Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

using coercive strategies also has an effect on agents — typically instilling in
them a more negative evaluation of the target, including his or her ability to think.
This effect is not found among agents who use strategies of rational persuasion
(O’Neal et al, 1994).
Under conditions that simulate an intelligence interrogation, indirect
strategies for eliciting information (i.e., acquiring information through interaction
by means other than asking for it directly) may be more effective than direct, highpressure
techniques. In one of the few open-source studies on the effectiveness
of military “resistance training,” 58 cadets at the Royal Norwegian Naval
Academy were subjected to a simulated prisoner-of-war exercise. Some had
received a pre-training experiential exercise in resisting interrogation, others
were given only a pre-training lecture. Perhaps of greatest interest is that the use
of indirect interrogation techniques significantly reduced the amount of “prisoner”
communication confined to name, rank, military number, and date of birth (from
24% to 0% in the lecture group and from 61% to 5% in the experiential pretraining
group). More importantly, the indirect strategy (as opposed to a direct
one) also increased the percentage of compromising statements revealed by the
“prisoners” from 22% to 37% in the lecture group and from 0% to 15% in the
experiential pre-training group (Laberg, Eid, Johnsen, Eriksen, and Zachariassen,
2000).
New-Age Technologies
Although the social sciences provide a rich menu of proven or promising
influence strategies, researchers always look for ways to achieve results more
quickly, more efficiently, or more covertly. Two influence strategies in the genre
of “new-age technologies” have attracted the interest of some persons involved
in interrogation training: neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and subliminal
persuasion.
NLP
A blend of linguistics and psychology, NLP is more of a system of
communication than a psychological theory. NLP has many facets, but the claims
that have garnered the most attention from interrogators are the claimed ability
to unconsciously develop a powerful rapport with another person that would
virtually bring that person under a hypnotic spell, and the ability to understand
and read people’s internal mental processes by listening to the sensory words they
use and by observing their eye movements.
Since NLP was first introduced in the 1970s, many research studies in the
United States and Europe have sought to prove or disprove some of NLP’s claims. 19
Almost none of the studies examining the effects of unconscious (covert) NLP
rapport-building techniques such as pacing and mirroring have found that NLP
techniques carry significant advantages. In studies where NLP strategies had a
19
A large database of abstracts from NLP articles and studies can be retrieved at:
http://www.nlp.de/cgi-bin/research/nlp-rdb.cgiaction=res_entries.
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