Setting a Baseline

Chapter 3: How to Detect Deception in Investigation Interviews

Posted by Dawn Lomer on July 25th, 2011

Chapter 1: History of Detecting Deception Chapter 2: Reading the Signs of Deception

Chapter 3: Setting a Baseline

The first task in any investigation interview is to ask the subject some basic, non-threatening questions to which you already know the correct answers. This establishes a baseline for how they respond when telling the truth. Sample baseline questions include:

• What is your address?
• How old are you?
• How long have you worked at company xyz?
• What is your position with the company?

TIP: Observe and note the way the person uses gestures, style of speech and the degree to which he or she establishes eye contact while answering these questions. From here, you will be able to measure differences in their response behavior when you are asking questions they are less inclined to answer truthfully.

Chapter 4: Forms of Deception Chapter 5: Language Indicators of Deception Chapter 6: The Role of Anxiety in Deception Chapter 7: Body Language Chapter 8: How to Improve your Deception Detection Skills

Dawn Lomer

Manager of Communications

Dawn Lomer is the Manager of Communications at i-Sight Software and a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE). She writes about topics related to workplace investigations, ethics and compliance, data security and e-discovery, and hosts i-Sight webinars.