Alfred Biderman, under the auspices of the C.I.A., conducted a comprehensive examination of the false confession cases on behalf of the United States Air Force and the CIA and he focused on one major question: what happened to U.S. personnel captured in Korea that caused them to "confess" to non-existent war crimes? Biderman was the editor of the infamous book, "The Manipulation of Human Behavior," that gained notoriety when questions were raised over current interrogation techniques. In accordance with the findings of the Hinkle and Wolff and Wolff, as well as his own work, Biderman recognizes that human behavior can be "manipulated" in a "controlled" environment, similar to one in which a prisoner of war may find himself. The nation that holds prisoners of war has two major goals according to Biderman: establish compliance and, in cases where prisoners may be used for propaganda purposes, manipulate that compliance. The North Koreans and the Chinese, like their Soviet counterparts, gained compliance by undermining the prisoner's resistance, usually with "touch-less torture."


Biderman contended that of all possible techniques, isolation works best to break down resistance in prisoners. Severe isolation can achieve the same results as other methods, such as starvation and sleep deprivation and can achieve those results in a shorter period of time. When prisoners are subjected to complete or near complete isolation, their psychological well-being rapidly begins to deteriorate. Long term solitary confinement can eventually induce psychosis and a complete mental breakdown but isolation leaves no marks on its victims. Biderman's findings suggest, however, that if isolation is used at all, its use must be measured and monitored. Too much isolation will not produce accurate intelligence from a subject, a finding relevant to today's interrogators.

Biderman found that two other specific techniques also work well to establish compliance: threats of physical violence and the use of stress positions. Stress positions, such as sitting at attention or standing for long periods of time, are particularly effective for compliance because the prisoner, not the interrogator or guard, is the source of his own pain. Stress positions cause the prisoner to "exaggerate" the power of the interrogator and convince a prisoner that his captor has the ability "to do something worse to him." Stress positions also allow the interrogator to assert that physical violence never entered the interrogation room.

Regardless of the interrogation techniques used, Biderman believeed that no subject can resist a determined interrogator and he supports this assertion with a review of intelligence gathering during World War II and the Korean War. The greater problem for an interrogator, according to Biderman, is evasion by a subject after he begins to talk, a problem that confronts interrogators today. As a result of his findings, Biderman supported a change in the Military Code of Conduct which would allow American prisoners of war to speak to interrogators instead of simply supplying name, rank and serial number. Biderman reasoned that most subjects will eventually talk and the military is wiser to train troops to evade their interlocutors, who were generally poor at detecting evasion or deception. Biderman’s assertions about deception detection are still true today and supported by law enforcement research on this subject.