Investigative interviewing is moving away from confession-driven legacy methods and toward information-gathering approaches grounded in research. Science-Based Interviewing prioritizes accurate information, rapport, open-ended questioning, strategic evidence use, and hypothesis testing while reducing the risks created by guilt presumptions, psychological manipulation, pseudoscience, and false confessions.

I get this question in almost every class: what's with all the goats? It started as a way to say thank you — cartoon GOAT stickers and a handwritten note for detectives who did great work. It ended up teaching me something about science-based interviewing. One good opening question once got 14 minutes of lies from a man now serving 30 years for murder. Every one of those lies was information. Statements are evidence. Here's why that changes how you interview — and how you lea

You can't learn from your mistakes—because anxiety-based lie detection training never lets you count them. No batting average, no save rate, and no field goal percentage: it records only the hits. I trusted NLP, microexpressions, and baselining once, and they pointed me at an innocent man while the real evidence sat on a phone I'd turned off. Human deception detection runs about 54%—barely better than a coin flip. Here's why the science-based fundamentals beat the pseudoscien

Science-Based Interviewing (SBI) replaces outdated interrogation myths with research-backed methods for gathering reliable information. Learn how rapport, better questions, active listening, planning, bias reduction, and strategic evidence disclosure help investigators, HR professionals, compliance teams, and leaders improve interviews and decisions.

Most suspects walk into an interview braced for an accusation. The Strategic Use of Evidence flips the script: instead of confronting a suspect with what you know, you ask first and reveal later. Guilty suspects, unaware of the evidence against them, talk themselves into contradictions the innocent never produce. It's not about reading twitches or chasing nerves—it's about letting the gap between a story and the facts speak for itself. Here's how SUE works and why the science

Science-Based Interviewing gives companies a better way to conduct internal investigations, workplace investigation interviews, and corporate security interviews. Instead of relying on accusatory tactics, pseudoscientific lie detection, or premature evidence disclosure, investigators can gather reliable information, protect statements from contamination, test accounts against evidence, and make better decisions.

Workplace investigations depend on more than policy and paperwork. They depend on communication, sound interviewing, and the ability to gather reliable information when tensions are high. This article explains how science-based interviewing helps HR, corporate security, compliance, and internal investigators conduct fairer, more thorough, and more defensible investigations through better questions, active listening, rapport, and evidence-based methods.

What investigators often call luck is usually better information gathering. Science-based interviewing helps create that edge through better questions, stronger rapport, and Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE). Statement evidence gives context to every case, helps locate more witnesses and evidence, and moves investigators closer to the truth. Good interviews do more than confirm theories. They build a fuller picture of events and help define the case.

Science-Based Interviewing is not new, but the evidence supporting it is stronger than ever. While research consistently shows that information-gathering approaches outperform accusatory, confession-driven tactics, outdated interrogation methods continue to dominate training rooms. This article examines why legacy practices persist, the risks they create, and how evidence-based interviewing improves accuracy, cooperation, and investigative outcomes.

What does trolling a teenager who loves Taylor Swift have to do with interrogation? More than you’d think. This article uses dad-level provocation, eye rolls, and pop-culture mischief to expose a serious problem in interviewing: tactics that rely on pressure, emotion, and reaction-hunting instead of listening. By contrasting accusatory methods with science-based interviewing, it shows why provoking people doesn’t produce truth—it produces noise.

Science-Based Interviewing puts investigators back in control by grounding interviews in peer-reviewed research rather than intuition, tradition, or pseudoscientific lie detection. This article shows where to find open-access research on interviewing, interrogation, memory, deception, and false confessions—allowing investigators to read the evidence for themselves, verify claims, reduce investigative risk, and strengthen decision-making through transparent, evidence-based pra

Science-Based Interviewing focuses on gathering accurate, unbiased information—but some common questions quietly sabotage that goal. Self-handicapping questions like “Were you a witness?” embed assumptions that cause people to self-exclude, cutting off valuable information before it emerges. This article explains how these questions harm investigations, why they persist, and how open-ended, information-generating prompts protect investigative integrity.

Modern interview and interrogation training is failing because it still relies on accusatory methods, lie detection myths, and a confession-first mindset. Decades of research now show Science-Based Interviewing gathers more information, strengthens case integrity, reduces bias, and even increases confessions. It’s time to replace broken tools with evidence-based skills that actually uncover the truth.

Body language and lie detection are often linked, but research does not support many popular claims. This article explains why nervous behavior, eye contact, baselining, and microexpressions are weak indicators of deception and why investigators should focus on statement evidence, corroboration, and science-based interviewing instead.

The interview decides your workplace investigation. Here's a step-by-step, science-based interviewing process—plan, free recall, open questions, strategic evidence disclosure, and a clean close—to run one that's fair, defensible, and actually gets to the truth.

Science-Based Interviewing is changing how interviews and interrogations are done—shifting from control and pressure to listening, curiosity, and strategy. From using silence as a tool to building rapport that actually produces better case data, this post shares five powerful lessons from decades in the field. If you care about getting better information, stronger cases, and more reliable interviews, start here.

Science-Based Interviewing (SBI) must come before Artificial Intelligence (AI) in policing. Pseudoscientific lie detection and accusatory tactics feed garbage into investigations, and AI will only amplify those errors. Evidence-based SBI—rapport, active listening, open-ended questions—produces reliable, information-rich statements. That’s the data AI can actually use to strengthen cases and build trust in the information age of policing.

For years, we’ve discussed interviews and interrogations, and that legacy techniques were the standard. We have relied on these outdated methods for too long. The training is not good. In fact, they actually undermine our ability to gather reliable information. This is especially true in confession-driven approaches. The idea behind these tactics is that if a suspect denies involvement early, they’re less likely to confess later. But the problem here isn’t just the techniques

Success in high-stakes situations, such as criminal cases, compliance interviews, or HR investigations, requires more than just asking the right questions. It’s about asking the right questions for the right reasons, in the right way. That requires more than instinct or experience; it calls for strategic preparation. Integrating red teaming, setting clear interview objectives, and crafting a strategic questioning plan can elevate any investigation from routine to remarkable.

The single greatest problem in communication is the illusion it has taken place. - George Bernard Shaw When I read this quote this...