Three’s a Crowd (in the absence of planning and preparation), by Bruce Pitt-Payne

In this Reflection piece, @brucegpittpayne discusses the role of a second interviewer, including possible pitfalls and opportunities. Thank you Bruce for your excellent contribution!

Three’s a Crowd (in the absence of planning and preparation)

Bruce Pitt-Payne

I want to tell you about something I saw at a kids’ hockey game. It was hilarious — every player on the ice had clearly forgotten their assigned position. Instead, they all swarmed the puck, chasing it like it owed them money. It reminded me of a school of minnows pursuing a fly that was skimming across the surface of a pond. This fly, frantic but nimble, kept darting away, and just when it looked like one of the fish might catch it, another would crash into it sending it flying in a new direction. Eventually, the fly made it to the safety of a lily pad, not because of its own brilliance, but because the fish kept knocking it and each other off course. It’s pure comedy in a pond or on the ice but in investigative interviewing, that same chaos isn’t funny, it’s costly.

Let’s do a play-by-play on a common but often mishandled dynamic in investigative interviewing — the presence of a second interviewer.

While research demonstrates that higher cognitive load on an interviewer can reduce recall accuracy and question quality (Hanway, Akehurst, Vernham, & Hope, 2021; Giorgianni, Vrij, Leal, & Deeb, 2025; Hanway, Akehurst, Vernham, & Hope, 2024), there is no direct experimental evidence that having two interviewers automatically creates such a load. The idea that uncoordinated dual interviewers may raise cognitive demands is therefore a theoretical extension, supported mainly by practitioner observations and anecdotal reports rather than controlled studies. If it did raise the cognitive load for the interviewee and the primary interviewer alike, it could distract from rapport-building, derail carefully planned strategies, and, most critically, create confusion.

For example, imagine the primary interviewer had deliberately chosen not to ask a particular question at that moment as a rapport-building strategy or topic sequencing plan. If the secondary interviewer didn’t understand that and jumped in with that very question, it could compromise the whole interview flow.

So today, we’re going to skate through how to plan, position, and present a second interviewer without derailing your process.

Planning and preparation with the secondary interviewer

The most important step happens before you even enter the interview room. That’s the planning discussion. You need to clearly explain to the secondary interviewer:

• they should not speak unless there’s an emergency. And let’s define ‘emergency’ — for example, if you’ve forgotten to initiate audio or video recording, or if the equipment has failed.
• let them know they will be given designated opportunities to ask questions, and that you will cue them, typically by turning to them and saying something like, “Do you have any questions you’d like to ask at this point?”
• explain that these question periods will usually follow your topic development. That means you’ll start each new topic, ask your own sequence of questions, and then cue them in after that.
• Finally, and this is crucial, they must take their own notes (using the interviewee’s exact language wherever possible). This ensures their follow-up questions are memory-friendly, non-leading, and grounded in the witness’ own words. Without notes, the secondary interviewer might not be able to recall the exact topic names uttered by the witness, which could subject the subsequent topic development to interviewer suggestion. 

Physical positioning and proxemics

When using a second interviewer, the room setup is important.

The secondary interviewer should be positioned slightly behind and to either side of the primary interviewer. This is not just about eye lines or control of the room, it’s about clarity.

The interviewee must understand, from both body language and positioning, who the primary interviewer is. If the secondary interviewer is too close or too centred, it can subconsciously signal a shared or competing role, and that creates ambiguity and confusion.

Your setup should communicate that the conversation is primarily between you and the interviewee, with the secondary there as support, not a competing player.

The instruction and explanatory phase

After you introduce yourself and confirm basic details, it’s important to introduce the secondary interviewer and explain their role clearly. Here’s an example of how that might go:

“This is Fred who is here to help us out today as two heads are often better than one. I’ll be leading the conversation, but at a few points I’ll invite Fred to ask follow-up questions if he has any. He’ll be taking his own notes and may want to clarify something I may not have covered. For the majority of the conversation; however, you’ll find that I’ll be the one guiding us through though.”

That short statement gives the interviewee a sense of structure and helps prevent the confusion that might come when roles and expectations haven’t been explained clearly.

Conclusion

Adding a second interviewer can be helpful, but only if it’s done with precision, planning, and a clear understanding of role boundaries.

Think of it like flying a plane. Only one person should be at the controls at a time — and the co-pilot must understand the flight plan, not just the destination. With a little planning and preparation, the journey will have less unexpected turbulence. 

References

Giorgianni, D., Vrij, A., Leal, S., & Deeb, H. (2025). The effect of the interviewer’s cognitive load on the quality of the forensic interview. European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context, 17(2), 101–110. https://doi.org/10.5093/ejpalc2025a8

Hanway, P., Akehurst, L., Vernham, Z., & Hope, L. (2021). The effects of cognitive load during an investigative interviewing task on mock interviewers’ recall of information. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 26(1), 25–41. https://doi.org/10.1111/lcrp.12189

Hanway, P., Akehurst, L., Vernham, Z., & Hope, L. (2024). Who said what? The effects of cognitive load on source monitoring and memory for multiple witnesses’ accounts. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 38(5), 1260–1274. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.4204

Evidence gap note: At present, there do not appear to be any controlled, empirical studies directly testing the impact of dual or uncoordinated interviewers on cognitive load, rapport, or interview effectiveness. Existing claims in this area remain theoretical and anecdotal.