The effect of the presence and seating position of an interpreter on eliciting information and cues to deceit

ABSTRACT

The present experiment examined how the seating position of an interpreter during investigative interviews affects information elicitation and cues to deceit. A total of 60 native English speakers were interviewed in English and 200 non-native English speakers were interviewed in English (a non-native language) or through an interpreter who either sat next to the interviewer, behind the interviewee or interpreted via the telephone. Interviewees either lied or told the truth about a mock security meeting they watched. Interviewees who spoke in their native language provided more detail than interviewees who spoke in their native language through an interpreter or in a non-native language (English) without an interpreter. The latter groups did not differ. Additionally, the amount of detail differentiated truth tellers from liars in all conditions and interviewees found the presence of an interpreter to be a largely positive experience. The interpreter’s seating position had no effect on the findings.

KEYWORDS:

• Interpreter
• information gathering
• seating position
• telephone interpreting
• deception

Acknowledgements

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The 2 × 5 analysis with the interviewee’s text revealed almost the same effects as the analysis with the interpreter’s text. The only difference was that in this analysis truth tellers in the native-English condition provided a higher proportion of correct detail than truth tellers in the non-native English condition and the ‘behind the interviewee’ condition, with no other effects emerging. In other words, the difference between the native-English condition and the ‘next to the interviewer’ condition, significant in the correct detail analysis reported above when using the interpreter text, was no longer significant when we used the interviewee’s own text. This suggests that differences in correct information provided by native speakers and those interviewed with an interpreter are, in part, caused by the mistakes made by the interpreters.

Additional information

Funding

This work is funded by the HIG (High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group), J-FBI-12-194 awarded to the University of Portsmouth (UK).