would be clustered together. If along with that there was a murder then those questions would be clustered together. Questions with respect to how did the person then escape the crime scene, would be clustered together. These clusters of question would be interspersed or divided by irrelevant questions. Which basically are targeted to get the person back to the base line or relax the person after emotionally laden questions have been asked or after peak physiological activity has been 5 touched during the content category. Now what is done in this technique is that the physiological activity of the person across content categories is completely is compared and if there is a significant increase in one particular content category or one set of content category then that is interpreted as the person for some reason being extremely sensitive to that content category. And then that can be the basis for further probe. If it is polygraph then that cab be the basis of building up further questions. For instance building up questions for the latter half of the polygraph test or if the investigation is continuing then investigating with respect to that content category because that content category provoked the person a little more and elicited a greater stress response in the person and therefore perhaps the person is in possession of some knowledge which is resulting in those stress reactions from the person. It is not very directly implicative of whether the person is trying to lie or not but basically just implicative of how the person’s body is reacting to certain aspects associated with the crime. Again, if the person does not show much fluctuation or much variation to the relevant questions then the person is considered to be innocent and esp. if the fluctuation is not much in relation to the irrelevant questions. This technique has been known to find greater value and utility as compared to the traditional relevant-irrelevant technique. The second set of techniques is the CONTROL QUESTION TEST. It is one of the most frequently used polygraphic technique specifically in the west (US and Canada). But as far as support for its accuracy is concerned it does not find as much support for its accuracy as compared to the 3rd test (though it has some practical implementing problems). It simply introduces a third category of question which are the control questions (first being the irrelevant questions- could be anything and the second being relevant- associated with the crime), are based either on known lies or assumed lies. They are based on the assumption that there are some bits and pieces of information which an individual (specifically if he is a suspect), will not want to share it with the investigators because the person feels that this might lead to a moral judgment or character judgment by the investigative agencies and therefore disclosing those bits of information might make his case weaker or might lead to the investigative agencies further suspect him simply because he looks like somebody who can commit a crime like that if it is the profile of somebody who can commit a crime like that. Known Lies are basic factual information about the person which are known to be true. So if it is known that the person beats his wife, a question like- ‘do you beat your wife or do you engage in domestic violence?’ and the person will probably deny it because if he has committed some crime then it might lead the investigative agencies to further believe that he is somebody who can commit a crime because he engages in domestic violence. An Assumed Lie is basically the kind of information which most people every now and then might engage in, the kind of behaviors which most people might engage in but would deny if they are a suspect. And these could be questions with regards to- ‘have you ever betrayed someone who trusted you?’ An admission of guilt in this case would lead to the investigator believing that this person is a betrayer and therefore can commit a crime. ‘Have you ever lied to your family or loved ones’ again admitting to that would lead the investigator in believing that the person lies and therefore he can commit a crime. ‘Have you ever thought of hurting someone in order to take revenge?’ these are based on an assumed lie. 8 implementation and this problem arises because usually it is very difficult to locate enough number of facts or occurrences about the crime scene which are publicly unknown. Since this technique is based on only questions about information which are publicly unknown then that means that there has to be a lot of instances which the investigative agencies actually are aware of in order to be able to construct enough questions to qualify for the test. 4. POST TEST INTERVIEWING (debrief which the person gets after the polygraph has been conducted) COUNTER MEASURES- How can a person cheat a polygraphic test. The polygraphic test is based on an increased physiological activity when the person is trying to lie and a relatively lower or normalized physiological activity when the person is telling the truth. In this case the polygraphic test can be cheated basically in 2 ways. Either the person trains himself to increase his physiological activity in general and this increase will mask all difference between an honest baseline and the peaked physiological activity when the person is lying or Second way in which it can be done is by decreasing the physiological activity even to questions when the person is lying or even to questions which are targeted to increase the GPA of the person. Now it can be done in multiple ways- Individual can use drugs and tranquilizers to do that, there can be a physical measure, mind training or mental activity. The most basic is physical methods- wherein anything that can be used to hurt you. So, a person might put a nail in the shoe and press his toe against the nail and when the nail pierces the skin there is a pain reaction in the body and this pain reaction is similar to stress reaction. And thus even the baselines would give higher physiological activity. Basically hurt yourself and the body is going to enter in a stress situation. Second method is the mental technique- the safest technique. They cannot be detected by any external aides. But there is a lot more training which is required to successfully execute a mental technique. Most of them are targeted at decreasing the GPA and one of the most basic ways of doing that is simply relaxation training. So if one can over a period of time train oneself to relax then even in a stressful situation the stress reaction of the person will be extremely controlled. Also the person can learn over a period of time how to increase the GPA and that can be done by vividly practicing visualization of extremely stressful, traumatic and anxiety provoking situation and that works even better if the person has actually experienced that trauma or anxiety. To successfully execute the mental techniques, there is greater amount of training that is used. Usually a lot of individuals who are professionally trained in that use techniques based on bio feedback- In case of relaxation training, the normal temperature of body is taken (skin temperature) by attaching the thermometer to the skin and then the person is asked to breathe in and out and progressively relax and that should translate into a decrease in body temperature of the person. With training the person learns to associate bodily sensations of relaxation with the temperature feedback that the person is giving and then he knows that he needs to relax and he knows what the body feels like when the temperature is down. Drugs- Drugs like tranquilizers, anti- anxiety medication and also alcohol can be used to relax the body but the threat with medication or drugs is that a lot of category of drugs are detectable. 9 So the blood test of the person will show that he has actually consumed drugs. There are also set of studies which tells that when individuals were intoxicated at the time of commission of crime then they are more likely to escape the polygraph because it is the direct outcome of state dependent memory which means that what you do while you were drunk you won’t remember it when you are sober again because cues associated with the state of the body act as an important retrieval cues. Similarly when an act of crime is committed under mild intoxication is recalled by the person when the person is sober then it does not generate as much anxiety and stress because the memory might not be very clear even if it is there, it won’t be perceived as anxiety provoking as the actual commission of the crime. Then in these cases the people are able to escape or cheat the polygraph. In psychology there is another technique which is called hypnosis or self-hypnosis which is similar to progressive relaxation. Overall research tells that in order to cheat the polygraph successfully by the use of counter measures usually it requires a high level of training, specifically when you are using mental techniques but all other techniques have their drawbacks. So even if you are training yourself to cheat the polygraph physically you still might not be successful if you do not have a lot of training. So very few individuals are able to successfully cheat the polygraph using counter measures. This essentially is not so much of a concern as far as the accuracy of polygraph is concerned. The greater concern is to do with the administration of the polygraph, the specific techniques itself and the validity and the reliability of the techniques which are used itself. So if those are used in a sound manner then the effectiveness is likely to be way more. 06/09/2019 LEGAL ASPECTS (POLYGRAPH TEST) If we look at the trends in the approach of the legal fraternity towards polygraphy esp. in the context of case laws we would find the 5 specific stands. These case laws are relevant not only from the context of polygraph per se but also in the context of all expert testimony. These verdicts are relevant for the testimony of the experts based on the scientific evidence in general rather than just the polygraph. The first testimony of its sort which was an expert testimony based on the polygraph test was done by- William Marston. The testimony was in the context of the case of US V FRY 1923. In this case the court rejected the expert testimony which was on the basis of a polygraph test and in this context the court came up with a standard of admissibility of expert testimony on the basis of some scientific evidence. This standard came to be known as THE FRYE TEST or THE GENERAL ACCEPTANCE TEST. The court specifically said that for any evidence to be acceptable in a court of law, this evidence/method of scientific analysis should be considered to be reliable within the relevant scientific community, it should be established in its relevant field. Only scientific techniques/methodologies which are seen as reliable by several members of the scientific community will be accepted in the court of law. This case and the opinion came in 1920s which is when the polygraph was in its raw form. Up until then it was a widely debated technique and still is but back then it had not established itself as a technique to begin with. In that context the court held that since the polygraph test does not cater to the general acceptance 10 test (this from where the term ‘general acceptance’ comes from, that the scientific method should be generally accepted as reliable). And since the polygraph did not have any consensus within the scientific community with regards to its reliability, therefore, any evidence based on the polygraph will be inadmissible in a court of law. In the case the polygraphic evidence was presented in the court of law as an ‘exculpatory evidence’- evidence which has the potential to lead to an exoneration of the defendant and is in the favor of the defendant and proves the defendant as not guilty. Eventually after this case we see a trend whether polygraph was presented to the court by the defendant or the prosecutor. Irrespective of that there was a standard per se exclusion of the polygraphic evidence which is seen for a very long time for almost the 50-60 years approximately, post the Frye verdict, which meant that evidence based on polygraph would not be admitted in a court of law. But what followed was- a lot of debate around evidence based on polygraph specifically the reliability and validity of the evidence within the psychological as well as the legal circles and therefore there was a slight alteration in the legal stand with respect to the polygraphic evidence which also was highlighted in US V. GIBSON 1987 case. In this case the stand that the court took is usually known as the ‘RELEVANCY APPROACH.’ The merit of this approach was that it treated all kinds of scientific methods whether they were new methods or were old and established methods, at par with each other. In this context, even though polygraphy was, for instance, was not as well established as psychometrics or psychological testing yet it was treated at par because there was some evidence which did show that polygraph had its merits and has some potential to detect deception and therefore it was a scientific method within the scientific community. The relevancy approach essentially said that if a scientific method is relevant to the case at hand and is reliable, it will be accepted as valid evidence. The reliability of evidence is important but the reliability does not need to be established within the scientific community. The court noted in the case that the Fry test- though the issue it is raising is extremely valid issue (reliability) but the frye test is extremely restrictive and extremely conservative in its approach. The court shifted the approach to the relevancy approach rather than the general acceptance test which had in turn led to the per se exclusion of the polygraphy technique. After that, in the 1990s there were a series of cases, specifically 3 most important cases (one single case alone is not important but all are and the standard which was highlighted by all of the 3 cases came to be known as the ‘DAUBERT STANDARD’)-  DAUBERT V. MERRELL DOW PHARMACEUTICALS (1995) (The first in the trilogy)  GENERAL ELECTRICS V JOINER (1997)  KUMHO V. CARMICHAEL (1999) All the 3 cases added to the Daubert standard and all of that put together came to be known as the Daubert Standard. And is something that is used in the context of all scientific evidence and all expert testimony rather than only the polygraphic test. In the standard, the court appointed the judge/jury as the gatekeeper to ensure that the scientific 13 when a person is lying, these micro tremors which are induced in the laryngitis (larynx is the voice box and its small muscles are called the small laryngeal muscles) and there are vibrations which are induced in the small muscles of the larynx of the individual result in a corresponding change in the quality of voice resulting in greater number of tremors recorded. But further studies dismissed this conclusion wherein they told that in the smaller muscles there are no tiny vibrations which take place at all and theory that came into the forefront was that there are large muscles which are supportive muscles. They are around the area of larynx and start vibrating in a way which result in registration of the micro tremors. The problem with this explanation was that research also tells that one needs very highly sophisticated equipment to actually be able to track these frequencies and micro tremors in the large muscles. Even a lot of sophisticated equipment present in the lab cannot really track micro tremors which take place in the large muscles. So the question then arose that if there are micro tremors happening the large muscles then how does an instrument as simple as the psychological stress evaluator tracking these micro tremors? The origin of micro tremors still remain a mystery-why they occur and what is the source! But what we do know today is that there are these micro tremors which do occur. And it is this lack of explanation of micro tremors which have led to an increased debate around the reliability and validity of micro tremors. But almost all professions whether in the psychological fraternity or the legal fraternity, agree to the validity or the utility of micro tremors or voice detection in assessing whether an individual trying to lie or deceive. As a result what has happened is that in very few cases so far voice detection has been used. Voice detection has been used in a lot of corporate houses. So, JP MORGAN CHASE (bank) uses voice stress analyzers to assess whether an individual is being genuine or client who comes in is a fraud or genuinely has resources to cater to the loan or not. Nonetheless in legal cases, in very few court cases such evidence has been presented. At least the utility of voice stress detection has been proven, despite the issue of reliability it has been entered as a valid evidence in most cases. However in most cases this evidence has largely been treated as collaborative evidence rather than an independent piece of evidence. Voice analysis supports the other evidence which has been presented in the court of law or it supports what an expert witness is saying. It is only then in these cases that it has been accepted in a court of law. One recent case in this regard was- STATE OF FLORIDA V. ZIMMERMAN (2013) Zimmerman was accused of murder. It was a case where issues against racial profiling (that the boy was innocent and that only because he was black, Zimmerman actually suspected him of being up to something and in turn shot him) were also raised. Zimmerman saw a black boy in his neighborhood and he suspected the black boy of being up to something and started following him around. He also called the police. The voice which was analyzed here was the phone call which was made to 911. Called the police and there was some tussle which happened and he ended up shooting and killing the boy. Zimmerman in this case claimed self-defense and said that in the process actually the boy attacked him and in order to save himself he had to shoot the boy. 14 Eventually he was acquitted of all charges. One of the piece of evidence in the case was the calls that he had made to 911, those were analyzed and the voice print analysis went onto prove that he was actually in a crisis when he had called and he was telling the truth that there was a boy in the vicinity who was up to something. However they were supported with other evidence and that was just one piece of evidence and in turn becomes collaborative evidence within a larger set of evidences which actually went onto strengthen Zimmerman’s case. So far there is large case acceptance. 13/09/2019 ….Continuing techniques of detecting deception (2 techniques to follow and both are to do with brain mapping) FMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging)- It is nothing but a huge electro magnet, those are coils in which electrical and magnetic activity which is taking place and those coils send across through the body changing or altering impulses of magnetic fields in terms of its north-south alignment. The south alignment of magnetic field is altered very quickly and rapidly. The magnetic field which it creates is pretty weak in intensity and which is why it is not harmful for the body. Because of the change or alteration in the magnetic field, certain hydrogen ions in the cells of the body, they start vibrating and they send across radio waves. These radio waves then are mapped by the machine to generate 3D images of the brain. Initially the technique used was MRI which used to map a 2D image of the anatomical structure of the brain itself. But today we have a functional MRI rather than just an MRI and this functional MRI maps the metabolic activity of the brain parts. So the image that we get is the image of the activity of the brain parts and those are series of 3D images and if they are studied then we would be able to tell that when what part of the brain was activated and what part of the brain was relatively dormant. This information we get because the quality of the image like the color, intensity of the image will be affected by the metabolic activity of the particular brain part and which is why it is called the functional MRI because it is mapping the brain while it is in function. This in a legal set up cab be utilized to map whether a person is lying or not or whether the person is telling the truth or not, essentially because the brain activity of liars is different from the brain activity of truth tellers and two very parts of the brain have been implied in the act of lying. Individuals when they are lying have a relatively more active pre-frontal cortex or the frontal lobe (a larger chunk of the pre frontal cortex) and the parietal lobe. FRONTAL LOBE_ Is responsible for higher order cognition- creativity, complex thinking, decision making, problem solving, reasoning, analyzing, etc. Pre frontal cortex is also called the ‘working brain’ because it is when the body is in action, the major cognitive processing is taking place in the pre-frontal cortex and predominantly the frontal lobe. PARIETAL LOBE- In this there is also a certain amount of reasoning and thinking which takes place and is responsible for some amount of reasoning and thinking but predominantly it is also responsible for behavioral control, behavioral governance and regulation. The development of the parietal lobe is responsible for the development of behavioral control through the adolescent period. In the early adolescence the parietal lope is relatively less developed which is why it is 15 said that even though an adolescent might be cognitively aware of the negative consequences of the act yet an adolescent has problem in restricting oneself from engaging in that act. If we consider this neurological basis of lying wherein it is said that the person who is lying has a relatively more active frontal lobe and a parietal lobe. It fits with a quintessential picture of the act of lying, wherein we say if someone is lying, predominantly there is a thought, the person is suppressing that thought (that thought is the knowledge of the truth) and creating another thought which is the act of cognition/thinking/reasoning and after one comes up with that thought, the false thought has to be expressed either behaviorally or verbally. So once ability to control and regulate ones behavior becomes important. Working brain which is playing the role and the parietal lobe which is ensuring that the person is in a certain kind of behavior which is in concordance with the lie. Research evidence which documents the accuracy of the use of functional MRI- there is a good mix of studies, all of them do point towards the utility and the accuracy of the MRI but specific number they give us varies. Range is between 75-76% to about 90%. From the legal perspective and specifically from the ethical and psycho legal in terms of ethics, this technique is largely contended. There are both sides of the debate. One side which strongly advocates the use of FMRI and the other side which doubts the utility of the technique. One of the biggest advantages- objectivity of the technique is very high. There is equipment which is highly standardized which is mapping the activity of the brain and clearly tells that whether the frontal and parietal lobe is active or not. No human judgment required. No space of much subjectivity. Also, along with that it is a very non-evasive technique as compared to a lot other contended techniques which also largely are not used (using drugs to ensure that the person is speaking truth, though a medical technique). This too is a medical technique but does not invade the body of the individual. In legal context, one of the strengths of the technique is that it ensures that there is no coercion which takes place. In order to ensure that an MRI gives an accurate picture, the person himself needs to be willing to undergo the process and the person has to be voluntarily willing to undergo. If he is coerced or forced into taking an MRI then the brain in itself would undergo certain changes, certain paths will be triggered and since the frontal lobe is the working brain then if a person is resisting a particular technique then the frontal lobe in itself will be highly triggered. Then it would mask the real difference between liars and truth tellers. This technique pre-supposes that the person is willing to undergo the procedure and the person is voluntarily doing it without the use of coercion. This removes the possibility of physical, psychological coercion. One of the most basic objections is- doubts with regards to the validity of the technique (validity in the field of detecting deception in a legal setup) and these doubts come in the forefront because of the fact that this technique is relatively new in the field of investigative psychology and so far the horizon of data is very limited. Like- we do not know how the FMRIs of people of different ages is different or we do not know how the brain activity esp. in the context of 18 technique was admitted but did not concede to the motion to reopen the case wherein it simply stated that even though there is a new piece of evidence that has come to light but it is unlikely to change the final verdict of the case because there was enough evidence to support the fact that he had actually committed the crime. Therefore the case wasn’t reopened. But what is of importance is that this evidence was admitted. For now, evidence in the field of psychology and brain sciences suggest that it is a pretty valid technique. It is an extremely intrusive technique. So even though if the validity of the technique is established there are likely to be reservations within the psycho-legal circles to the use of the technique and admissibility of the technique because potentially this technique has the ability to draw the memory of the person in indirect manner but intrude upon the memory of the person and draw the memory even without the person recalling that memory. Also, it does not pre suppose consent. So, even if the person is unwilling and does not consent to the technique, simply exposing that person to certain pictures from the crime scene is likely to result in the emission of P300 and is likely to give an indication of whether the person was there or not. Therefore a high element of psychological coercion. Even if it is established as a valid technique in the psycho-legal circles, it is likely to raise ethical debates from a neuro- psychological perspective. 18/09/2019 OFFENDER IDENTIFICATION It is the process where the witness and also the victim can be used to identify the offender (most researches done in the context of witnesses identifying the offender). 3 important ways in which offender identification can take place and also along with that is mentioned their inaccuracies- 1. VERBAL DESCRIPTION OF THE OFFENDER HIMSELF BY THE WITNESS- This leads to the generation of facial composites on the basis of verbal description given by the witness about the offender. Facial composites are the sketches of the offender that an artist might come up with on the basis of the description given by the witness. When an individual is describing an offender then fundamentally it is considered to be psychologically a very unnatural process to describe the offender on a feature based processing. The most initial research in the area tells that the brain are used for visual processing of information and the brain area used for verbal expression of information are 2 very different areas. The brain area used in verbal expression of information- ‘brocas area’. Brocas area is known to be located in the left hemisphere. Initial research said that it is located on the left side but now there is slight modification with regards to this information and that it is located in the dominant hemisphere of the individual. By contrast the visual area for visual stimulation and perception is located in the right hemisphere. There is a clear divide in terms of broad brain areas involved wherein when an individual is perceiving visual information it is parts in the right hemisphere that are 19 active but when an individual is giving verbal descriptions of this information then brocas area in the left hemisphere which is active. There is thus a high susceptibility of inaccuracy. The second aspect is the manner in which individuals process visual information with respect to recognition of facial structure of the individual. A difference between a top down perception which is used while we perceive the face of individuals and the bottom up perceptional process which is used when we are recalling information about an individual. *Feature Based perception (bottom up perception) - Where while you are perceiving information, you are using simpler percepts, the component parts of the total complex object to get a perception of the whole object or meaningful perception of what the whole object is. When exposed for the first time to an object then you are more likely to use the bottom up process of perception or feature based process of perception where the simple features are perceived and thus a get a meaningful understanding of the object. *Whole Based Perception (top down perception) - When once you develop familiarity with the object and then by simply looking at it you would be able to derive the basic features. Just look at the object as a whole and then derive the simple features. So when we perceive faces, we use the whole based perception or the top down process. The mistake in sometimes recognizing people is because we use the whole based perception. We look at the face in toto and feel that this face is familiar and therefore this person is a particular person that we are aware of but at the same time we do not get into the details of what does the nose or the eyes of the person looks like. When you approach the person and begin the conversation and have a closer look then you realize that the specific features of the person are different from the initial appraisal you had basis the whole based perception. Contrast this, when witness is describing the face of a person to a sketcher then the individual is relying on feature based processing (eyes, nose, body structure and all such related details). So, the basic perceptual processes involved at the time of encoding of face structure of an individual are very different from the very nature of perceptual processes which are utilized by an individual at the time of generating that facial composite or at the time of giving the description of what a person looked like. And in turn the facial composite that is generated for the first time is highly inaccurate. What can be done about it is to perhaps make the generation of facial composite a more interactive process going back and forth between the sketcher and the witness. But this then becomes a cumbersome task because a sketcher sketches and shows it to the person then the person uses whole based processes and then realizes that this is not what the person looked like and then starts making modification, the sketcher then has to start from the scratch. And this might happen again. To tackle this to a certain extent, in the western countries what they have today is that they use artificial intelligence to sketch that. It is a less time consuming process but there is still a lot of back and forth that happens. 20 2. USE OF PHOTOSPREADS- When a number of photographs of the potential offender are shown to the witness and the witness is asked to locate which of these individuals is possibly the offender. These photographs of the offender might be selected on the basis of the verbal descriptions which are given by the witness, also on the basis of previously existing information with regards to who could have possibly committed the crime. Research tells that the identification of any face is a very individual process and highly ridden with individual differences. And these individual differences creep in in the context of personal values and motives of the person concerned himself. Faces which the individual finds more attractive are easier to remember as compared to faces which are usually seen as very normal average faces. Certain kinds of faces are easier to remember and when we start to describe what kinds of faces are easier to remember there is a lack of universal definition in that regard because a particular kind of face might be easier to remember for one particular person and might not be easier for certain other kinds of people. For instance- attraction. Considering, that if the witness finds the face of offender attractive, then those kinds of faces are easier to remember and less thus less prone to accuracy as compared to face with average attraction to the witness. Also for instance, faces which have some distinctive features, like- a very prominent nose or a very distinctive rare face structure. These faces would be easier to recall as compared to faces which are an average version in a particular culture. Also a particular kind of bias known as the- ‘Own Race Bias.’ This is usually seen in multi-ethical culture where a culture like the US, people of multiple ethnicity stay there. This bias is a process which simply says that individuals find it easier to distinguish between facial features of individual belonging to their own culture as compared to facial features belonging to other races or culture. We are able to recognize facial features differences of people that we constantly interact with or we are familiar with but we are unable to recognize individual differences in the facial make up of people who do not belong to our culture. This bias is known to have led to a lot of false alarms in multi- ethnical cultures. In terms of investigative psychology, it is not a mono-ethnic phenomenon. In a culture like India if there is a photospread and one has to pick up people then it is highly likely that there will be people belonging to your own culture at least the facial features of the people that you are familiar with. But in a multi-ethnic culture like the US if an individual of a particular culture or ethnicity commits a crime, then another individual belonging to that ethnicity is likely to be identified as the offender even though if that particular person has not committed that crime. Because the level of similarity is a lot and the person has not developed enough familiarity to be able to differentiate between different individuals of that community and the illusion of homogeneity raises false alarms. Own raise bias is one type of inaccuracy. ‘Differential Experience Hypothesis’- It is not just the frequency of experience but the frequency of meaningful experience which determines our sensitivity to facial features of an individual belonging to some other ethnicity. Another type of inaccuracy is the notion of ‘Unconscious Transference’. It is simply a process of interference of memory wherein one individual to which the witness had an exposure to at a prior event is misidentified as the offender in an event which took place 23 The courts said that line ups can be extremely suggestive in nature and that raises serious issue around the reliability and validity of evidence obtained from identification of the procedure. The court identified that this cannot be a reason enough to entirely doubt the reliability of line ups and if a line up is conducted in a reliable fashion then that it is reason enough to admit evidence based on line up and evaluate those evidence as within the context of all other evidence presented in the court. What would determine whether a line up has been administered in a reliable manner or not. The court identified 5 specific conditions which needed to be ensured to ascertain the reliability of the line up. These 5 particular conditions were based on the behavior of the witness in the particular case. 1. It should be ascertained that the witness has had the opportunity to view the crime. 2. Along with that the witness should have had the opportunity to attend to the crime at length. 3. The witness should have given consistent account of the crime itself over multiple interviews and also of the perpetrator. 4. The witness should be confident or should show certain level of certainty with respect to his account that it is accurate. There is contending evidence within the field of psychology as far as the confidence level and the level of accuracy is concerned because a lot of psychological studies tell us that the level of confidence of an individual does not find high co-relation with the accuracy rates. 5. Less amount of time must have elapsed between the occurrence of the crime and the identification procedure or lineup which is administered. When a large amount of time lapses after memory has been formed, there is greater scope of reconstructive processes to take place and thus greater opportunity for cognitive processes to alter the memory. Also in the field of psychology APA has a sub society of psychology which is called the American Psychology Law Society. And this society in 2001 gave a list of 4 features or characteristics which again should be ensured in order to ascertain that a lineup is generating evidence which are highly accurate and therefore limiting the scope of inaccuracy. 1. The most important factor in the list to ensure that a lineup is a double blind procedure. It means that the administrator of the lineup should not be aware of who the possible perpetrator is. Functionally implying that the person who constructs the lineup that person would be different from the person who actually administers the lineup when it comes to calling the victim and view these individuals and pick the possible perpetrator. This is one level of blindness (blindness because the administrator is not aware of it). The second level of blindness is that the witness who is viewing the lineup is also aware that the administrator does not know anything about the lineup. Now this double blind procedure in effect is important, in order to counter the suggestibility of the line up. That since the administrator does not know of who the possible perpetrator is then there is no chance that the administrator would be able to suggest anything directly or indirectly to the witness. Along with that what is important is that the witness also knows that the administrator is unware of the line up so that the witness does not take any suggestions which were not even intended to begin with. 24 2. Ensuring that the functional size is indeed equal to the nominal size. Research in psychology says that having a greater nominal size has little or no value so in order for the line up to be effective and ensure a greater opportunity to the witness to explore greater number of alternatives then the functional size should typically be as large as possible and should ideally be equal to the nominal size. 3. The witness should definitely be informed that it is possible that the perpetrator is not in the line up. Even if the perpetrator is in the line up, as a standard rule the individual should be informed that it is possible that the perpetrator is not in the line up and therefore the individual is not under any compulsion to make an identification to begin with. This happens to counter the conformation bias. 4. Taking a statement from the witness with respect to the certainty with which he has made an identification or simply taking a statement with respect to the confidence level of the witness with respect to identification before he has given feedback or before he is allowed to interact with any other individual outside the context of identification set up. Confidence level is not used as a co-relate of accuracy (that if there is greater level of confidence then it implies higher accuracy). 25 20/09/2019 UNIT-III IN COURT LEGAL PROCESSES DECISION MAKING WITHIN THE COURTROOM Basically when the judges/juries are listening to the arguments which are offered within the courtroom, in the most ideal situation if it is assumed that the judge/jury takes the most rationale decision based on the arguments which are offered in the court of law then technically we are assuming that the judge is taking into account all the information which is being offered in the court and is able to analyze or assess that info on a perfectly rational basis, eventually arriving through this systematic and rational process at the final decision based purely on the merits of the arguments which are offered. Now that assumption of rationality from a psychological perspective is a flawed assumption. So, very basic level studies in psychology show that human cognition is not entirely rational, the irrationality of the human cognition begins at the level of basic cognition as basic as the selectivity of human perception and memory. How you make sense of the world around you is through the process of perception. Perception then is the selection and organization of information (sensory) in your cognitive system. Sensation is the beginning of perception but perception is not limited to that and selection of information is a very important perceptual function which is where attention comes into play. Attention plays the selection role of perception. The process of attention which is at work, meaning, that we are constantly selecting certain specific kinds of information or only specific amount of information to allow it to enter in our cognitive system. The selection of external information ensures that all possible information which is presented in the court as part of the arguments are not entered into human cognition or the cognition of the judge. For the process to be completely rational in nature, all info presented in court needs to be evaluated by an individual. We are arguing that that to begin with is not even possible because human cognition is limited by selection (with respect to the information which is allowed to enter the human cognitive process and we do not allow all information to enter our cognitive process, therefore right at the beginning of our perceptual process there is scope for inaccuracies and irrationality. As far as human cognition is considered, selection is not limited to the selection of external info, it also extends to the info which we have access to from our internal memory. Retrieval becomes a memory based function and when it comes to retrieving info from memory it becomes selective in nature, meaning that we do not have equal ease of access to all information which is there in our long term memory. This all is to do that we are challenging the notion that an individual is taking into account all the information that is available while appraising information. The second aspect of it has to with the complexity of the information which is presented within a legal context. We are arguing that for a judge to be able to take a completely rational decision, we are assuming that the processing or the appraisal of information is entirely reason based. Whereby we are assuming that all the complex info, all the contradictory info, every bit of 28 or availability heuristic becomes important and one way in which it functions is through selectivity. So, information which for some reason is easy to access for that individual is likely to reflect in the probabilities and likelihoods which the judge associates with that particular event. What determines the selectivity of memory- one most important factor is the distinctiveness of that memory. The specific factors that determine distinctiveness can differ from person to person. But if a memory has some distinct factors for ‘me’ then that memory will be easy to recall for me and therefore it will play an important role in my decision making or my judgment. ‘Distinctiveness’ also supersedes the role of relevance which means that memories which might not be typically relevant to the situation at hand might not be typically a reflection of the situation at hand. But they are similar in some way or they are connected to situation in hand in some way still continue to practice their influence as long as they are distinct. For instance- a judge is taking a decision with regards to a particular kind of case and while decision making the judge sort of recalls a certain other case which was about a similar crime and for some reason the case had relevance for the judge (had a distinctive quality for him). In that case irrespective of what transpired- if a judge has to take a decision with respect to how frequently does this crime occur? Ideally the judge should go back to statistics and evaluate them to gauge how frequently such a crime occurs. But if there is a particular case which happened which had distinctive quality for the judge it will continue to increase the likelihood of appraisals with respect to the frequency of occurrence for the judge as long as the memory of the case easy to access because of the distinctiveness value it has even it is not directly relevant to the case in hand. So, it is possible that in that particular case the individual was not found to be guilty but irrespective despite the outcome it becomes relevant for the judge and the judge continues to use that in order to increase his perception of the likelihood of occurrence of that kind of crime and when it increases it is more likely to lead to a conviction for the defendant. So if in the previous case the individual was not found guilty irrespective of that outcome it is more likely to lead to a guilty conviction in this case. Another study reported by Colwell in 2005 and was evaluating the judgments of several judges and points out to one particular case of 2 decisions and compared in contrast 2 decisions that were taken by a judge in the state of Pennsylvania on the same day and he noted the difference in the severity with which these verdicts were arrived at. First decision with respect to sentencing the individual who was charged with cruelty towards animals and was given the sentence of 2 years of imprisonment which was the maximum sentencing for cruelty against animals that was prevalent at that time in the state. And the second decision was a decision with regards to this individual who was accused of robbery for the second row in time and he was released on probation by the same judge. If these 2 decisions are rationally compared then there certainly is a difference in the severity with which the judge approached the 2 situations wherein in the first case he gave maximum possible sentence concerning animal cruelty whereas in the other case he let go of an induvial on probation who was found guilty of robbery for second time in a row where if someone is found guilty for the second time then ideally the sentencing should be severe. 29 Colwell came to the conclusion that it is from the psychological standpoint it is quite possible. He does not find any valid reason for such massive difference in severity and says that from a psychological standpoint the most appealing reason for this is the fact that on the same day in the morning this judge who had taken these 2 decisions had buried his pet for 14 years and considering how that memory of burying his beloved pet became so salient in the mind, memory becoming so easily accessible to the judge that instead of offering a more lenient hand to this individual, he took a severe stand against him. In the context of legal decision making, the impact of pre-trial information in the media has also been the center of critique. Studies essentially tell that pre-trial reports in the media continue to have significant impact on the decision making of the judges. It is because that even before the trial begins the judge has been exposed to so much of contemplation about the case in the media that it sort of primes the memory of the judge. It is a typical example ‘Cognitive Priming’- It is the process of creating a cognitive readiness in an individual. So if I have watched an excessive aggressive movie and the movie got over, I walk out and somebody does something that I do not like then I am more likely to react in an aggressive manner at that point because I have just watched an aggressive movie and it has created a readiness with respect to aggression. So the news which might not have a basis at all that creates sort of a cognitive priming or readiness and the readiness is created simply because these news articles are easily accessible in the memory of the judge and thus influence the decision making. Another cognitive factor which underlies the impact of media on legal decision making is the idea of ‘Source monitoring’. This when decisions are taken after a long time has elapsed. After such a long time the judge is trying to recall memories with respect to the case in order to do an analysis and the judge recalls a memory but does not know the source of the memory that information about the source has not been encoded along with the information. So, when the judge comes to the final decision then he knows that there is some information but does not know what the source of it is and this leads to automatic cognitive cognition with regards to whether the source was the trial itself or whether it was the newspaper or casually told by someone. This leads to an assumption that because it is info with respect to an ongoing case it came probably from within the courtroom and in turn influences decision making when actually it should not have been a part of rational analysis of the judge. 21/10/2019 2. REPRESENTATIVE HEURISTICS- It is used when we are making inferences about the probabilities or likelihoods of events just like availability heuristics but then in this case it is to do with the likelihood of inferring whether an object or an event belongs to a particular category of objects or events. If we infer that the profession of a girl is that of a student or an activist or a journalist then we are making inference of the category of the 30 profession to which this person belongs to. We base our inference on the extent to which this object or event resembles or has features of the prototype of that category. Higher the number of representative features- greater is the likelihood that we infer that this object belong to that category. In the legal setup, in the background of the cognitive processing, the judge or jurors involved are making inferences with respect to, like, whether this particular victim looks like a victim. It has to do with 3 important aspects of the legal process- -The Victim Characteristics- So, does the person look like a victim? -The Defendant Characteristics- Does this person look like someone who can be the offender? What profiling procedures do to shape the perception of the general public and the decision maker? One of the drawbacks of profiling- Subject based profiling. When there are descriptors and specifically physical and demographic descriptors which describe what atypical offender looks like then that shapes the outlook of public in general. This also decides that who is more likely to be perceived as a defendant and even if that person is not a defendant. For instance- in cases of drug trafficking there is this profile where an individual who belongs to the middle class, a young, male, urban individual and belongs to an ethnic minority is more likely to engage in drug trafficking. Now if there is a case which is to do with drug trafficking and the defendant fits into this profile then this individual is more likely to be perceived as a possible offender by the judge even if he is not. So there are so many people who can actually fit into this profile or this typical description of drug trafficker but then does that mean that all these individuals engage in drug trafficking? Clearly not. But despite that just because the offender has all the features which are representative of an offender, which fit into the expectation of the judge therefore the judge in the case would be more inclined towards believing that this person is possibly guilty and if this individual does not have most of these features then the judge would be more inclined towards believing that this person is not guilty. This is how profiling also colors the decision makers within the legl setting and not just the general public. -Crime Related Characteristics- Are details of the crime which are specified in a particular case, does it feel as if it can be the case of this particular crime? In all of these 3 cases- the extent to which the features describe the characteristics of the victim/defendant/details of the crime fit within the expectations or the pre-conceived notions of the judge or the jurors- the greater the fit the greater is the likelihood that the judge will be inclined in one direction. A research done by Regan & Baker studied the impact of the demeanor (behavior) of the victim on the appraisal of the jury members with respect to the guilt of the offender/defendant. Most of these researches have been conducted in a mock jury series, the jury which is setup is a close representative of the actual juries which are present at the time of actual trials. This experiment was done in 2 phases. In the 1st phase the researchers obtained descriptions from within the community with respect to what the behavioral reactions of a victim of child abuse would be when he is first exposed to the offender in a courtroom setup? He obtained open ended descriptors from people within the community on this question and an analysis of the responses depicted that there was