Sketching as a Technique to Eliciting Information and Cues to Deceit in Interpreter-Based Interviews

We tested the effect of sketching while providing a narrative on eliciting information, eliciting cues to deceit, and lie detection in interpreter-absent and interpreter-present interviews. A total of 204 participants from the USA (Hispanic participants only), Russia, and the Republic of Korea were interviewed in their native language by native interviewers or by a British interviewer through an interpreter. Truth-tellers discussed a trip they had made; liars fabricated a story about such a trip. Half of the participants were instructed to sketch while narrating; the other half received no instruction. Sketching resulted in more details provided. It also elicited cues to deceit: complications and new details differentiated truth-tellers from liars in the Sketching-present condition only. Liars and truth-tellers were more correctly classified in the Sketching-present than in the Sketching-absent condition. More complications and more common-knowledge details were reported without than with an interpreter.