Transfer of Avatar Training Effects to Mock Investigative Interviews with Adult Witnesses

Abstract

Interviewing witnesses is a delicate and complex process that must follow certain principles. Previous studies have noted that investigative interviews with adult victims and witnesses are often of low quality. Research also suggests that interviewing skills improve when the interviewers are given feedback on their performance. We have created a web-based Adult Witness Avatars (AWA) software to simulate investigative interviews with adult victims and witnesses which would help interviewers train question types that will allow the witnesses to recall more accurate accounts. We examined whether avatar interviews coupled with feedback (vs. no feedback) would result in improvements in interview quality of real-life mock witnesses. Half of the 58 participants received process feedback after each of four simulated interviews. The avatars revealed pre-defined memories and made errors as a function of algorithms formulated based on previous empirical research on the response behaviour of adult witnesses in experimental studies. We found that feedback was linked to a high proportion of recommended questions within the AWA training itself. Receiving feedback after the simulated interviews increased the proportion of recommended questions (i.e. free recall and open questions) in real-life mock interviews compared to not receiving feedback (67% vs 49%, respectively). However, there were no significant differences between feedback and control groups in terms of correct or incorrect details elicited from the mock witnesses. Future steps and implications for this type of software in training investigative interviewing skills will be discussed.