Summary

• Users practice investigative interview skills on a simulated suspect named Jennifer Lerner.
• The training system is intended to help law enforcement, security, and intelligence community professionals to review, develop, and refine their interview and confession-solicitation skills.
• Jennifer’s variable veracity, personalities, and motivations make the system highly engaging, leading to repeated practice.
• Users receive ongoing feedback on their progress and also receive a post-interview score on their mastery of the learning objectives.

Scenario

• Users assume the role of an investigator who is questioning Jennifer following the theft of three restricted documents, one of which is highly sensitive.
• Jennifer is different in each conversation, based on a combination of veracity, personality, motivations, and mood.
• Topics that the user can discuss include:
  • People she works with and her family
  • Her opinions related to how the crime was carried out and who may have done it
  • The good and bad aspects of her working environment
  • The timeline of her activities the day the files were taken
  • Rationalizations for taking the files
  • Accusations and reasons to confess
  • Obtain and verify a written confession

Learning Objectives

After achieving mastery through repeated conversations, the user will be able to:

• Build rapport using a variety of techniques
• Rapidly identify signs of deception as well as truthful behaviors
• Use a series of diagnostic questions to assess veracity
• Identify appropriate confession-solicitation themes
• Apply various confession-solicitation techniques
• Use proper post-confession techniques

Seat Time

• Approximately two hours of e-learning material that includes:
  • General interview tips and tactics, signs of deception to watch for, and suggested interview procedure
• While much can be gained in 4 - 8 hours, most users will want to use the system for 16 - 40 hours and achieve mastery of all the learning objectives
• Simulated conversations last 30 - 70 minutes.

The estimate seat time does not account for longer-term "refresher" sessions, which will vary by user.

Jennifer Lerner Demonstration Selected scenes of a user successful interviewing a guilty version of Jennifer Lerner. Jennifer Lerner is played by Marni Penning.