Sketching in Investigative Interviews: A Game-Changer?
Research shows that having interviewees draw during free recall can significantly enhance investigative outcomes:
✅ More Information – Witnesses recall 20–30% more details with sketch-assisted recall.
✅ Accuracy Maintained – Extra details do not come with a rise in errors. In some cases, accuracy improves.
✅ Clearer Communication – Sketches help structure narratives, clarify spatial details, and reduce ambiguity.
✅ Cognitive Load Effects – Truthful witnesses benefit from external memory support, while liars struggle with fabricating visuals.
✅ Real-World Impact – From finding key evidence to improving deception detection, sketching is proving its value in the field.
Overview and Context
A sketch is a rapidly executed freehand drawing that is not usually intended as a finished work. A sketch may serve several purposes: it might record something that the person sketching has seen, it might record or develop an idea or concept, or it might be used as a quick way of graphically demonstrating an image, idea or principle.
“Interviewee sketching” refers to a practice in investigative interviews where the interviewee (witness, victim, or suspect) is asked to draw or sketch during their testimony. This technique has been explored over the past two decades across law enforcement, intelligence, military, and psychology contexts as a means to enhance memory recall and communication. Researchers have studied sketching in cognitive interview procedures for witnesses, in child forensic interviews, and even in suspect interrogations as a tool for eliciting information and detecting deception. The goal of these studies is generally to determine whether having interviewees draw while describing an event improves recall accuracy, clarifies communication (for example, spatial or situational details), manages cognitive load, or leads to better investigative outcomes (e.g. more actionable details or clues to truthfulness). Below, we summarize key findings from peer-reviewed studies (2005–2025), discuss typical methodologies used, and note important limitations or considerations.
Effects on Witness and Victim Recall
Research in forensic psychology indicates that sketching can substantially support witnesses’ and victims’ memory recall without compromising accuracy. An early study by Dando et al. (2009) introduced a “Sketch Mental Reinstatement of Context” procedure as a modification to the Cognitive Interview. In that study, witnesses drew everything they could recall about a mock event while narrating, instead of purely mental visualization. The results showed that witnesses who sketched recalled as much accurate information as those who only used mental context reinstatement, with no increase in incorrect details. In fact, sketch-assisted interviewees were slightly less prone to memory errors than those doing standard mental recall. This finding suggested that replacing or supplementing mental imagery with drawing could maintain or boost recall effectiveness in front-line police interviews without added risk of confabulation.
Subsequent studies have reinforced that sketching can enhance the quantity of correct details a witness provides. For example, Sketch Reinstatement of Context (Sketch-RC) has been tested as a technique in both lab and field settings. In one experiment with older adult witnesses (age >65), participants watched a staged crime and were later interviewed with either Sketch-RC, standard mental context recall, or no context aid. Those interviewed with the Sketch-RC technique recalled significantly more correct information and made fewer confabulations (false additions) than those in a no-support control. Notably, older witnesses who used Sketch-RC even outperformed those who only did a mental context recall, suggesting sketching can “scaffold” memory retrieval for age groups that often struggle with detail memory. When Sketch-RC was combined with a self-administered interview (a written recall done soon after the event to preserve memory), it yielded the highest amount of accurate information in follow-up interviews. These findings underscore the positive impact of sketching on recall accuracy (more facts remembered, fewer errors) for witnesses and victims. Researchers believe sketching helps because it physically reinstates the context of the event and encourages a more thorough search of memory. In support of this, multiple studies note that drawing “slows down” the retrieval process and lets witnesses re-experience the event in their mind, focusing on spatial layouts, actions, and other specifics, which in turn enhances recall of details. Sketching effectively acts as a self-generated retrieval cue, tapping into the encoding-specificity principle (information encoded visually is better retrieved with visual outputs).
Child witnesses: The use of sketching (or drawing) with children in investigative interviews has also been examined. Young children are often encouraged to “draw and tell” as a means of aiding communication. Research by Barlow et al. (2011) introduced an interactive “draw-and-tell” technique for child witnesses, finding that freehand drawings allowed children to remember and express more detail about events than telling alone. The drawing process can externalize their memory, helping kids articulate things they might not verbalize well. Other studies have found that giving children paper and crayons during open-ended recall phases increases the amount of information they report. For instance, one experiment had children watch a complex event on video; when asked to draw the scene as they described it, children’s statements became more complete (i.e. they reported more items). However, the accuracy of their accounts sometimes suffered – in the same study, drawing was associated with a slight rise in incorrect details from children. This highlights a potential trade-off: while sketching can prompt children to share more, it may also lead them to speculate or confuse reality and imagination if not properly guided. Interviewers are advised to use drawing carefully with children, for example by accompanying it with clarifying “wh-” questions (“Who is this? What is happening here?”) as recommended by Barlow et al. . When structured appropriately, drawing can be very helpful; indeed, a review notes it is well established that children recall more when instructed to draw-and-tell compared to just tell. But practitioners must guard against children embellishing or making fantasy errors while drawing (a limitation identified in some studies). Overall, for child victims/witnesses, sketches can improve communication clarity and detail, but the interviewer should ensure the child explains the drawing to maintain accuracy.
Special populations: Interviewee sketching appears especially valuable for witnesses who have difficulty with purely verbal or mental-memory techniques. For example, individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often struggle with the standard cognitive interview (which relies heavily on mental context recreation). Research published in Autism (2016) tested Sketch-RC with ASD witnesses and found it to be the most effective method for improving their recall, without increasing errors. The ASD participants recalled substantially more event details when allowed to draw the scene, and did not produce more intrusion errors compared to baseline. This “visual and active” retrieval support is a “population-appropriate method” for autistic witnesses, likely because it provides concrete context cues that mental imagination alone would not supply. Likewise, older adults (who may have memory decay or cognitive slowing) benefit from sketching, as shown by the Dando et al. (2020) study where Sketch-RC helped seniors recall more with high accuracy. These findings suggest that across various witness groups – whether typically developing adults, children, the elderly, or those with cognitive differences – incorporating a drawing component tends to enhance recall completeness (number of details) and often accuracy, provided the process is well-managed.
Suspect Interviews and Deception Detection
Beyond eyewitness memory, interviewee sketching has been applied in interrogations of suspects (or intelligence sources) to assess credibility and elicit hidden information. In the past ~15 years, deception researchers have developed techniques where suspects are asked to draw places or events they describe, with the aim of exploiting liars’ cognitive difficulties. A seminal study by Leins et al. (2011) investigated whether sketching could induce inconsistencies in liars’ stories. In two experiments, liars and truth-tellers were interviewed multiple times about an event (e.g. a staged task or a supposed meal) and had to alternate between giving verbal accounts and drawing sketches of the scene. The results were striking liars’ accounts were significantly less consistent between their drawings and their verbal descriptions, whereas truth-tellers’ accounts remained largely consistent. In fact, by analyzing the alignment of sketch vs. speech, the researchers could correctly classify up to 70–77% of liars and 80–100% of truth-tellers in their experiments. The act of sketching disrupted the liars’ ability to stick to their fabricated story – when forced to recall spatial and visual details they hadn’t truly witnessed, their deception became evident as contradictions or omissions. The study concluded that having suspects draw the event “may be a reliable and efficient way to help investigators detect deception”. The underlying logic is that lying about an event is cognitively demanding, and shifting modalities (from verbal narrative to visual sketch) makes it even harder for liars to maintain a coherent false story. They often fail to spontaneously include certain details (e.g. exact spatial layouts), or their drawings reveal inconsistencies, whereas truthful individuals can more easily draw from actual memory. Subsequent research has built on this principle in various interview scenarios.
One line of work has suspects sketch while narrating in a single interview, to see how it affects the information they volunteer and the cues to deceit. Vrij et al. (2020) found that instructing interviewees to sketch as they verbally recall an experience yielded statements with a higher proportion of central (core) details relative to peripheral details. Both truthful and deceptive interviewees provided more fine-grained, on-topic information under the sketching instruction, suggesting that drawing can focus an interviewee’s memory on the most salient aspects of their story. Notably, in that study “sketching while narrating” benefited truth-tellers and liars in similar ways (it increased rich detail for both, without a significant interaction). This implies that simply adding a sketch might not, on its own, magnify differences between liars and truth-tellers in one session – rather, it generally improves recall detail for all interviewees. However, other deception-focused techniques combine sketching with strategic interviewing to tease apart honesty. For example, researchers have experimented with the “Model Sketch” technique, a variation on the “model statement” approach for eliciting more information. In a 2022 study (Deeb et al., published in Brain Sciences), subjects first heard a detailed example narrative (to set a baseline for detail level) and were then asked to provide information in phases including drawing. The Model Sketch condition led to more location-specific details being reported and produced greater differences between truthful and deceptive accounts in a subsequent recall phase. The authors concluded that the Model Sketch can both enhance information yield and carry over veracity cues (differences in storytelling quality) into follow-up interviews. In applied terms, a sketch drawn by a suspect can be used as a reference in later questioning – investigators sometimes confront suspects with their own sketch in a repeated interview to elicit new information or contradictions, a strategy that has shown promise in experimental settings (e.g. prompting liars to explain inconsistencies).
Recent work suggests that self-generated maps or diagrams yield more investigative leads and better lie detection than marking on pre-existing maps. In one study, participants either drew a map of a location from memory or annotated a provided map while being questioned. The self-drawn maps prompted more detailed spatial descriptions and made it easier to spot when someone was guessing; truth-tellers relied on their internal memory to draw a layout, whereas liars given a printed map could lean on external cues and produce a superficially plausible but less internally consistent story. Thus, interviewers are advised that having interviewees sketch things from scratch can expose gaps in knowledge that a fabricated story might otherwise conceal. Overall, across suspect interviewing research, the inclusion of a sketching component tends to increase the amount of information disclosed (more items, locations, actions mentioned) and can reveal subtle inconsistencies or differences indicative of deception. This has clear investigative benefits: more checkable facts or provable lies which can be potentially verified, may lead to deceptive accounts being uncovered sooner. It’s important to note, however, that sketching must be used judiciously – as noted, it helps honest and dishonest subjects alike to elaborate, so it often needs to be paired with skilled analysis by the interviewer to truly impact investigative outcomes like catching a lie.
Cognitive Mechanisms and Communication Clarity
Why does drawing during an interview have these effects? Researchers point to several cognitive and communicative factors. First, sketching provides context reinstatement in a tangible way. By recreating the scene on paper, witnesses effectively put themselves “back at the scene,” which is known to enhance episodic memory retrieval. This is akin to the well-established principle in psychology that memory is improved when one’s physical or mental context at recall matches the original event. A sketch serves as an externalized memory cue – as the person draws objects and locations, they often remember additional details that weren’t initially at the forefront of their mind. In fact, investigators have observed that focusing on one aspect of a sketch can trigger recall of another, previously unmentioned detail (e.g. drawing a suspect’s car might remind the witness of the license plate, etc.). Second, sketches are visual outputs aligned with how many memories are stored. Events that someone witnesses are encoded with visual-spatial information; by responding in kind (visually), the interviewee can tap into those memory traces more directly. This may be why studies found eyewitnesses who made their own drawings recalled more about people and surroundings of an event than those who only looked at an image – the act of drawing forced them to retrieve visual details about what people and the environment looked like. Third, sketching inherently slows down the interview pace and increases cognitive processing time. Compared to a rapid-fire verbal Q&A, drawing is a relatively slow, deliberate activity. This extra time can be beneficial: the witness or suspect has more opportunity to search their memory deeply. One paper described sketching as a time-consuming task that “allows eyewitnesses to take their time to search their memories to enhance recall”. For honest interviewees, this means more concentration and fewer omissions; for deceptive interviewees, this extended recall task can increase cognitive load (making it harder to maintain a lie). Indeed, imposing cognitive load is a known strategy in lie detection, and sketching appears to naturally create a productive load: liars have to juggle inventing details while drawing, which can strain their mental resources.
Crucially, drawing also offloads some cognitive burden for truthful witnesses. By putting details on paper, the interviewee doesn’t need to hold as much information in their working memory at once. One thesis on this topic concluded that sketching “off-loads the visuo-spatial working memory”, freeing up resources for other recall operations. With a lower cognitive load, witnesses can potentially remember more because they can devote more attention to searching episodic memory rather than trying to keep track of the story structure in their head. This aligns with multi-modal encoding theory: encoding information both verbally and visually creates multiple pathways to retrieve it later. By externalizing the memory (drawing it out), the memory trace may become more stable and detailed.
From a communication standpoint, sketches can greatly clarify complex information. Many crime or incident scenes involve spatial or temporal relationships that are tricky to explain in words alone. When a witness draws a map or diagram, it can make their testimony more understandable to investigators (e.g. who was standing where, or the route taken during an incident). This visual clarity can prevent miscommunication. For example, if a witness simply says, “I was near the door and saw the suspect by the table,” an interviewer might misinterpret distances or positioning – but a sketch can precisely show the layout. Studies have not always directly measured “communication clarity,” but an indirect measure is the proportion of central vs. peripheral details in a narrative. As mentioned, having interviewees sketch while narrating tends to increase the share of core, important details. In essence, the drawing acts like a guide for their storytelling, keeping them on track with describing the key elements of the event (who, where, what happened). Investigators have also reported that sketches help in formulating follow-up questions: the drawing itself becomes an artifact that can be pointed to (“Tell me more about what you drew here…”), ensuring both parties are referring to the same information. This can be especially helpful across language barriers or with traumatized victims who might be non-verbal – a drawing transcends some communication hurdles. In intelligence interviews, sketching out complex networks or locations improves clarity as well, organizing the interviewee’s knowledge into a visual form that an analyst can readily comprehend. Overall, the cognitive and communicative mechanisms of sketching work hand-in-hand: by lightening cognitive load and leveraging visual memory, sketching improves recall; by producing a visual narrative, it improves the clarity and richness of communication between interviewee and interviewer.
Key Findings and Patterns
Pulling together the research results, a few key findings emerge regarding interviewee sketching:
- Improved Recall Quantity – Having interviewees draw during free recall consistently increases the amount of information they provide. Studies with adult witnesses show 20–30% more correct details recalled with sketch-assisted recall than with verbal recall alone. Children likewise often report more when drawing (sometimes recalling details they didn’t mention in purely verbal interviews). In deception studies, both truthful and lying subjects tend to say more (greater output) when sketching is introduced. This greater information yield can give investigators additional leads.
- Maintained or Improved Accuracy – Crucially, the extra details from sketching are usually not accompanied by a proportionate rise in errors. In multiple studies, the accuracy rate (% of details that are correct) remained similar between sketch and non-sketch groups. Some research even found fewer mistakes or confabulations with sketching – e.g. older witnesses and ASD witnesses had lower false recall when using Sketch-RC compared to unguided recall. An important caveat is with young children: drawing can sometimes lower accuracy if kids start guessing or get distracted. With proper interviewing protocols (ensuring the child explains the drawing), accuracy can be kept high. On balance, interviewee sketches tend to preserve accuracy while boosting volume of recall.
- Enhanced Communication & Clarity – Sketching often leads to more organized and richer narratives. Interviewers report that timelines, spatial arrangements, and sequences of events come out more clearly when a drawing is involved. Empirical support comes from findings like the higher ratio of core details (key plot points) in sketch-assisted statements. Sketches also allow clarification through collaboration – e.g. an officer and witness can point to the drawing to disambiguate a testimony. In one case study, a sexual assault victim’s sketch of the room layout helped clarify exactly where each person was at critical moments, which had been confusing in her oral account. This clarity can improve the utility of the testimony for investigations and court, though such qualitative outcomes are not always directly measured.
- Cognitive Load Effects – Making a person draw can either relieve or impose cognitive load in helpful ways. For truthful witnesses, it offloads memory workload onto the paper (external storage of details) , which likely contributes to more complete recall. For deceptive suspects, it increases mental workload, as they have to fabricate visuals consistently, which can expose them. Studies exploiting this have shown sketching yields measurable indicators of cognitive strain in liars (e.g. longer pauses, simpler drawings, inconsistent spatial descriptions). These load effects are a unique benefit of sketching versus purely verbal interviews.
- Investigative Outcomes – All of the above translate into practical outcomes. More information and clearer communication from witnesses can directly affect case progress (finding new evidence, identifying suspects, corroborating alibis). Likewise, techniques like sketch-induced inconsistency have improved lie detection rates in lab settings beyond standard interviewing, by 10–20% in some experiments . While real-world data are scarcer, anecdotal reports suggest sketching has helped solve cases – for example, a witness’s map drawing led police to the location of a weapon that hadn’t been found. Intelligence agencies also value sketching: debriefings that include map sketching have yielded information that might not surface otherwise, such as layout of insurgent safehouses or enemy movements, improving operational outcomes. In summary, the consensus of research is that appropriately implemented sketching can be a powerful aid to investigative interviewing, with tangible benefits in recall and credibility assessment.
Limitations and Considerations
Despite the generally positive findings, scholars have identified several limitations and cautions regarding interviewee sketching:
- Not a Universal Solution: Sketching is not guaranteed to help in every situation. Some studies have found no significant benefit when sketching is introduced under certain conditions. For instance, timing and integration matter – one experiment found that if interviewees first wrote down everything they planned to say (a sort of pre-interview outline) and then were asked to sketch, the sketch added little to no new information. This suggests that sketching might be most useful as an initial retrieval method rather than an afterthought. If a person has already exhaustively recalled verbally, forcing a sketch might yield diminishing returns. Interviewers should introduce sketching at a point when it can genuinely aid memory (often early in free recall).
- Individual Differences: Not everyone is comfortable drawing or able to leverage it effectively. Some adults (or children) may feel self-conscious about their drawing ability, which could introduce anxiety or reluctance. While the quality of the artwork isn’t relevant, this psychological factor could limit the technique’s effectiveness if the interviewee is inhibited. Researchers note that a small subset of participants report mild frustration with drawing, especially if they cannot capture something accurately. Interviewers should reassure them that artistic skill is irrelevant and that any sketch is just a memory aid. Additionally, people with certain cognitive impairments or no visual imagery ability (aphantasia) might not benefit from sketching. In fact, a recent study found that eyewitnesses with aphantasia recalled less detail overall, and techniques like Sketch-RC had to be adapted for them. Thus, practitioners should be attentive to a witness’s capabilities—if someone cannot visualize, a sketch might not help (though interestingly, physically returning to the scene or using props might).
- Potential for Increased Errors: While accuracy generally remains high, there is a risk that sketching could lead some interviewees to confabulate. This is particularly noted with children, who might embellish drawings with things they think should be there. There is also the risk of interpretation errors – the interviewer might misread the sketch. Training helps here: interviewers should always ask the interviewee to explain each element of their sketch (“What does this symbol mean? Who is this stick figure?”) rather than assume. Moreover, if the interviewee mistakenly draws something (say, an object in the wrong place), it could become a source of confusion later. These are manageable issues but worth noting as limitations. Proper procedures (like the witness initialing and labeling parts of the sketch) can mitigate misinterpretation.
- Resource and Time Constraints: Drawing can be time-consuming, which may conflict with real-world interview constraints. A sketch procedure might add several minutes or more to an interview. In urgent situations or with very long witness accounts, some investigators worry about efficiency. The counterargument, supported by research, is that this extra time is usually worthwhile given the gains in information . Nonetheless, busy police investigators might skip sketching due to time pressure or if they are not trained in it. This suggests a need for training and perhaps guidelines on when to use sketching (e.g. for critical witnesses or complex scenes, make time for it).
- Training and Consistency: The effectiveness of sketching can depend on how well the interviewer administers the technique. In studies, researchers give standardized instructions (e.g. “Please draw the scene as you remember it, and talk me through what you’re drawing”). If an untrained interviewer simply hands a paper without guidance, the witness might not narrate or might produce an unlabeled sketch that’s hard to interpret. The Achieving Best Evidence guidelines in the UK have started to include instructions on using sketches with vulnerable witnesses, but not all jurisdictions have formalized this. Lack of consistency in application is a limitation in practice – some officers might use it brilliantly, others not at all. This also makes it harder to compare outcomes across different agencies.
- Liars Can Adapt: From a suspect interviewing perspective, once techniques like sketching for lie detection become well-known, savvy deceivers might try to prepare for them. For example, a suspect who anticipates being asked to draw might rehearse a false sketch beforehand. This cat-and-mouse aspect means that no technique remains foolproof. Researchers acknowledge that while sketching increased inconsistency for naïve liars in experiments, a determined liar who knows the tactic could potentially craft a more consistent story (albeit with effort). Ongoing research is looking at counter-countermeasures – e.g. asking unexpected sketching tasks (draw the scene from a different angle, etc.) to foil prepared lies. It’s also noted that some liars simply refuse to draw or produce extremely sparse sketches; noncompliance can be a tell in itself, but it also limits the utility of the method.
In conclusion, interviewee sketching is a promising but not a magic tool. The last 20 years of research provide robust evidence that, when used appropriately, sketches can enhance recall accuracy, improve communication clarity, manage cognitive load, and even aid in detecting deception. The technique has been tested with witnesses of various ages and abilities, and with suspects in both criminal and intelligence contexts, generally with positive outcomes. Interviewers who incorporate sketching into their toolkit (as part of cognitive interviews or strategic interrogations) have the potential to gather more information and spot inconsistencies that might otherwise be missed. However, it should be applied thoughtfully – considering the interviewee’s comfort and the context – and always in conjunction with sound interviewing practice (active listening, follow-up questions, and corroboration of what the sketch reveals). With continuing research and training, interviewee sketching is likely to become an increasingly standard feature of investigative interviews, bridging the gap between visual memory and verbal report to the benefit of truth-finding in justice and security settings.
