"...police officers could significantly improve their ability to detect false statements if suspects were asked to give their alibis in reverse order."
This is similar to a technique we use in user research – not to catch someone in a lie, but to help them remember what actually happened. If you ask someone "what is your morning routine like", they tend to forget a lot of details and gloss over things that were difficult / tedious. If you ask them to recount backwards from "how did you arrive here today", they will give you a clearer picture. Not sure it works in all cases, but I use it on myself when I really want to remember a sequence of events.