The Interview Challenge

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,The, April, 2000 by Owen Einspahr

Mike Simmen Versus the FBI

On a Wednesday morning, an FBI special agent spends approximately 1 hour interviewing a local bank's loan officer, Mike Simmen, about a theft from the bank's automated teller machine (ATM), which occurred the previous Saturday. After asking numerous questions, the agent believes that Mr. Simmen knows more about the theft than his answers convey. The agent decides to try a more direct approach. "Tell me what you think happened on Saturday," the agent asks. Mr. Simmen replies, "Well, I think somebody took the money." Next, the agent says, "Tell me your side of what happened Saturday." Mr. Simmen retorts, "What do you mean, my side? Do you think I took the money?" The agent reassures Mike, "Everyone remembers things differently, so that's why we need to get everyone's perspective." Mr. Simmen answers, "I don't know that I have one." Then, the agent pointedly remarks, "If you did it, we'll find out." At this, Mr. Simmen indignantly announces, "I'm not going to answer any more questions. This interview is over.

Realizing that this approach did not succeed, the agent decides to interview Mr. Simmen again, using a different approach. How could this happen? Thanks to modern technology, law enforcement officers now can enhance their most fundamental and important skill, interviewing individuals, via an interactive computer program that so closely imitates real life officers may find it difficult to tell the difference.

DEVELOPING THE PROGRAM

In 1996, instructors who teach interviewing and interrogation at the FBI Academy met with members of the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) to determine if they could create a computer program that would realistically simulate a human personality. [1] At the time, these instructors were training record numbers of new agent and FBI National Academy students. They needed a system that would allow their students to practice interviewing skills and receive feedback yet did not require instructor-monitored practice sessions. Primarily, the instructors wanted a program that would augment and support the training that FBI students receive during their interviewing classes but that also could act as a standalone practice drill to enhance the interviewing skills of veteran officers.

The APL faced a challenging design proposal. First, the FBI instructors wanted an interactive, self-paced computer program user-friendly enough to allow those with minimal computer expertise to use it with little or no training and engaging enough to make students want to use it on their own time. Second, the computer-simulated interviewee needed to display multiple dispositions interview after interview to emulate the many different types of individuals that investigators encounter. Finally, the program could not allow users to "beat the system." FBI instructors did not want clever students devising one set of questions that they could ask in the same order during each interview to produce a high score. Human interviewees prove more complex than that.

The APL accepted the challenge and delivered the completed software to the FBI in May 1998. "Mike Simmen" (i.e., simulated man) was born. Mike may appear talkative and eager to help investigators in one interview but seem busy and defensive in the next. He may portray an innocent employee in some interviews but, in others, is guilty of stealing money from an ATM. As with many humans, even when he is not the perpetrator, Mike may lie to hide other information that he does not want the user to know. These changes occur because Mike "remembers" the nature of the user's questions and statements and responds based on typical behavior patterns related to his guilt or innocence and the content of the interview.

Moreover, the APL designed Mike's "brain" with both logical and emotional components. The logical component tracks the responses and keeps them reasonable and consistent. It selects one of a series of likely responses to the current questions and circumstances, which affect Mike's actual status (i.e., guilt or innocence) and emotional state. At the same time, the emotional component critically impacts Mike's response selection. While the user's questions primarily determine Mike's emotional state, the computer randomly selects the fluctuations of Mike's emotional state or "mood," causing his answers to change each time the user conducts an interview. For example, depending on Mike's mood, he may forgive a poorly worded question or become upset and uncooperative. The user never knows how Mike will respond from one interview to the next.

USING THE PROGRAM

The program includes an online tutorial to help users learn how to use the program and to understand the scoring system. Also, an online manual of tips and guidelines helps those who want to enhance their interviewing skills. For example, the manual reminds users that an interview is a conversation with a purpose or goal, not just a series of questions. To this end, the manual stresses that users must learn to evaluate the truthfulness of the information they obtain by "reading" both the verbal and nonverbal indicators of the individuals they interview. As experienced interviewers know, they must develop rapport with their interviewees and establish a baseline of what constitutes an individual's normal behavior. Without determining an individual's typical reactions, interviewers cannot identify deviations from them. [2]