PrepTest 150, Section 1, Question 10
When interviewing witnesses to a crime, police interviewers(453 more words not shown)
It can be inferred from(17 more words not shown)
- AInterviews yield more(5 more words not shown)
- BInterviewers are overly(9 more words not shown)
- CInterviewers are not(12 more words not shown)
- DInterviewers are not(24 more words not shown)
- EInterviewees become less(25 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Think about the false-confidence problem. An interviewer asks, “How sure are you that this is what happened?” A hypnotized witness may answer confidently even when the memory report is wrong. The confidence isn't doing the job the interviewer wants it to do: helping distinguish reliable information from mistakes.
What we’re looking for
That's the consequence to look for. It doesn't require most of the witness's statements to be false, and it doesn't require the witness to be lying.
Working the answers
- A
More confidence in wrong reports doesn't mean wrong reports outnumber correct ones. Imagine a witness giving eight correct details and two incorrect ones but expressing equal certainty about all ten. False confidence would still be a problem, even though most of the information was accurate. Those numbers illustrate the distinction; they aren't a result reported in the research.
- B
The problem concerns the witness's confidence in memory reports. It isn't the interviewer's confidence that a procedure was followed correctly. This changes both whose confidence matters and what that confidence concerns.
- C
A mistaken memory isn't necessarily an intentional lie. Nothing here establishes that hypnosis prevents interviewers from detecting deliberate deception.
- DCorrect
Hypnosis can increase confidence in incorrect reports too. Asking the witness how sure they are therefore cannot reliably establish which reports are accurate. This connects the stated false-confidence effect to a practical interviewing problem.
- E
Some people aren't susceptible to hypnosis. That doesn't mean susceptibility steadily decreases during an interview or causes the amount of information to decline as the interview proceeds. This adds a time pattern the writer never describes.
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