SE3R: WHAT AND WHY - 2

Eric Shepherd
 The pervasive problem of editing
• When we edit:
• we modify
• we condense
• we put something another way.
• You will remember the problem.
• Tellers edit – both deliberately and unconsciously - what they disclose.
• Listeners and readers – both deliberately and unconsciously - further edit the
teller’s disclosure.
• This double editing has serious implications and consequences:
• for any investigation
• for any investigative interview.
 Teller editing
• Tellers typically edit their stories in four ways.
• Keeping it short
• Adding detail
• Not saying something or saying it indirectly
• Not reporting what was actually said.
 Keeping it short
• Psychologists call this inner editing.
• It is conscious editing motivated by our need for social desirability.
• We typically want other people to have a positive view of us as a person.
• Well at least not a negative view!
• The exceptions - psychopaths - couldn’t care less (though the confidence
tricksters don’t let on!).
• We are particularly sensitive to powerful people: anyone whose has
the ability to make us feel good… or bad.
• An investigator or interviewer is a powerful person to a witness or
suspect.
• We know from our own experience of listening to/reading other
people’s stories too much information is a ‘turn off’.
• Sustained concentration is hard work.
• It is hard to maintain attention.
• It stretches ability to hold detail in memory, and to remember earlier detail.
• We follow the “less is best” rule when telling a story to a powerful
person.
• We know they are busy people who know what they want to know.
• We keep it short.
• We know that when we stop talking the powerful person will start talking.
• Witnesses and suspects follow the ”less is best” rule to gain social
desirability in the eyes of the investigator/interviewer.
• They give a “thin” account – short, not much detail, quickly delivered
– and stop.
• They wait for the investigator/interviewer who acts as expected:
immediately starting to talk and to ask questions.
 Adding detail
• Tellers are not computers. Stories are not saved Word ‘files’ on a hard
drive.
• Telling a story involves:
• accessing bits of information from experience (long term memory)
• assembling some of the bits mentally (in working memory)
• finding and then using words.
• The order in which the teller describes events will not be exactly the
order in the order in which the events happened.
• Narrative reversal is very common: something that occurred later is
described ahead of something that occurred earlier, e.g. I called my Mum
after I fed the kids.
• Delayed mention is also very common: later in the process of telling the teller
mentions detail to be inserted at an earlier stage in the story.
 Not saying something or saying it indirectly
• Tellers can be deceptive.
• They can evade – avoid saying something.
• Using the passive instead of the active form. This avoids saying who did
something, e.g. The knife was handed to me avoids stating who handed the
weapon. The active would require who it was Andy handed me the knife.
• Using indirect instead of direct speech. This avoids quoting explicitly the
content of statements, questions or other utterances. The teller may not
remember – and want to to hide this – or not want to say what was actually
said.
 Time to read!
• Please read pages 6 to 11.
• Stop at the heading Communicating narrative: the receiver’s
perspective on page 11.
• Then open Power Point SE3R What and why - 3.