Other people's memory

Abstract

How optimistic are people's evaluations of their own memory as compared to that of most others? To find out, we asked 563 Sa. to compere their own memory for events, faces and names to that of others. The results show that many, and especially young respondents, tend to be illusory optimistic about the power of their memory for events and faces, but not for names. The implications of this result for evaluating eyewitness reports by tries of fact in legal cases are discussed.     

When Children are the Least Vulnerable to False Memories: A True Report or a Case of Autosuggestion?

In this case report, a legal case revolving around the reliability of statements given by a 6‐year‐old girl is described. She claimed to have witnessed her mother being murdered by her father. Two psychological experts provided diametrically opposed opinions about the reliability of her statements. One expert, a clinician, opined that the girl's statements were based on autosuggestion whereas the other expert, a memory researcher, stated that autosuggestion was unlikely to have played a role. This case and the analysis of the experts' opinions illustrate what may happen when experts in court are unaware of the recent literature on (false) memory. That is, recent studies show that autosuggestion is less likely to occur in young children than in older children and adults. The current case stresses the importance and implications of relying on memory experts in cases concerning the reliability of eyewitness statements.     

Effects of Past Abuse Experiences on Children's Eyewitness Memory

Relations between child maltreatment and children's eyewitness memory were examined. A matched sample of abused and nonabused 3- to 10-year-old children (n = 70) participated in a play session with an unfamiliar adult and were interviewed about the interaction 2 weeks later. Consistent with results from previous research, older compared to younger children's reports were more complete and accurate. Abused and nonabused children performed similarly with several exceptions: Nonabused children were more accurate in answering specific questions, made fewer errors in identifying the unfamiliar adult in a photo identification task, and (at least for younger boys) freely recalled more information. Most effects remained when group differences in IQ and behavioral symptomology were statistically controlled. Importantly, abused and nonabused children did not differ in their accuracy or suggestibility in response to questions that were relevant to abusive actions. Among abused children, however, those who suffered more severe sexual abuse made more omission errors to specific abuse-relevant questions. Contributions to psychological theory and legal implications for understanding children's eyewitness memory and testimony are discussed.     

Beliefs about child witnesses: A survey of professionals

This research addressed how professionals involved with the legal system evaluate children, primarily between 4 and 8 years old, as witnesses. In particular, we focused on professionals’ beliefs and opinions regarding children's memory, suggestibility, and behaviors as they relate to witness credibility. In addition, we surveyed professionals’ evaluations of investigative methods related to reliability. Four hundred and seventy-eight professionals working with children in the Norwegian legal system (i.e. judges, police detectives, psychologists, child psychiatrists, prosecutors, and defense attorneys) completed a questionnaire about child witness issues. Results indicated that psychiatrists as well as police officers expressed greater belief in children's capacities than did other groups, whereas defense attorneys and psychologists were more skeptical regarding children's general credibility. Psychiatrists and psychologists both, however, tended to favor, more than did legal professionals, the use of clinical techniques with children in abuse investigations. Implications are discussed in relation to professionals’ attitudes toward children as witnesses.     

Relapse prevention: Critique and reformulation

Abstract

This paper challenges accepted notions about the importance of cognitive distortions expressed by child molesters. First, we consider the role of excuse-making in a healthy life, and as a result question whether it is in the best interests of our clients to challenge their distortions. We examine the literature on eyewitness reports and the reconstructive nature of memory to call into question the value of requiring child molesters’ reports of their offence to match the victim's account. Next we show that the evidence does not demonstrate convincingly that cognitive distortions are criminogenic. Furthermore, the responses of child molesters to measures of cognitive distortions indicate that they simply endorse less disagreement with the items than do others. However, we note that some of these distortions, while not criminogenic, may nevertheless interfere with the acquisition of skills for important treatment targets (e.g. relationships). We offer suggestions for the most effective way to elicit and change these distortions.     

Perceptions about memory reliability and honesty for children of 3 to 18 years old

Purpose. To examine the relationship between perceived memory characteristics and age. Method. Participants rated the reliability and honesty of children's memory for one of two events. The children's ages varied from 3‐ to 18‐years‐old. Results. Participants (N = 612) believed that memory reliability increased with age, but the observed effect was non‐linear. Perceived reliability increased rapidly for children from 3 to 6 years. After this, male participants believed memory reliability increased, but less than in early childhood. Female participants did not think memory reliability increased in middle childhood and adolescence. Further effects involving type of event, age of participant, and the gender of the eyewitness were observed for honesty and the relationship between these attributes and beliefs in guilt. Conclusions. These findings stress the need for more research on development trends of memory in middle childhood and adolescence.     

Do Jurors “Know” What Isn’t So About Child Witnesses?

Are expert witnesses needed in child sexual abuse cases to educate jurors about children’s memory, suggestibility, and reactions to abuse, or do jurors already know what such experts could tell them? To cast light on this question, we surveyed jurors and jury-eligible college students and compared their beliefs with what is known via scientific research regarding children’s memory and ability to testify, reactions to interrogation, and reactions to sexual abuse. We also asked participants to infer results of four widely cited studies of children’s suggestibility. Participants’ beliefs were consistent with findings from research on some issues (e.g., that children can be led to claim that false events occurred) but diverged from the scientific consensus on other issues (e.g., whether children can remember painful events in infancy). Similarly, participants sometimes overestimated and sometimes underestimated the level of suggestibility observed in empirical studies. Individual differences in accuracy were related to participants’ gender, education and ethnicity, and there was considerable disagreement among participants on many questions. Implications of findings for the admissibility of expert testimony in child abuse cases are discussed.     

Legal principles governing expert testimony by experimental psychologists

With increasing frequency, experimental psychologists are called upon to present their research findings and theories in a courtroom. This article reviews the general evidentiary standards regarding such expert testimony, with a specific emphasis on how those principles have been applied in the context of expert psychological testimony on the unreliability of eyewitness identifications. A comprehensive review of the judicial decisions in this area reveals that there has recently been a significant shift in the courts' receptivity toward such testimony. Many courts now believe that psychological research on human perception and memory has progressed to the point that the expert's testimony may be considered both reliable enough and helpful enough to the jury to justify its adminssion in the appropriate case. The author concludes with a discussion of several developments that would help to allay the judicial system's historical concerns over the admission of such expert psychological testimony.     

Attribution of crime motives biases eyewitnesses’ memory and sentencing decisions

In court, the basic expectation is that eyewitness accounts are solely based on what the witness saw. Research on post-event influences has shown that this is not always the case and memory distortions are quite common. However, potential effects of an eyewitness’ attributions regarding a perpetrator’s crime motives have been widely neglected in this domain. In this paper, we present two experiments (N?=?209) in which eyewitnesses were led to conclude that a perpetrator’s motives for a crime were either dispositional or situational. As expected, misinformation consistent with an eyewitness’ attribution of crime motives was typically falsely recognised as true whereas inconsistent misinformation was correctly rejected. Furthermore, a dispositional vs. situational attribution of crime motives resulted in more severe (mock) sentencing supporting previous research. The findings are discussed in the context of schema-consistent biases and the effect of attributions about character in a legal setting.     

Juror decision making in eyewitness identification cases

The lay-person's knowledge of the factors that influence eyewitness memory was examined by evaluating the manner in which mock jurors integrated eyewitness evidence to draw inferences about defendant culpability and the likelihood that an identification was correct. Three hundred and twenty-one undergraduates viewed a videotaped trial within which ten witness and identification factors were manipulated between trials. Manipulation checks showed that subjects demonstrated superior memory for the evidence and the manipulated variables had their intended impact on appropriate rating scales. However, only one variable, witness confidence, had reliable effects on subjects' perceptions of culpability, on the perceived likelihood that the identification was correct, and on several other relevant dependent variables. Eight variables that have been shown to affect identification accuracy in the empirical literature had trivial effects on mock jurors' inferences. It was concluded that lay-people are insensitive to the factors that influence eyewitness memory.     

Court evaluations of young children's testimony in child sexual abuse cases

Purpose

Prosecutors working with child sexual abuse (CSA) cases involving young children have raised concerns that reliability criteria from the Supreme Court of Sweden are holding children's testimony to impossible standards (e.g., expecting the child's testimony to be long, rich in detail and spontaneous). This study aimed to address these concerns by investigating how District Courts and Courts of Appeal employ said criteria in their testimonial assessments of young child complainants.

Methods

Court documents from District Courts (n = 100) and Courts of Appeal (n = 45) in CSA cases involving 100 children age 7 years and under were analysed with respect to the courts’ testimonial assessments.

Results

Testimonial assessments were more frequently referenced in acquitting verdicts and in cases with evidence of low corroborative value. Richness in detail was the most frequently used reliability criterion, followed by spontaneity. Most criteria were used in favour of the children's testimony. However, the length criterion was typically used against the reliability of the children's testimony.

Conclusions

Our findings confirm prosecutors’ concerns that criteria from the Supreme Court are frequently used in evaluations of young children's testimony. This is troublesome, as some criteria do not correspond to current research on young children's witness abilities. For example, compared to testimony given by older children or adults, testimony provided by a young child is typically not long or rich in detail. We encourage prosecutors to extend their own knowledge on young children's capability as witnesses and present this to the court.     

Influence of confidence inflation and explanations for changes in confidence on evaluations of eyewitness identification accuracy

Guidelines for conducting police line‐ups typically recommend immediate assessment of eyewitness confidence following identification. This confidence level can presumably be used to estimate accuracy even in the presence of subsequently inflated confidence. In this experiment, we examined students' perceptions of immediate and inflated confidence and whether their reliance on confidence varies as a function of the explanations given by the eyewitness for her inflated confidence. Each of 126 university students viewed one of five versions of a videotaped officer–eyewitness interaction depicting an eyewitness identification and follow‐up interview in which the eyewitness gave a (1) high or (2) moderate level of confidence or inflated her confidence and gave a (3) confidence epiphany, (4) memory contamination, or (5) no explanation for the inflation. The memory contamination and confidence epiphany explanations led to lower ratings of identification accuracy as compared to the high‐confidence control condition, supporting the immediate confidence recommendation but in some ways contradicting previous research on this issue. The results suggest the need for further research to understand the conditions under which confidence inflation influences juror evaluations of eyewitness identification.     

Characteristics of children with problem sexual behaviour and adolescent perpetrators of sexual abuse: a systematic review

ABSTRACT

People who commit sexual offences are a heterogeneous group, with research suggesting that children and young people commit a large proportion of all sex offences, especially those committed against other children. This systematic review provides a synthesis of literature concerning the characteristics of children and adolescents who exhibit harmful sexual behaviour. There is a particular focus in this review on studies that examine the characteristics of children and young people exhibiting these behaviours within institutional and organisational settings or which take a situational and/or developmental approach to understanding sexually abusive behaviour. Using a developmental and life-course criminology lens, this review explores implications from the literature for the prevention and response to child sexual abuse, with a particular focus on institutional contexts where the perpetrators are children and adolescents.     

Effects of inconsistent eyewitness statements on mock-jurors' evaluations of the eyewitness,perceptions of defendant culpability and verdicts

In attempting to discredit an eyewitness, it is a common strategy for an attorney to highlight inconsistencies in the eyewitness's recall testimony during cross-examination and encourage the jurors to infer, based on those inconsistencies, that the eyewitness's memory is faulty. An experiment was conducted to examine the effectiveness of this cross-examination strategy. Subjects viewed a simulated cross-examination and rendered judgmenets about the eyewitness and defendant. The type of inconsistent testimony was manipulated between subjects. Subjects exposed to inconsistent recall testimony about either central or peripheral details perceived the eyewitness as less credible (as evidenced by ratings on multiple dimensions) and the defendant as less culpable. Inconsistency on central details led to fewer convictions. Results point to the effectiveness of this cross-examination strategh.     

Child witness statement quality

Use of general questions in child witness interviews often limits the completeness of young children's recall. In this study experienced professionals interviewed 5–6 year olds and 8–9 year olds “as they would normally” about live events witnessed by the children. Interviewers' spontaneous use of general and specific questions was assessed, as were the effects of these question types on the children's recall. A main result was that the younger children would frequently fail to answer general questions but would then provide information relevant to these same questions later in the interview. Use of specific questions in these relatively naturalistic interviews did not necessarily improve the overall completeness of younger children's recall, contrary to some previous findings, although, in line with previous findings, such questioning reduced overall accuracy rates. These results highlighted the scale of the problem of “omission errors” in young children's recall. Implications for the use of general questions by professionals who interview child witnesses are discussed.     

Can experts help jurors to evaluate eyewitness evidence? A review of eyewitness expert effects

Courts occasionally permit psychologists to present expert evidence in an attempt to help jurors evaluate eyewitness identification evidence. This paper reviews research assessing the impact of this expert evidence, which we argue should aim to increase jurors' ability to discriminate accurate from inaccurate identifications. With this in mind we identify three different research designs, two indirectly measuring the expert's impact on juror discrimination accuracy and one which directly assesses its effect on this measure. Across a total of 24 experiments, three have used the superior direct methodology, only one of which provides evidence that expert testimony can improve jurors' ability to discriminate between accurate and inaccurate eyewitness identifications.