Forensic Psychology preview

‘In recent years, our understanding in fields of forensic psychology has undergone a radical revision. This textbook will open students’ eyes to some commonly held misconceptions and confront them with empirical evidence in an interesting and accessible way.’ – Melissa Colloff, University of Birmingham, UK ‘Refreshingly direct and engaging, this book gets to the heart of issues with discussions that are thoughtful and compassionate. Students will be able to easily understand the nuanced complexities that surround forensic psychology, inspiring them to think critically about both science and society.’ – Tracey Woolrych, University of Wollongong, Australia

Forensic psychology helps us to understand the darkest aspects of human behaviour. But many commonly held beliefs fed to us by the media are based on myth and pseudoscience and not the evidence. This fascinating and engaging new textbook takes a psychological approach to the topic, drawing on cutting-edge theory and research to guide you through debates about the reliability of eyewitness testimony, police psychology, mental illness and criminal responsibility, jury decision-making and more.

With illuminating explanations, surprising truths and features to support your learning, you will be equipped with the tools and critical thinking skills needed to tell fact from fiction in the field of forensic psychology.

Key features: • ‘Global Perspectives’ draw upon research and examples from around the world, exploring diverse perspectives and forensic practices

• In-depth case studies bring forensic concepts and controversies to life • ‘Apply It’ exercises give you the opportunity to take part in applied experiments and self-assessments

• ‘Critical Thinking and Application Questions’ help to consolidate learning and test your knowledge This comprehensive introduction is perfectly suited for undergraduate students taking courses in forensic psychology.

Rigorous, incisive and accessible, Forensic Psychology: Fact and Fiction is the ideal companion to your study of the most important questions about the criminal justice system, the behaviour of others, and ourselves.

Visit www.macmillanihe.com/Davis-Forensic-Psych for a testbank of 260 multiple-choice questions, an interactive Spotlight Map allowing you to compare global crime statistics, a guide on how to become a forensic psychologist and much more.

Thomas Davis is a Professor of Psychology and the Psychology Program Chair at Nichols College, Massachusetts, USA. He is Recipient of the Stansky Distinguished Professor Award and has over two decades of teaching experience in forensic psychology.

THOMAS DAVIS

‘Forensic psychology is fascinating. Its popularity in the media and popular culture has risen, and consequently myths and misconceptions related to the field are common. This book has a solid base in science. It explains forensic psychology in a captivating and pedagogically insightful way, all the while encouraging critical thinking. Wide scope and unique case examples make this an excellent core textbook.’ – Taina Laajasalo, University of Helsinki, Finland

Why do innocent people sometimes confess to crimes they did not commit? How should we explain excessive use of force by the police, and how can it be prevented? Why does forensic psychology have such a hold on our imaginations, and what questions can it answer?

FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY

‘An excellent introduction to the field. Davis incorporates recent scientific data to tell the story of forensic psychology through a textbook that is easy to follow and helps students understand the difference between fact and fiction in psychological science.’

– Andre Kehn, University of North Dakota, USA

FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY FACT AND FICTION

THOMAS DAVIS

Cover image © Sandra Dombrovsky / Alamy Stock Photo

Davis_9781352011210_Mech v1.indd All Pages

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BRIEF CONTENTS

PART I: WHAT IS FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY? 1

What is Forensic Psychology?

3

PART II: GETTING ACCURATE INFORMATION 2

Techniques for Interviewing Eyewitnesses

29

3

Techniques for Interviewing Children

57

4

Techniques for Interviewing Vulnerable People

81

5

Interviewing Suspects: From Interrogation to Investigation

101

PART III: GETTING TRUTHFUL INFORMATION 6

Detecting Concealed Information and Deception

131

7

The Art and Science of Offender Profiling

157

8

Assessing Fitness to Stand Trial and Criminal Responsibility

183

PART IV: APPLYING PSYCHOLOGY TO FORENSIC TECHNIQUES 9

Correctional Psychology: Risk Assessment, Threat and Recidivism

211

10 Police Psychology

235

11 The Psychology Behind Jury Decision Making

261

12 Psychological Aspects of Violence and Aggression

285

13 Forensic Victimology

309

Glossary 333 References 343 Index 417

v

TOUR OF THE BOOK

Learning Outcomes Forensic victimology

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The psychology behind victim blaming

Structure your learning by focusing on the key points of understanding for each chapter.

• •

Explain why learning about the victims of crime can help reduce crime.

violent crime.

FACT VERSUS FICTION The chapters include commonly held fictional beliefs versus the myth-busting facts.

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FICTION: Victims and motivations that prevent predictions of risk.

Versus

FACT: have similar motivations that

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Death by texting Conrad Roy was only 18 years old when he died by suicide on 13 July 2014. Conrad had previously tried to kill himself in October 2012 after his parents divorced. But things seemed to be improving as Conrad met

Discussion Questions: 1

How much blame for Conrad Roy’s death does Mic

2

Do you think that the nature of their mainly digital blame?

CASE STUDIES

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Real-world examples that offer an accessible and interesting introduction to the chapter material and show application in context.

Answer the case study questions to build your critical thinking skills.

xx

T OU R O F T H E B OO K pective rs

obal Pe Gl

s

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

Blood feuds and blood marriage in South Sudan

Focus on the global application of forensic psychology through examples of real-world events and people from a range of diverse countries and cultures.

In the state of Eastern Equatoria in South Sudan, the solution to a blood fe marriage. Without prisons, this tradition for resolving disputes and solving c practised today. This was the case for eight-year-old Atia Odongi, whose b during a cattle dispute. As compensation, Atia was given to the man’s famil to a son in her new family when she turned nine, and then given to a young man died. Often, the new family exploits the girls given in blood marriage. A

This interactive feature offers brief applied experiments, self-assessments and activities you can do to personalise the information.

APPL

APPLY IT

Y IT

Are you cyberstalking?

‘Yes’ or ‘no’

1 Checked my partner’s email account to see who they were talking to or emailing without my partner’s knowledge.

2 Kept tabs on the whereabouts of my partner using social media.

3 Checked my partner’s phone to see who they were talking to or texting without my partner’s permission.

CRITICAL THINKING AND APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1 2

Describe four ways that forensic victimologists serve investigations and court proceedings.

3

How do the factors of the seven-factor model of victim characteristics relate to crimes of interpersonal violence?

KEY TERMS Definitions of key terminology are placed in the margins for easy reference.

CHAPTER REVIEW interactions and risk assessment. It is import victimised twice by being held responsible for the victims of abuse via social media. T

CRITICAL THINKING AND APPLICATION QUESTIONS Questions that allow you to think about the implications of the material you have just read.

General victimology – The study of all victims, not just victims of crime.

NAMES TO KNOW Explore this further reading list at the end of each chapter. Know the key contributors in the field and explore a range of books, articles and videos to deepen your learning.

NAMES TO KNOW Wayne Petherick

CHAPTER REVIEW

Investigates stalking and is developing a response–o the response style of victims of stalking and how harassment.

Consolidates the chapter material and serves as a handy revision tool.

• Petherick, W. and Ferguson, C. (2014) Forensic

• Petherick, W., Turvey, B. E. and Ferguson, C. E. Academic Press.

xxi

PREFACE

Sic parvis magna, Latin for ‘greatness from small beginnings’, was the motto of renowned explorer Sir Francis Drake (1540–96). Like Drake’s motto, the humble origins of this textbook came from a small beginning – the simple search for the truth.

The truth matters. Psychology is built on the principles of the scientific method and sceptical thinking.

As a psychology professor, I care about the truth, because rational behaviour begins with knowing the truth. We sometimes make decisions based on things we want to believe are true rather than considering the real state of the world. When the truth is buried under a mountain of misrepresentations, we cannot make wise decisions. This is because pseudoscience and superstition prevent us from seeing the world as it really is. We believe in myths because they provide easy answers, defy analysis and give us a false sense of emotional security. However satisfying and reassuring our false beliefs are, it is better to see the world as it really is. For example, believing that punishment is the most effective means to control behaviour has led to increased violence and crime. Pressuring people to tell the truth has sometimes led to false confessions. Discovering that there is no ultimate truth machine that reveals lies offers new opportunities to try more effective methods of finding the truth.

There are three reasons why we are fascinated with forensic psychology. First, crime can affect any of us, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity or social status. It seems to happen randomly, and when it does, it can devastate people’s lives. Second, the inside world of crime – the work of legal counsel, court proceedings and police investigations – is rarely experienced by the public. But it is the third reason that drives our obsession with understanding the darkest of human behaviours. The study of forensic psychology allows us to explore our darkest nature from a safe distance. When you embark on a journey of discovery, you do not know where it is going to take you, but it will always take you somewhere unexpected.

TO THE STUDENT The study of forensic psychology offers fascinating insights into the origins and motives of criminal behaviours and the practical applications of psychological principles. Perhaps you want to be a forensic psychologist, or maybe you are just curious about how people behave in criminal and legal settings, and why they behave in these ways. Either way, Forensic Psychology: Fact and Fiction is designed to meet your need for information. It provides a comprehensive overview of forensic psychology, bridges the gap between research and application, and explores the ‘mystique’ that surrounds the topics of the field.

Through a focus on global research, examples and real-life cases studies, you will learn about fascinating topics such as the reliability of eyewitness testimony, indicators of deception and methods of lie detection, the willingness of innocent people to confess to crimes, and our ability to profile and capture offenders.

The purpose of this textbook is to dispel the myths surrounding the practice of forensic psychology, combining both psychological and legal perspectives. Although psychology and law are two different fields, they are united by their focus on human behaviour. Psychology seeks to understand and explain human behaviour, while law seeks to regulate human behaviour. xxiv

PREFACE

How to use this book

Reading your textbook with no educational destination in mind (other than completing the next day’s assignment on time) is like driving without knowing the route to your destination. You may arrive at your destination, but you waste a lot of valuable time driving aimlessly. To get the most out of your experience, prepare and plan for your journey.

My goal is to provide you with the most current and relevant knowledge and information in the field of forensic psychology. However, I want to present this knowledge in a way that you find useful so you can easily apply it to your daily personal and professional lives. The best way to accomplish this is by sharpening your critical thinking ability, which this book will help you achieve. This will serve you well as you explore research in forensic psychology.

Before you read a chapter, try to understand where it fits into your overall journey. As you read, ask yourself these questions:

••How is this material related to my future goals and ambitions?

••What experiences have I had that are like what I am reading?

••What other outcomes might have happened?

••Are there any fallacies in the reasoning?

How this book is organised

This textbook is divided into four parts:

••Part I: What is Forensic Psychology?

••Part II: Getting Accurate Information ••Part III: Getting Truthful Information ••Part IV: Applying Psychology to Forensic Techniques

Part I: What is Forensic Psychology? is where you prepare for your journey. Chapter 1 introduces you to the captivating field of forensic psychology, its history and its contemporary directions.

The next stop on your journey is Part II: Getting Accurate Information. Forensic psychologists must make sure their information is correct, both factually and legally. Therefore, the four chapters in this section focus on obtaining information from various individuals and situations, and the conditions that create effective interviews. This material will help you understand the challenging process of gathering information in different contexts. You must also consider the unique situations and motivations of suspects.

For this reason, Part III: Getting Truthful Information examines the challenges forensic psychologists face when obtaining valid information. The three chapters in this section will help you understand the ways forensic psychologists overcome deception, develop offender profiles and determine whether some people have the mental capacity to be criminally responsible.

The last stop on your journey is Part IV: Applying Psychology to Forensic Techniques. Here the research-to-applications orientation of the text is the focus. The five chapters in this section explore the broad areas of forensic psychological application ranging from prisons, courtrooms and police training to the broader fields of violence and victimology. This last stop enables you to see the psychology behind the forensic fields of application. In this way, you can see the career opportunities available in this discipline.

xxv

xxvi P R E F A C E

TO THE INSTRUCTOR This textbook is built on a proven foundation of learning theories with applied pedagogical techniques that appeal to today’s student. It is unique in both its critical approach to the material (fact versus fiction) and its applied psychological perspectives. Finally, it is classroom tested and student friendly because it is written from the perspective of an instructor rather than a researcher or legal practitioner. To assist you, this textbook has a range of carefully crafted pedagogical features to help your students identify and retain key information.

Pedagogical approaches

All instructors appreciate that the connection between teaching and learning is a deceptively complex process. However, having well-planned pedagogy can improve the quality of your teaching and the way students learn, helping them gain a deeper grasp of fundamental material.

Students often begin their first course in forensic psychology overconfidently, believing they already understand all there is to know about the intersection of psychology and law. They are frequently surprised, and sometimes disappointed, to find that the reality of forensic science is not what they thought it was. Managing their experience is both a challenge and an opportunity. As instructors, we must challenge these mistaken ideas with knowledge and patience as we communicate our excitement about this fascinating discipline.

Effective instructors not only help students understand and apply forensic psychology’s principles, concepts and critical thinking skills but they also pursue the goal of awakening a sense of wonder about the perplexing questions of human behaviour. Encouraging active learning and student engagement accomplishes that goal. This textbook features a range of pedagogical features to encourage interactive learning. For example, there is a set of targeted discussion questions related to every case study so you can encourage class discussion with students and get them thinking critically.

While motivating students can be a difficult task, the rewards are worth the investment. Motivated students are more excited to learn and participate. Simply put, teaching a class full of motivated students is enjoyable for teacher and student alike. Some students are self-motivated, with a natural love of learning. But even with the students who do not have this natural drive, a great teacher can make learning fun and inspire them to reach their full potential.

Critical thinking and applications

Study in every discipline offers an opportunity to develop critical thinking skills. Each discipline tends to define what it means to think critically in its own way. Even within the disciplines of psychology and law, there is no single definition of critical thinking. This richness of definition can be a source of confusion to any new student trying to become a better critical thinker. Critical thinking activities that encourage discovery are more likely to lead to meaningful learning than dutiful reading and memorisation. Reflective reading and application take effort, but are more likely to have enduring effects on knowledge and thinking skills. Although instructors who invest class time in active learning and critical thinking are bound to cover less content than those who practise more content-oriented methods, the compromise is worth it. Students who practise critical thinking emerge with a better orientation to the discipline and a better foundation for using psychology in their lives.

Like all sciences, psychology attempts to explain how things work. The science of psychology investigates how human beings and other organisms behave, think and feel. Although the focus of studies in forensic psychology may be as diverse as offender motivations for deception, brain trauma and violence, and the cognitive abilities of children, learning about each involves the same type of critical thinking skills that promote the basic goals of psychology: describing, explaining, predicting and controlling behaviour.

P R E F A C E xxvii

Several features in this textbook aid critical thinking and application. Every chapter begins with an introduction focusing on the chapter’s important psychological issues This is followed by studentcentred Learning objectives and the specific Fact versus fiction addressed in each chapter section. To help students connect forensic concepts to their own unique perspectives, each chapter has an Apply it exercise. Finally, each chapter has Critical thinking and application questions that emphasise Bloom’s taxonomy of higher-order skills, including evaluating and creating new connections between concepts.

The fact versus fiction approach

Seeking (and finding) the truth is a powerful motivator for students. Along the way, reinforcing openmindedness with a healthy dose of empirical support rewards this pursuit. The challenge is presenting information in a way that does not blame the student for their misconceptions, but rewards them for their critical thinking and scepticism.

Forensic psychology is an exciting field, but it is plagued by false information from many sources, including the entertainment media. Each chapter presents facts and fictions as the core of the story of forensic psychology. This offers students an appealing way to cultivate their scepticism and critical thinking abilities. As authentic cases of cyberstalking, false confessions and victim blaming show, the truth is far more interesting than fiction, and, ultimately, empirically based solutions are more valuable than sensational true crime narratives.

Real-world examples

We have seen the phrase ‘based on a true story’ before, but it warns the reader to prepare themselves because what they’re about to read really happened; real lives were affected and there were consequences.

Knowing that a story is real amplifies its impact and increases its memorability. In the same way, every example presented in the textbook is a true story. Some stories are presented as Case studies with controversial discussion questions, while others are presented as Global perspectives to showcase the global nature of forensic psychology. These true stories provide students with a richer appreciation of the ubiquitous nature of forensic psychology in their jurisdictions. Finally, other real-life examples are woven into the chapter narrative to explain complex concepts like slip-and-capture errors, confirmation bias and establishing legal responsibility.

Content support

Learning works best when supported by a scaffold. In the same way that a scaffold is a temporary structure supporting a building under construction, the information is presented in a similar way to support student learning. For example, each chapter features key terms that are defined in the margins for ease of access. Each chapter is divided into four sections with a corresponding fact versus fiction, an interim summary and critical thinking and application questions. Finally, researchers who have made significant contributions to the chapter material are presented as Names to know at the end of each chapter. This allows the reader to follow the main researchers in their disciplines.

Online test banks for both lecturers and students include multiple-choice and essay questions (with suggested correct responses), targeting key ideas in the textbook. Finally, an instructor manual is available for each chapter, providing detailed teaching strategies and resources. The instructor’s manual is written with the novice instructor in mind but also contains materials and resources for the experienced instructor. Examples include ways to conduct more effective discussions, tips for online teaching, and activities to help students apply what they are learning in a more personal way. PowerPoint slides also accompany each chapter. These slides are presented in a comprehensive outline format.

xxviii P R E F A C E

Why is a new approach to forensic psychology needed?

This textbook’s approach is unique in several ways. First, it focuses on the fictions too often portrayed as fact by the entertainment media. Second, it portrays the global nature of forensic psychology. All countries have crime and its effects are similar across jurisdictions. Third, every example is true. There are no made-up stories to illustrate forensic concepts. Fourth, extensive current research supports the content.

PART II GETTING ACCURATE INFORMATION

2 Techniques for Interviewing Eyewitnesses

29

3 Techniques for Interviewing Children

57

4 Techniques for Interviewing Vulnerable People

81

5 Interviewing Suspects: From Interrogation to Investigation

101

CHAPTER

2

TECHNIQUES FOR INTERVIEWING EYEWITNESSES

Chapter Introduction Without physical evidence, we must rely on the accuracy of eyewitnesses.

Yet once we understand the fragile nature of memory, we begin to doubt the reality of our own memories. Eyewitnesses’ memories are easily distorted but they can be preserved through the application of psychologically based interview tactics. But how can you help an eyewitness identify the correct offender? This task requires an exploration of the ways to conduct and design unbiased recognition tests.

Learning Outcomes Why are eyewitness reports so persuasive?

••

Explain how memories are formed and distorted.

Interviewing witnesses (information generation)

••

Describe ways to enhance the retrieval of memories during eyewitness interviews using the cognitive interview technique.

Is the live line-up dead? Improving eyewitness identification procedures

••

Demonstrate how to achieve unbiased recognition information from an eyewitness.

The role of the forensic psychologist

••

Describe how a forensic psychologist applies psychological concepts to create valid and reliable methods.

30

GET TING ACCURATE INFORMATION

WHY ARE EYEWITNESS REPORTS SO PERSUASIVE? FICTION: Eyewitness memories are accurate.

Versus

FACT: Eyewitness memories are continually rewritten based on expectations, biases and preconceptions.

Juries consider eyewitness accounts the second most persuasive piece of evidence to prove guilt (Semmler, Brewer and Douglass, 2011). What is more persuasive than an eyewitness?

A signed confession (Shifton, 2019). Eyewitness evidence is powerful because lawyers, judges, juries and the public believe that the way we remember an event must be the way it happened.

Besides the moral injustice of false convictions, inaccurate eyewitnesses can mislead the initial stages of police investigations. Inaccurate eyewitness information wastes valuable time following false leads, for example interviewing witnesses and researching criminal histories, while building a case against an innocent person. Meanwhile, because of this inaccurate information, the real offender remains free to commit more crimes.

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A case of eyewitness misidentification In the provocatively titled book Picking Cotton (Thompson-Cannino, Cotton and Torneo, 2009), exoneree Ronald Cotton and abuse victim Jennifer Thompson-Cannino tell an emotional story of misidentification and wrongful conviction in North Carolina, USA. In 1984, a black man broke into her apartment while she was asleep and raped Jennifer, a white college student, at knifepoint. During the assault, she had the presence of mind to study her attacker and try to memorise his appearance. She offered to make her attacker a drink and escaped.

Three days later, at the police department, she helped create a composite sketch, and Ronald was arrested shortly afterwards. The police were interested because in two separate incidents in July 1984, an assailant broke into an apartment, cut phone wires, sexually assaulted a woman, and searched through her belongings, taking money and other items.

Even though Jennifer was unsure that Ronald was her rapist, she spent much more than the normal amount of time studying the photo array and eventually selected the photo of Ronald.

After her choice, the investigators told Jennifer that she’d done a ‘great’ job. Later, she viewed a physical line-up in which the only member who had also been in the previously presented photo array was Ronald. After identifying him a second time, the detective told her: ‘We thought that might be the guy. It’s the same person you picked from the photos.’ Ronald, who had a weak alibi and a minor criminal record, was tried, convicted and sentenced to life plus 54 years for first-degree rape, first-degree sexual offence and first-degree breaking and entering.

During his time in prison, Ronald was a model prisoner who continued to profess his innocence. One day he spotted a fellow prisoner, who bore a strong resemblance to him. His name was Bobby Leon Poole. Ronald intuitively knew that Bobby was the rapist for whom he was doing time. As further evidence, he later got a tip from a fellow inmate that Poole had bragged about raping two white women. Bobby denied the statement and the alleged confession did not sway the prosecutor or judge.

Then, the Innocence Project – a global organisation whose mission is to exonerate the wrongfully convicted – arrived to re-examine the evidence. Ronald Cotton spent 10.5 years in prison before a DNA test cleared him of rape and identified the real rapist (Jones, 2013).

CHAPTER 2 • TECHNIQUES FOR INTERVIEWING EYEWITNESSES

31

Discussion Questions: 1

Why should the amount of time it took Jennifer to recognise Ronald Cotton’s photo from the photo array indicate a problem with her memory?

2

How was Jennifer’s level of confidence in her mistaken identification manipulated by the detectives?

3

If not from the original traumatic event, where did Jennifer’s memory of Ronald Cotton originate?

How memories are made

Is seeing believing? According to statistics published by the Innocence Project (2020), eyewitness misidentifications have contributed to 69 per cent of the more than 367 wrongful convictions in the USA overturned by post-conviction DNA evidence (Figure 2.1). The real offenders were convicted of 152 additional violent crimes, including 82 sexual assaults, 35 murders and 35 other violent crimes, while the innocent sat behind bars for their earlier offences.

Figure 2.1: Eyewitness misidentifications as the leading cause of wrongful convictions compared to other causes*

69%

44% 28% 18%

EYEWITNESS MISIDENTIFICATION

INVALID OR IMPROPER FORENSIC SCIENCE

FALSE CONFESSIONS

INFORMANT TESTIMONY

*Based on 367 DNA exonerations Source: Innocence Project (2020) DNA Exonerations in the United States. Retrieved from www.innocenceproject.org/dna-exonerationsin-the-united-states/.

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The police told Jennifer that DNA testing had proven Ronald innocent and implicated the real perpetrator, Bobby Leon Poole. She was shocked and overcome with feelings of guilt, but soon came to realise that eyewitness misidentifications are not rare. Surprisingly, she did not recognise Bobby during his trial. In 1995, Ronald was exonerated and released. He forgave Jennifer and they became good friends and now travel the world together to educate the public about wrongful convictions and reforms – especially in relation to eyewitness identification procedures.

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Episodic memory – A person’s unique auto­biographical memory of a specific event.

GET TING ACCURATE INFORMATION

Our sense of identity comes from the memories of our past. These kinds of memories are known as episodic memories, our memories of specific, personally experienced events, such as graduations or birthdays (Tulving, 1984). These are the types of memories that the criminal justice system collects from eyewitnesses and their courtroom testimony. These are also the most fragile and easily altered memories.

People talk about memory as if it were something they have, like large feet or red hair.

But memory is not something you can see like a part of your body; it is an idea that refers to a process of remembering. To understand how memories form, consider when your memory fails. Have you ever forgotten your phone, a name, or an assignment? If so, then your memory failed at one or more of the three stages of the memory process – encoding, storage and retrieval (see Figure 2.2).

Figure 2.2: Three stages of memory formation • Transforming

Encoding

Storage

Retrieval

information into a form that can be stored in memory

• Maintaining

information in memory • Retrieving information that has been encoded and stored

The first stage, encoding, is the transformation of information into a form that can be stored. For example, if you see a bank robbery, you try to form a visual image of the scene.

The second stage, storage, involves maintaining the information in your working memory by rehearsing the information or connecting it to other information (Engle, 2010). The final stage is retrieval, when the information is pulled from storage. This three-stage process can fail when memories are neither encoded, rehearsed, nor recalled.

Memory storage relies on our ability to encode and retrieve information. When we store facts and experiences, we weave them into the complex tapestry of ideas that expand the depth of our memories. However, the journey from perceptual encoding to retrieval forms an information bottleneck. This happens because our storage process, also known as ‘consolidation’, is much slower than our perceptual experience of the world. This slow transfer of information from perceptual encoding to memory storage is like trying to fill a bath with a thimble (Carr, 2010).

It was once believed that each neuron stored a single memory (Barlow, 1972). Our brains held a ‘grandmother cell’, a theoretical neuron that responds only to a single complex, specific and meaningful stimulus, such as the image of one’s grandmother (Gross, 2002). Karl Lashley searched for this unique physical trace of memory, called

the engram. Lashley attempted to discover the specific location of the learning centre of the brain by systematically disconnecting different regions of a rat’s cerebral cortex (Dewsbury, 2002). To his surprise, all the rats showed some degree of impaired learning, but none were seriously impaired. Although Lashley never found the engram, he did discover something more profound. Memories are distributed throughout the brain. They connect brain locations for emotion, vision, hearing, language and other mental processes.

This finding means that memories are changes in the patterns of connections between neurons.

The billions of neurons in our brain work like an orchestra creating a symphony of thoughts (Glick, 2011). Far from existing as a single note or neuron, our memories are stored in a vast web of neural networks (Ferbinteanu, 2019). As neurons are activated together, they form a web of connections between people, things and emotions (Greene, 2010). In this way, storage means that a single memory cue can reactivate a network of neurons, allowing you to relive the experience.

How does a single cue trigger memories? The answer lies in the spreading activation model of semantic memory (Collins and Loftus, 1975). This model assumes that information is organised on the basis of relatedness. Memories are like nodes; those that are activated together form stronger connections and make it easier to activate each other.

In a network of memories represented by nodes, the shorter the links, the faster our brains make connections between the nodes. Also, the longer a concept is retrieved, the greater the spread of activation among the nodes of our memories (Anderson, 1983). In this way, memory cues can trigger further memories along our networks of information. As shown in Figure 2.3, trying to activate the forgotten first name ‘Harry’ activates multiple nodes.

Some of these connections are stronger than others, as shown by thicker lines.

Figure 2.3: Spreading activation model of neural network Louis Charlotte George Kate

Meghan

William

Prince

The Artist formerly known as

Purple

Archie

NAME?

Kane Soccer Hermione Wizard

Potter

Musician

Rain

Styles Connick

Magician

Ron

Houdini

Belafonte Chapin

The reconstructive nature of memory

Because we use the past to decode the present, even the subtle differences in the wording of a question can alter our recollections (Schacter, 2012). Unlike a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces of our memories are not always reassembled precisely, as was shown by Loftus and Palmer (1974). They showed participants a video of a car accident. Half the subjects were asked to estimate how fast the cars were going when they ‘smashed’ into each other, while the

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Engram – The physical trace of a memory in the brain.

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CHAPTER 2 • TECHNIQUES FOR INTERVIEWING EYEWITNESSES

Spreading activation model of semantic memory – Networks of associated ideas are linked together and spread from one node to another.

34

Cognitive schemas – Patterns of thought that organise information.

GET TING ACCURATE INFORMATION

other half were asked how fast the cars were going when they ‘hit’ each other. The subjects who heard ‘smashed’ reported significantly higher speed estimates than those who heard ‘hit’. Unexpectedly, many subjects who heard ‘smashed’ also reported seeing broken glass and other artefacts of a severe collision that never existed as they reassembled their memories of the video.

Strange as it may seem, with all this reconstruction, there is no such thing as a ‘real’ memory. Every time you recall a memory from the past, it changes slightly. The fish you caught becomes larger, the party wilder, the concert more amazing. This is because all our memories are reconstructed, with bits and pieces of similar past experiences used to fill in the missing gaps of knowledge (Domingo, Treder, Kerrén and Wimber, 2019).

Our memory of an event changes because of pre-event information (what we knew before) and post-event information (what we knew after). Decades ago, Bartlett (1932) demonstrated this effect with the game called ‘telephone’. In this game, each person tells the same story one after the other and the changes are reported at the end. In Bartlett’s controlled version of this game, the information contained in the story increasingly conforms to what we expect to happen. The reason is that when we are unsure of information, we fill in the gaps with a mental shortcut known as a cognitive schema (Flavell, 1996). A schema is a cognitive framework or concept that helps organise and interpret information (Rumelhart, 1980). However, these mental frameworks also cause us to exclude new information and focus only on information that matches our pre-existing schema. Schemas make it difficult to remember new information that does not conform to our established ideas about the world. The consequence of this is that what we already know affects what we remember and information after the event changes the original memory trace to fit our schema.

IN SUMMARY An eyewitness’s memory is not a permanent record, because our episodic memories are continually reconstructed every time they are retrieved. Consequently, eyewitness memories are fragile and susceptible to alterations based on our expectations, biases and preconceptions.

CRITICAL THINKING AND APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1

Your childhood friend discovered that a long-cherished memory of saving a drowning camper during summer camp happened to her sister and not her. She cannot understand how this could have happened. They both attended the same camp for over a decade and shared these memories every holiday. Explain how this could have happened.

2

Imagine you are the leader of a jury that has listened to a confident eyewitness.

The other members of the jury are about to decide the case based only on the eyewitness information. Explain to them why eyewitness memories may not be as dependable as they believe them to be.

3

Describe a detailed example when your memory about a past event was proven wrong. How did your cognitive schema of the event alter your memory?

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FICTION: The standard police interview is the best way to retrieve information from an eyewitness.

Versus

FACT: Alternative methods like the cognitive interview are more effective than the standard interview.

The standard interview

Obtaining complete and accurate information from a witness is critical in an investigation.

Yet, accurate recall is difficult to attain (Innocence Project, 2018; Goodman, Aman and Hirschman, 1987). Part of the difficulty is that the standard interview generally relies on closed-ended questions. Another difficulty is that the standard interview has three competing goals. Police are trying to: 1

discover if a crime has been committed

2

find evidence to identify the individual responsible

3

determine whether the witness is telling the truth (Brewer, Weber and Guerin, 2019; Kebbell and Wagstaff, 1997).

Additional challenges include performing the standard interview under noisy, confusing and disorienting conditions with pressure to quickly locate eyewitnesses. As if this were not enough, police job performance is measured by how quickly reports are filed (Tang and Hammontree, 1992). This pressure is common and frequently reported in German (Berresheim and Weber, 2003), Canadian (Snook and Keating, 2010) and US police departments (Schreiber and Fisher, 2005).

Problems with the standard interview Overuse of closed-ended questions

Asking closed-ended questions, such as ‘Was she wearing a cap or a hood?’, prevents the witness from revealing spontaneous information (Wise and Safer, 2012). This question format also encourages guessing on the part of the witness, unless the witness is told that they should not respond unless they are sure, which is rarely done (Krauss et al., 2017).

Closed-ended questions are frequently used during semi-structured interviews (Adams, 2015) and examples are presented in Table 2.1.

Table 2.1: Classifications of closed-ended questions used during interviews Type of question

Description

Example

Clarification

Interviewer checks for accuracy and provides feedback indicating which information is known and understood (Stoyanchev, Liu and Hirschberg, 2012)

Interviewee: ‘I left work and drove home and was there until I left for work again in the morning.’

Interviewer: ‘So you never left your house all night?’ (continued)

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Forced choice

Questions that offer the interviewee a limited number of possible responses, (yes or no), none of which may be the interviewee’s preferred answer (Peterson and Grant, 2001)

‘Do you know why I stopped you?’

‘Did he have a gun?’

‘Was the suspect short or tall?’

‘Did you go home after work?’

Leading

The answer is embedded in the question, suggesting the correct response desired by the interviewer (Weinberg, Wadsworth and Baron, 1983)

‘You needed the money, right?’

‘You didn’t see the stop sign, did you?’

‘You never came home that night, right?’

Multiple questions

The interviewer asking several questions at once, without giving the interviewee a chance to respond after each question (Griffiths and Milne, 2006)

‘Did you go directly home after work … or stop somewhere along the way … When did you arrive home?’

Opinion/ statement

An interviewer supplies their own opinion and expects the interviewee to answer (Snook and Keating, 2011)

‘I think you stole the money on your way home from work.’

Snook, Luther and Milne (2012) investigated the everyday questioning practices of Canadian police. Eighty transcripts of police interviews showed that less than 1 per cent of the questions asked in an interview were open-ended, while closed-ended questions comprised 35 per cent of the questions.

Frequent interruptions

In their haste to collect evidence, police often interrupt the eyewitnesses’ narrative of the crime. This not only interrupts the chronological sequence of their memory but prevents witnesses from volunteering information (Fisher, Geiselman and Amador, 1989). Good interview practices allow the witness time to fully disclose relevant details of the crime (Judges, 2000) by waiting before asking the next question to make sure the witness has completed their response (Wise, Dauphinais and Safer, 2007).

Repeating questions and using leading questions Demand characteristics – Subtle cues that communicate the interviewer’s expectations.

Another ineffective interview practice is asking the same question several times during the same interview (Fisher, 1995). Repeating the same question creates two problems. First, if the witness did not respond to the question the first time, repeated questioning creates a demand characteristic – an implicit appeal for the witness to respond in a certain way – even if the witness is not confident in their response (Gudjonsson, 2010). Second, if the witness did indeed provide an answer the first time the question was asked, the repetition implies that the answer was not satisfactory, creating pressure to respond differently (Fisher, 1995). According to Bruck, Ceci, Francoeur and Barr (1995), the repeated misinformation becomes a part of their memory of the event – they use the interviewer’s words in their inaccurate statements.

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Egocentric questioning strategies

Like everyone, police rely on schemas to reduce their cognitive load. To combat this, police should ask questions that are compatible with the witness’s current thoughts and narrative of the crime. For example, if the witness is thinking or talking about the perpetrator’s face, the questions should be about the face and not about other aspects of the incident (Technical Working Group on Eyewitness Evidence, 2003).

Presenting the witness with information from sources other than their memory of the crime, such as media, police and other eyewitnesses, contaminates the original memory (Fisher, 1995). This is known as the unconscious transference effect, where information is encoded without remembering its source (Hinz and Pezdek, 2001; Ross, Ceci, Dunning, Toglia, 1994). This makes post-event information seem like part of their original memory (Loftus, 2003). This effect happens most often when the source of the information is highly credible, there is some uncertainty about the event, and when the information is about minor details (Judges, 2000).

In conclusion, the problems with the standard interview are that these practices reward witnesses who withhold information, do not provide any unsolicited information, give abbreviated answers, and volunteer answers to questions they are unsure about. These practices also disrupt the natural process of memory search, making memory retrieval inefficient. A more efficient solution is the cognitive interview approach.

The cognitive interview

The cognitive interview is a procedure that enhances the memory recall of eyewitnesses without contaminating their memory (Fisher, Milne and Bull, 2011). An advantage of the cognitive interview is the application of three overlying categories of interview techniques – social dynamics, communication and cognitive processes (Figure 2.4) – into several specific applications (Eisenberg, 2019).

Figure 2.4: Categories of cognitive interview techniques

Social dynamics

Communication

Cognitive processes

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Contaminating the eyewitness memory of crimes

Unconscious transference effect – When an eyewitness to a crime misidentifies a familiar but innocent person from a police line-up.

Cognitive interview – Interview process to enhance retrieval of information from the perspective of eyewitnesses’ memory.

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The origin of the cognitive interview began when Ronald Fisher’s friends kept forgetting things in his apartment. Asking questions to trigger their memories helped them find their lost items. Realising that he was applying the same theories of memory he was teaching, he contacted a colleague, Ed Geiselman, and asked him who could use this skill of helping someone to remember details? Geiselman’s first response was the police since they solve crimes by getting witnesses to remember details about an incident or series of incidents.

They worked with the behavioural sciences unit of the Los Angeles Police Department and inquired about the kind of police training provided when interviewing cooperative witnesses. While they did supply formal training about interrogating suspects, they were surprised to find that the police department offered little training interviewing cooperative witnesses (Geiselman et al., 1984).

The psychology behind the cognitive interview

The cognitive interview approach treats memories like trace evidence found at a crime scene and applies three theoretical perspectives: encoding specificity theory, multiple trace theory and schema theory.

Encoding specificity – Memory is better when conditions during retrieval match those when the memory was stored.

Multiple trace theory – Every memory has many unique components that can be activated with the proper cue.

Tip-ofthe-tongue phenomenon – Failure to recall a specific word or term with awareness that they know the word or term.

Encoding specificity

Tulving (1982, 1983) suggested that the most effective retrieval cues are those that give the most overlap between the stored information and the retrieval cue. An effective way to enhance recall is to reconstruct the original context of the memory (Wheeler and Gabbert, 2017; Flexser and Tulving, 1978). Matching subjective perceptions (thoughts, emotions) during the time of encoding is known as encoding specificity. When we encode a memory, we not only record the visual and other sensory data, we also store our emotional state (Mackmen, Clark and McManus, 2000). Our present mood affects the memories that are most easily available to us, so that when we are happy we recall happy memories and vice versa (Thorley, Dewhurst, Abel and Knott, 2016).

Multiple-trace theory

Another theory behind the cognitive interview is multiple trace theory. Because our memories are composed of a network of associations, there are many paths to reach a single memory (Tulving, 1984). This concept is demonstrated by the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, where a memory feels easily available and yet cannot be retrieved. To recall the name of a friend from school, you might try to activate other traces of memory like where they sat in the classroom, what sports they played, or their nickname (Schacter, 1999).

Schema theory

Familiar events form schemas, and our schemas guide our encoding of events (Schank and Abelson, 1977). A witness’s earlier experiences allow them to fill the empty categories with information that fits their schema. For example, the question ‘What did you eat this morning?’ activates the schema for breakfast food and the categories of breakfast food. You might respond, ‘I had bacon and something else … oh yeah … eggs.’ The empty category of eggs becomes much easier to complete under the context of a breakfast schema than a dinner schema. When a memory is retrieved, our schemas provide an organised information system to search. The typical interview sequence follows seven phases (Figure 2.5).

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Figure 2.5: Seven phases of the cognitive interview

Phase 1: Establish a rapport with witness Phase 2: Transferring control to the witness

Phase 6: Changing perspectives

Phase 3: Reporting an open narrative

Phase 5: Context restatement Phase 4: Open-question probes

The seven phases of the cognitive interview Phase 1: Establish a rapport with the witness

Rapport building is one of the most important interviewing techniques applied in police interviews. Expert police interviewers assert that rapport building is a best practice (Russano, Narchet, Kleinman and Meissner, 2014). Rapport-building techniques can be used to secure cooperation from interviewees, gather as much reliable information as possible, and create a positive interpersonal interaction (Dhami, Goodman-Delahunty and Desai, 2017).

Police need to develop rapport and empathy to improve eyewitness cooperation when revealing information. Empathy is expressing an understanding of another person’s thoughts, feelings and condition (Gerace, Day, Casey and Mohr, 2017). Rapport is enhanced by empathising with the witness’s situation, avoiding judgmental comments and establishing common ground. Even a simple question like ‘How are you doing?’ builds rapport and can reveal a physical or mental condition, such as intoxication, confusion, anxiety, that impairs a witness’s ability to recall or report information (Technical Working Group on Eyewitness Evidence, 2003). Good rapport is genuinely responding to the witness’s earlier answers and concerns while avoiding memorised questions that sound artificial, for example ‘Is there anything you can tell me that would further assist this investigation?’

Phase 2: Transferring control to the witness

The cognitive interview is ‘witness centred’ not ‘interviewer centred’. Typically, the witness sits passively while waiting for the interviewer to ask questions (Fisher, Geiselman and Raymond, 1987). To transfer control, the interviewer uses open-ended questions without interruption and specifically tells the witness that they should do most of the talking.

For example, rather than saying, ‘Please tell me all you remember about the robbery’,

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Phase 7: Changing chronological order

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the question should be: ‘Please tell me about the robbery and any details, no matter how insignificant they might seem to you, since you might have seen something no other witness saw.’

Phase 3: Reporting an open narrative

Witnesses should be encouraged to report what they remember completely without filtering anything they consider to be irrelevant or which they have only partial recall (Fisher and Geiselman, 1992). At this stage of the interview, the instruction to search their memories for details can lead to the recall of additional relevant information, such as ‘Picture the robbery again, and report any detail, no matter how trivial it might seem’ (Geiselman and Fisher, 1988). This open narrative approach often yields new information and eyewitnesses who report more details are perceived as more credible witnesses in the courtroom (Bell and Loftus, 1980).

Phase 4: Open-question probes

Open-ended questions, such as ‘Tell me, in your own words, what happened’, invite elaboration (Stolzenberg, McWilliams and Lyon, 2017). Consequently, the interviewer is less likely to lead the witness when framing questions in an open manner (Newlin, Webber, Morris and Howarth, 2015).

Phase 5: Context restatement

APPL

The witness is encouraged to mentally reconstruct the scene of the crime. Contextual restatement includes emotional components, ‘What were you feeling during the robbery?’, perceptual components, ‘Try to remember the crime scene, picture the room, what sounds, or smells did you perceive?’, and sequencing of the memory traces, ‘What were you first doing at the time?’, thereby capturing any stray traces of the original memory (Campos and Alonso-Quecuty, 1999).

Y IT

How to use context restatement to enhance your memory Try to answer the question: ‘How many windows are there in your home?’

Now use context restatement to answer the same question: ‘Try to visualise the place where you live and think about how many windows there are in that place.

Picture in your mind’s eye yourself facing your home. Count every window you see from left to right, try to include every window no matter how small. Then mentally walk to the left side of your home and count each window. When you have finished, walk to the back, and count each window from left to right. Finally, mentally walk to the last side of your home and count each window you can remember.’

Most people find that context restatement significantly enhanced their ability to accurately count all the windows in their home. Did you find that your recall was significantly better?

Phase 6: Changing perspectives

The witness is encouraged to imagine themselves in the body of the victim or another witness and report what they would have seen. Reporting the incident from a different perspective increases the amount of detail by reducing the impact of cognitive schemas (prior knowledge and expectations) that limit memory search.

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Phase 7: Changing chronological order

Normally, telling a coherent story requires starting at the beginning, but with this method, the witness is encouraged to recall from a variety of points – from the end, the middle, or even the most memorable event. The purpose is to capture more detail because changing the sequence takes the subject out of the confines of their expected schemas and activates more elusive memory traces (Memon et al., 1997).

In the first study of its kind, Satin and Fisher (2019) showed that the cognitive interview is effective for both eyewitness descriptions and enhancing photo identification accuracy.

Their study examined the effectiveness of the cognitive interview approach in two critical areas: whether it improves witness descriptions of a perpetrator’s appearance and whether these descriptions help investigators to find the perpetrator. First, college students saw a simulated robbery and were interviewed using either the cognitive or standard interview to elicit a description of the robber. They found that the cognitive interview produced nearly three times as many descriptors, and at comparable levels of accuracy. Next, 387 college students and 71 police used these descriptions to find the perpetrator among a group of suspect photographs. The descriptors from the cognitive interview increased the rate of finding the perpetrator by 30 per cent for both student and police investigators.

Fisher, Geiselman and Amador (1989) ran the first field study of the cognitive interview with the help of police detectives in Miami, Florida. A field study refers to research that is undertaken in the real world, where the confines of a laboratory setting are abandoned in favour of a natural setting (Pontis, 2018). The study began with a pretraining phase where sample interviews were collected from the detectives using their regular interview procedures. Then, half were given a four-hour training session in all the components of the cognitive interview. Before using the cognitive interview with actual witnesses, the detectives received feedback from a practice interview. To measure the effectiveness of training, they compared the number of facts obtained by comparing each officer’s technique before and after training, and with the number of correct facts elicited by trained police compared with the untrained police. The cognitive interview was superior in both comparisons.

Criticisms of the cognitive interview

The main area of concern is that along with generating more information, the cognitive interview also generates more errors. A solution was discovered by Memon, Meissner and Fraser (2010). Simply advising witnesses to use ‘I don’t know’ answers and asking them not to guess significantly reduced errors. Another concern is the challenge of applying the change perspective and reverse chronological order procedures. These two approaches require a lot of time and produce little additional useful information (Dando, Ormero, Wilcock and Milne, 2011), are difficult to learn and use (Paulo, Albuquerque, Vitorino and Bull, 2017) and may increase omissions (Fisher, Milne and Bull, 2011). Also, evidence obtained by asking subjects to imagine another perspective is viewed as speculation and subjective and therefore difficult to use in legal proceedings (Memon and Köhnken, 1992).

Finally, using all the components of the cognitive interview in the field is limited by time constraints (Dando, Wilcock and Milne, 2008).

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Is the cognitive interview effective?

Field study – Research where the confines of a laboratory setting are abandoned in favour of a natural setting.

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IN SUMMARY Increasing recall is crucial for investigative interviews. Methods such as the cognitive interview are more effective in retrieving accurate memories from eyewitnesses than the standard police interview.

CRITICAL THINKING AND APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1

Imagine that you are an experienced police detective and must teach another detective how to conduct a cognitive interview with an eyewitness of a bank robbery. Outline your interview questions (pay close attention to the specific components of the cognitive interview).

2

Compare the differences in goals between the standard interview and the cognitive interview.

3

Which components of the cognitive interview lend themselves to field applications?

Specifically, what are some of the obstacles preventing the application of cognitive interview components in the field as opposed to a controlled laboratory experiment?

IS THE LIVE LINE-UP DEAD? IMPROVING EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION PROCEDURES FICTION: The traditional live line-up is an extensively used and effective method of identification.

Versus

FACT: The live line-up is flawed, and alternative methods are more effective and used more often.

Typical identification procedures

Imagine you are in a bank when you hear a loud alarm and a gunshot; you find yourself facing an escaping bank robber. Later, the police request that you attend an identity parade.

You logically assume that the police think they have apprehended the offender. Will your assumption that they have the offender in custody make you more likely to identify an innocent person? According to research, the answer is ‘yes’ (Malpass and Devine, 1984).

Identifying a suspect seems like an easy task, but it is deceptively challenging. In fact, a good identity parade is like a good experiment (Wells and Luus, 1990). For example, both include:

••a control group – a line-up with a mock witness in order to test the fairness of the line-up ••an experimenter who is unaware of the hypothesis ••an investigator who does not know who the suspect is ••questions that are phrased in a way that they do not demand a particular answer ••the procedure does not imply that the suspect is in the line-up.

There are different approaches to identifying the offender from potential suspects (Table 2.2). The use of each approach depends on the circumstances of the crime. Each approach has potential biases of which the administrator should be aware.

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Type

Line-up or identification parade

Show up

Photo line-up or photo array

Confirmatory photograph

Presentation description

Types of bias

Presentation of a group of persons including one suspected of having committed a crime assembled for the purpose of discovering whether a witness can identify the suspect from the foils

yy Instruction bias: Did they suggest to the witness that the perpetrator was definitely in the line-up/ identity parade? yy Simultaneous versus sequential processing: Witnesses can make simultaneous comparisons among potential suspects, but are unable to use this strategy with sequential presentation

A witness is shown one person (the suspect) and asked whether that person is the perpetrator

yy Suggestive influences: Because there is only one person presented to the witness, it is obvious who the suspect is. The manner in which the suspect is presented (seeing the suspect in handcuffs or in the back of a police car) may be suggestive of the suspect’s guilt

Presentation of photographs to a witness of a crime to discover or confirm the identity of a criminal suspect

yy Verbal overshadowing: The tendency of verbalisation to impair the recall of visual memories, resulting in unreliable eyewitness accounts yy Image consistency: Ensuring that all photographs have similar backgrounds, lighting and distance from the camera to the suspect

Presenting a single photograph (often from social media sources) to a witness to confirm the identity of a suspect

yy Unconscious transference: If the witness has seen the suspect’s image somewhere other than when committing the crime, it is possible that they are transferring that memory into their memory of who committed the crime (source confusion)

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Table 2.2: Types of eyewitness identification procedures

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System variables – Variables affecting the accuracy of eyewitness identifications, under control of the criminal justice system.

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System and estimator variables

Both eyewitness testimony and suspect identification decisions are affected by two kinds of variables: system variables and estimator variables (Wells, 1978). System variables are factors that are under the control of the police conducting the investigation. Estimator variables are factors associated with the witnesses and their view of the crime, which are not under the control of the police or the judicial system. Distinguishing between estimator and system variables is crucial, because controlling estimator variables increases our chances of identifying accurate and inaccurate witnesses, while controlling system variables helps prevent mistaken identifications (Wells and Olson, 2003).

Source: Vintage Images/Getty Images

Estimator variables – Variables that affect the accuracy of eyewitness identifications, but cannot be controlled by the criminal justice system.

System and estimator variables affect eyewitness identification accuracy during police line-ups

Table 2.3: Examples of system and estimator variables System variables

Estimator variables

Pre-line-up instructions

Effect of post-event information on witness confidence

Line-up construction

Disguise

Foil bias

Gender differences

Clothing

Age

Presentation method

Intellectual challenges

Investigator bias and the double-blind procedure

Racial differences Alcohol intoxication and other drugs The effect of stress Weapon focus

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System variables

System variables are characteristics of a line-up (recognition test) that are related to the retrieval stage of memory (Kurosawa, 1996; Wells, 1978).

Pre-line-up instructions

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Can what you are told by the police after a crime distort your memory? Malpass and Devine (1981, p. 484) showed this effect when they had their subjects identify the culprit they had previously seen in their lecture hall during a staged act of vandalism. Half the subjects were presented with a line-up where the vandal was among the choices, while the other half were presented with a ‘vandal-absent’ line-up. Under these two conditions, half the witnesses were given biased instructions: ‘We believe that the person … is present in the lineup … which of these is the person you saw?’ The other half were given unbiased instructions: ‘The person … may be … in the lineup. It is also possible that he is not in the lineup.’ The results showed that instructions significantly influenced eyewitness performance.

Results showed that the type of instructions did not affect identification accuracy under the vandal-present condition with and without biased instructions. However, the instructions did have a significant effect in the ‘vandal-absent’ condition. Table 2.4 shows that under the biased instruction condition, 78 per cent of the subjects identified an innocent person!

Why did this happen? The subjects in the biased condition (like subjects in a police station) expect the culprit to be present in the line-up. They feel the pressure to choose somebody (anybody) who resembles the reconstructed memory of the offender the most.

Table 2.4: Line-up instruction bias results from Malpass and Devine (1981)

Instructions

Vandal present

Vandal absent

Biased

75 per cent correct identification

78 per cent wrong identifications

Unbiased

83 per cent correct identifications

33 per cent wrong identifications

Source: Malpass, R. S. and Devine, P. G. (1981) Eyewitness identification: Lineup instructions and the absence of the offender, Journal of Applied Psychology, 66(4), 482–9. American Psychological Association. Adapted with permission.

Obviously, this technique does not eliminate the possibility that some witnesses still feel pressure to choose someone. To counter this, the witness should be told that the offender may or may not be in the line-up and that not making a choice still supplies useful information. Specifically, answers such as ‘I don’t recognise anyone’ are acceptable (Steblay, 2018). As an additional safeguard, Wells, Seelau, Ryan and Luus (1994) suggest beginning the identification line-up with a target-absent condition or a blank line-up – a line-up that only has known innocent participants with no suspect. However, it will eventually become common knowledge that police begin with a target-absent condition.

In general, police prefer not to use the blank line-up method because it ‘tricks’ the eyewitness and lowers eyewitnesses’ trust in the police (Wells and Olson, 2003).

Line-up construction and fairness

A fair recognition test is one in which the suspect does not stand out from the other known innocent people in the line-up due to the design of the recognition test. One of the most infamous examples involved a suspect described as a ‘black man’, who was part of a six-person line-up containing one black suspect and five white foils – also known as line-up fillers (Ellison and Buckhout, 1981). The police offered as their excuse for having a single

Foils – Also known as line-up fillers (an innocent person in a police line-up), they test an eyewitness’s recognition memory.

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black suspect among five white foils that there were few black people in their city, so the line-up was representative of the population and there were no similar foils readily available.

Foil bias

When constructing the line-up, which foils do you need to select; people who look like the suspect or people who match the description given by the witness? In a fair line-up, attempts should be made to include foils in the line-up who are similar to the suspect’s general physical characteristics as stated in the verbal description given by the witness (Penrod and Bornstein, 2007). But what if the witness describes an offender with a scar on his/her right cheek and the suspect is the only person in the line-up with a scar on the right cheek? Lindsay and Wells (1980) recommend concealing unique features such as tattoos or scars rather than duplicate it on all suspects. However, more recent research finds that duplicating the same feature across the foils results in the same identification accuracy as concealment (Colloff, Wade and Strange, 2016). The important point to remember is that when the suspect stands out in the line-up relative to the other line-up members, uncertain eyewitnesses may be cued to identify the suspect based only on distinctiveness rather than a true match between their memory of the culprit and that line-up member.

Another question is how many foils do you need to select? If witnesses are induced to make line-up identification, a fair line-up will expose the innocent suspect to an identification risk of one divided by the number of persons in the line-up. A line-up in which only two members (the defendant and one other) fit the witness description of the offender increases the identification risk to 50 per cent. Most researchers recommend a line-up of six (one suspect and five foils) to reduce the probability of randomly selecting the suspect to 16 per cent (Wells et al., 1994).

How do you know if a line-up is fair? One technique is to conduct the line-up with a mock witness (people who have not seen any of the line-up members before). In a fair line-up, each of the line-up members should be chosen as the perpetrator at the level of chance. Specifically, in a six-person line-up, each of the members should be chosen no more than 16.7 per cent of the time (1/6).

Clothing

There are two options. The first option is to dress the suspects to match the offender at the scene of the crime (Freire et al., 2004). A second option is to dress the suspects in different clothes from those worn by the offender at the scene of the crime. This second option offers the opportunity to conduct a second test (separate from the line-up) where the witness can identify the clothing worn by the perpetrator (Yarmey, Yarmey and Yarmey, 1996). obal Pe Gl

s

pective rs

Virtual identification parades in the UK Identity parades in the UK have been replaced with a high-tech alternative called VIPER (Video Identification Parade Electronic Recording), which is a digital system for conducting identity parades. Rather than recruit a group of volunteers who resemble a suspect, police can retrieve a choice of prerecorded video recordings of people unrelated to the case. Anyone can volunteer to be part of the database, as long as they don’t have facial tattoos or many piercings. Police create a virtual parade, using clips taken from this library, and a witness is then shown these, along with recordings of the current suspect. VIPER was developed by West Yorkshire Police and is now widely used in the UK (Pike et al., 2000). Research shows that correct identification rates of adult mock witnesses do not differ when VIPER line-ups are compared to static photographs (Darling, Valentine and Memon, 2008). Using data supplied by the National VIPER Bureau, researchers reported that VIPER parades produced a slightly higher rate of suspect identifications than live parades – 39 per cent as compared to 35 per cent (Pike, Brace and Kynan, 2002).

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Presentation method

Sequential presentation Early research on line-up formats indicated that sequential line-ups provide better witness discrimination than simultaneous line-ups (Lindsay and Wells, 1985; Steblay, Dysart, Fulero and Lindsay, 2001). Better discrimination means that witnesses were less likely to identify a known innocent foil as the suspect. Wells (1984) explains this effect as due to the absolute-relative judgement theory, where sequential line-ups provide better witness discrimination because the format encourages witnesses to make a specific judgement against their own memory of the suspect. The witness must decide if the current suspect is the offender before moving to the next suspect without knowing what the next face will look like.

When evaluating faces in a sequential line-up, eyewitnesses may be more conservative during the early part of the line-up compared to later. This position bias happens because witnesses are more concerned with making a misidentification early in the line-up, encouraging conservative judgements, but towards the end of the line-up, witnesses worry that they will make no identification and switch to more liberal judgements (Carlson, Gronlund and Clark, 2008). Position effects are concerning because they suggest that a suspect’s order in the line-up affects their chances of being picked, rather than if they are guilty. Although not every study has found a position bias (Carlson and Carlson, 2014), position bias can appear in simultaneous line-ups, with identifications influenced by whether the suspect is in the centre, beginning or end of the presentation (Wells, Steblay and Dysart, 2015).

The differences between the presentation methods seems to disappear under high stakes conditions, as shown by Amendola and Wixted (2015) when using real-world cases in police departments that randomly assigned cases to either a simultaneous or a sequential line-up. They found that witnesses viewing a simultaneous line-up were just as conservative as witnesses viewing a sequential line-up. Given the high stakes decision making of witness identification, witnesses in real-world cases are more conservative than laboratory participant witnesses regardless of line-up format.

Simultaneous presentation Simultaneous line-ups promote relative judgements, by viewing all suspects together, witnesses estimate which one is closest to their memory. Some researchers have found a slight advantage for simultaneous line-ups (Carlson and Carlson, 2014). This simultaneous advantage is explained by diagnostic feature detection theory. This theory states that simultaneous line-ups lead to better discriminability because viewing all line-up suspects (suspect and known innocent foils) together allows witnesses to compare and contrast specific features in each face (Wixted and Mickes, 2014). It may not be surprising then that, in addition to a lower rate of false identifications (picking a known innocent foil), there are more correct identifications from simultaneous line-ups than from sequential line-ups (Moreland and Clark, 2020). The fewer overall identifications made from sequential line-ups suggests that this format promotes more conservative responding in witnesses than simultaneous line-ups (Palmer and Brewer, 2012).

Absoluterelative judgement theory – A strategy found in sequential line-ups when witnesses compare faces from memory rather than to each other.

Diagnostic feature detection theory – Simultaneous line-ups lead to better discriminability because viewing all line-up suspects together allows witnesses to compare specific features in each face.

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There is disagreement about whether simultaneous presentation (all suspects at once) or sequential presentation (suspects shown one at a time) lead to better eyewitness performance. This is a critical issue for the criminal justice system. On one hand, witnesses given a sequential line-up are less likely to identify an innocent suspect; on the other hand, it is less likely that a guilty suspect would be identified.

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There is still debate as to whether simultaneous or sequential line-ups produce better witness identifications. There is no overwhelming evidence for either side. In fact, there is mixed evidence for many of the findings, with some researchers finding an effect and others not detecting the same effect. Ongoing obstacles for researchers in this area include different findings between laboratory studies and real-world cases.

Investigator bias Double-blind procedure – Neither the eyewitness nor the line-up administrator knows the identity of the suspect.

Human decision makers are biased. Typically, the person who administers a line-up is the case detective who knows the identity of the suspect and the foils. To avoid bias, it is important to keep the investigator unaware of the identity of the suspect when they interact with witnesses preventing them from unintentionally communicating their knowledge about which line-up member is the suspect and which members are only foils.

This requires double-blind testing, which is well established in the behavioural sciences (Rosenthal, 1976) but is generally unused in criminal investigation procedures. In the double-blind procedure, neither the line-up administrators nor the eyewitnesses are made aware of the suspect’s identity, thus reducing the potential influence of verbal and nonverbal bias (Douglass and Smalarz, 2019).

Estimator variables

Knowledge of estimator variables allows us to judge whether an eyewitness is likely to be accurate in their identification based on the circumstances of their view of the suspect.

Effect of post-event information on witness confidence

Juries often rely on witness confidence to infer witness accuracy (Wixted et al., 2015).

However, the relationship between eyewitness confidence and accuracy is inconsistent (Gustafsson, Lindholm and Jönsson, 2019). Accurate witnesses are as confident as inaccurate witnesses (Brewer, 2006). Witness confidence is influenced by information that the witness receives after the identification line-up; for example, when a witness receives feedback that they identified the same suspect the police did, or that another witness chose the same suspect. Post-event information feedback can make confident witnesses overconfident and it alters other memories related to the crime. Overconfident witnesses tend to overstate the amount of time seeing the suspect, or state that they were closer than they were (Wells and Bradfield, 1998). Unfortunately, post-event confirmation is difficult to prevent because by the time a witness gives evidence in court, they have already received confirming feedback. Witnesses are not asked to attend court if they identified the ‘wrong’ person (Semmler, Brewer and Wells, 2004).

Because recognition is faster than recall, accurate eyewitness identifications are made significantly faster than inaccurate ones (Ackerman and Koriat, 2011) and witnesses are more accurate when they do not have to be precise. Researchers applied a radical alternative to the traditional line-up (Brewer, Weber, Wootton and Lindsay, 2012). Based on the premise that stronger memory traces are easier to activate than weaker traces, witnesses had a response deadline of only two seconds. Then, instead of only asking for an identification of the correct suspect, the researchers asked the witness to rate how confident they were about their choice. Their experiment used a series of short films of crimes ranging from shoplifting to car theft. Participants examined 12 portraits, only one of which was the actual suspect. Surprisingly, a two-second response deadline increases eyewitness accuracy performance by 25 per cent and when quizzed one week later, those forced to choose quickly were significantly more accurate.

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Disguise

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How well do people identify faces, even under optimal conditions? Disguise prevents encoding, and identification and identification accuracy generally decreased with the degree of disguise (Mansour et al., 2012). Kemp, Towell and Pike (1997) examined the effectiveness of placing the owner’s photograph in a credit card as a means of preventing fraud. In a field study using experienced supermarket checkout operators, staff showed poor accuracy in discriminating identity. Overall, they incorrectly accepted 50 per cent of fraudulent cards containing photographs that did not match the holder.

Gender differences

Common stereotypes suggest that women make more accurate eyewitnesses than men.

This misconception is based on studies showing better perceptual abilities in colour vision (Bowmaker, 1998), smell (Dalton, Doolittle and Breslin, 2002) and visual information processing (Murray et al., 2018). Do these enhanced perceptual abilities increase the accuracy of eyewitness identification? Shapiro and Penrod (1986) found that while women seem more accurate than men, they made more identification attempts and, as a result, more mistaken identifications than men, thus cancelling any advantage. Overall, neither gender shows a consistent advantage identifying perpetrators (Geiselman et al., 1984).

Age

Under certain circumstances, children make better eyewitnesses than adults. Researchers showed children and adults videos of a typical bank robbery that did not include a gun (Otgaar, Howe, Merckelbach and Muris, 2018). The adults were more likely than children to agree that they had seen the gun that was not there. In this situation, the lack of detailed cognitive schemas created more accurate memories in children. Laboratory studies show that older subjects make fewer correct responses in tests of face recognition, especially after 50 years of age (O’Rourke, Penrod, Cutler and Stuve, 1989). Police tend to consider witnesses over the age of 60 less dependable and thorough (Allison, Wright and Holliday, 2010). Compounding this effect, potential jurors also believe that older witnesses are less competent. Evidence of age stereotyping is presented by Kwong See, Hoffman and Wood (2001), who found that participants judged a younger (age 28) female witness as more accurate and competent than an older (age 82) female witness, although they did consider the older female to be more honest.

Intellectual challenges

The criminal justice system generally believes people with intellectual challenges have inferior memory and therefore produce less effective testimony (Kebbell and Wagstaff, 1999). To investigate this stereotype, Ternes and Yuille (2008) examined the performance of witnesses with and without intellectual challenges. In a clever twist, participants had to identify a photographer who had taken their picture one to two weeks earlier. Findings showed no difference in accuracy between the two groups. Although fewer details were given by those in the intellectually challenged group, these details were still accurate.

Question format can negatively affect witnesses with cognitive impairment. For example, such witnesses often display an acquiescence bias – they are more likely to answer ‘yes’ to questions of which they are unsure. This produces unreliable and contradictory statements, especially during cross-examination. The solution is to use open-ended questions that encourage free recall, such as ‘Tell me what you saw yesterday morning’ (Kebbell and Hatton, 1999).

Acquiescence bias – The tendency for respondents to agree with statements regardless of their content.

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Cross-race effect – The tendency to more easily recognise faces of the race one is most familiar with, which is most often one’s own race.

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Racial differences

The cross-race effect is the tendency for eyewitnesses to be better at recognising faces of people who are of the same race as them than those who are of a different race to them (Wilson, Hugenberg and Bernstein, 2013). Sadozai, Kempen, Tredoux and Robbins (2019) explain that the bias is due to the depth of cross-racial friendships rather than the number of friends of different races. In this context, depth of friendship includes more than just the number of shared activities, it includes the depth of self-disclosure, emotional expressiveness and connectedness (Plummer, Stone, Powell and Allison, 2016).

Alcohol intoxication

Alcohol intoxication reduces memory and increases suggestibility during questioning (Oorsouw, Broers and Sauerland, 2019). Memory impairment is due to less rehearsal, poor attention and poor visual information processing. This leads to poor encoding (Saults, Cowan, Sher and Moreno, 2007) and impairs retrieval and storage (Dudai, 2004; Lee, Roh and Kim, 2009) by disrupting the consolidation of memories (Karlén, 2017). Curiously, alcohol consumption during encoding and retrieval does not impair face identification during recognition (Altman et al., 2018).

Cue utilisation hypothesis – As arousal increases, attention narrows, blocking encoding information.

Flashbulb memory – A vivid, enduring memory associated with a personally significant and emotional event.

Weapon focus effect – An eyewitness’s concentration on a weapon to the exclusion of other details of a crime.

The effect of stress

The effects of stress on memory can be viewed through the cue utilisation hypothesis – as arousal increases, attention narrows, blocking the encoding of information (Easterbrook, 1959). However, the relationship between stress and eyewitness memory is more complex, and stressful situations do not always impair memory; in fact, they may even enhance it (Cahill and Alkireb, 2003). Evidence for stress enhancing memory is supported by flashbulb memories – extremely vivid memories of an emotional event (Maswood, Rasmussen and Rajaram, 2018). The intensity of an experience enhances the memory by entangling emotional and factual components and increasing the amount of memory cues connected with the event. There are three circumstances likely to create a vivid flashbulb memory (Conway, 1995): 1

the memory trace is important to the individual

2

it is a surprising event

3

it has an emotional effect on the individual.

Weapon focus

Another estimator variable is the weapon focus effect. When a weapon is produced, subjects focus on the weapon rather than other features of the incident (Kebbell and Wagstaff, 1999). This produces poorer recall of the weapon holder’s face, lower line-up accuracy, and lower ability to describe the features of the perpetrator (Steblay, 1997). An explanation is that eyewitnesses give more accurate descriptions of unusual threatening objects when compared with descriptions of novel but nonthreatening objects (Mansour, Hamilton and Gibson, 2018). Remarkably, bank tellers (Fashing, Ask and Granhag, 2004) and the police (Hulse and Memnon, 2006) seem immune to its effects. In fact, it had been shown that educating people about the weapon focus effect can neutralise it, increasing concentration on the peripheral details of the perpetrator’s appearance (Pickel, Ross and Ruelove, 2006).

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It was dusk on an October night in 1980 when a young female hitchhiker was picked up on Pacific Highway South, 10 miles outside Seattle, Washington, by a man with a beard and a three-piece suit. Instead of driving her to Tacoma, the man turned onto an isolated dirt road, raped her, and left her by the side of the road. Steve Titus was stopped for questioning by police because his car’s licence plate and description were both generally like those given by the rape victim. He willingly cooperated with the police when they asked him if they could take his photograph. The victim was shown Steve’s two photographs (a profile and full-face shot) with photos of five other men who resembled Steve. However, Steve’s photos were smaller than the others and were not separated by a black line as the other photos were. Police instructed the victim: ‘Tell me which one raped you.’ After studying the photos for five minutes, the victim finally pointed to one of Steve’s photos and said, ‘This one is the closest’ (Olsen, 1991, p. 169).

On this basis, the victim identified Steve as her rapist and, mostly because of her testimony, Steve was found guilty.

But a few months after Steve’s conviction, an investigative report with the Seattle Times led police to question the verdict. Small but significant details did not make sense. For example, the victim reported that the car had velvet seats and Steve’s were vinyl. The rapist was wearing a three-piece suit, and Steve did not own any kind of suit (Olsen, 1991). New evidence suggested it was Edward Lee King (Olsen used the pseudonym Mac Smith in his book), who later confessed to the rape. He was believed to have committed more than 50 rapes, including this one. When the victim saw the photograph of the new suspect, she realised that he was her rapist and broke down in tears (Wise, Dauphinais and Safer, 2007).

Although Steve Titus was released, his life was in shambles: he spent all his savings on his defence, lost his job and good reputation, and his fiancée left him. Steve spent the next four years in a struggle to sue the authorities. Eleven days before the case was to come to trial, Steve died of a heart attack. Ten months later, his estate was awarded a settlement of $2.8 million.

Discussion Questions: 1

Does this case reflect problems with system or estimator variables?

2

Based on what we know about human memory and recognition, what mistakes can you identify in the presentation of the photos?

3

When the photo of Steve Titus was chosen, the witness said: ‘This one is the closest.’ Based on what we know about human memory and recognition, what mistakes can you identify in the selection of the photo?

IN SUMMARY The traditional live line-up is expensive and time-consuming and is rarely used.

Alternative methods like the photo array are used more often. With proper design and taking into account system and estimator variables, line-ups can produce accurate identifications.

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Examples of flawed procedures in the Steve Titus case

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CRITICAL THINKING AND APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1

What practical advice would you offer police about the fair and effective conduct of line-ups?

2

How can you apply the double-blind approach used in psychological experiments to suspect line-ups and the review of photo arrays?

3

What evidence supports and undermines the influence of the weapon focus effect?

THE ROLE OF THE FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST FICTION: Forensic psychology cannot improve on the traditional methods of collection and preservation of memories.

Versus

FACT: The application of psychological concepts offers more valid and reliable methods to collect and preserve memories.

We end this chapter reviewing three essential roles forensic psychologists play to ensure accurate identifications. First, applying psychological safeguards to ensure effective data collection through standardised methods for identification procedures. Second, applying the same techniques already used to preserve physical evidence to preserve memories.

Third, increasing education to address the fiction that the live line-up is superior to other methods of identification.

First, psychological safeguards need to apply the same approaches to designing lineups and ensuring that the identification of a suspect is the product of the eyewitness’s memory and not the identification procedure. These safeguards include:

••eliminating

the presence of demand characteristics by reducing pressure on the eyewitness to make a choice

••avoiding subtle confirmatory biases by asking questions about the suspect and not asking the same questions about the foils

••leaking the hypothesis and making it obvious to the eyewitness which person in the line-up is the suspect

••making judgements from small sample sizes based on only one eyewitness ••using a control group. For example, police can investigate if people who did not see the crime, but have only the eyewitness description of the perpetrator, can still identify the suspect.

Second, the forensic psychologist’s most significant role is the process of collecting and preserving eyewitness memory. Specifically, eyewitness evidence should be treated like trace evidence collected at the crime scene (DNA, fingerprints, bullet ballistics).

Like trace evidence, memories have a physiological basis in the patterns of biochemical changes in the brain. Additionally, eyewitness evidence, like other types of trace evidence, depends on the use of proper procedures in collection and preservation. Proper procedures prevent contamination of physical evidence in the same way that post-event information contaminates or distorts memories. When post-event information alters a memory, the original memories are lost.

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The unbiased nature of DNA evidence Australia has its share of innocent people who were falsely convicted.

Among the most high-profile cases are: RT PA II

yy Lindy Chamberlain, who was wrongfully convicted of murdering baby Azaria yy Andrew Mallard, who was wrongfully convicted of murder yy Pamela Lawrence, who served 12 years in jail yy Alexander McLeod-Lindsay, who served a 9-year jail term for the attempted murder of his wife before he was eventually exonerated yy Roseanne Beckett, who served 10 years for planning to kill her husband but was exonerated, and awarded $4 million in damages (Koubaridis, 2016).

Source: Fairfax Media/Getty Images

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Lindy Chamberlain with a photo of herself and Innocence Projects were inspired by Azaria, her missing nine-month-old baby daughter, DNA testing methods in the early following the first inquest that concluded a dingo 1990s to prove claims of innocence took her baby from a bassinet inside a family tent (for more information on worldwide Innocence Projects, go to www.innocenceproject.org.)

Their mission is to free innocent people and to reform systems responsible for their unjust imprisonment. Griffith University in South East Queensland established its own Innocence Project in 2001 and employs students to examine cases without charge, supervised by lawyers and academics. It discovered that DNA testing is unbiased, sometimes supporting the defence and sometimes the prosecution.

In 1991, Shane Sebastian Davis was incarcerated for nearly two decades for a murder he claimed he didn’t commit. Davis was convicted of killing a 19-year-old South African woman named Michelle Cohn who was on holiday on Australia’s Gold Coast with her family. The Griffith University Innocence Project convinced the state to retest the DNA evidence using more accurate technology. In 2010, retesting confirmed with even greater accuracy that the original DNA evidence was correct, and Davis was, in fact, guilty (Taylor, 2010).

Third, research evidence points to the demise of the live line-up (identification parade) as an effective identification tool. For all its flaws, there is still a stubborn belief in the power of a live line-up over other methods. Fitzgerald, Price and Valentine (2018) investigated this widely held belief known as the line-up superiority hypothesis – the belief that the live presentation of line-up members produces the best eyewitness identification outcomes. The consequence of this belief is that it makes eyewitnesses more conservative in their identifications from a live line-up compared with a photo or video identification (Dent and Stevenson, 1979). Price and colleagues (2018) suggest that this is based on an intuitive belief that the realism offered by a live line-up offers more behavioural and physical cues. While there is some support that extra physical cues

Line-up superiority hypothesis – The belief that live presentation of line-up members yields the best eyewitness identification outcomes.

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improve the ability to match images (Rice et al., 2013), the connection has not been made with eyewitness identification accuracy.

Finally, Wells, Memon and Penrod (2006) question whether the existence of the live line-up technique has stifled progress in eyewitness identification. Without the traditional line-up, new empirical identification methods may have been established. For example, measures based on brain activity (Xue, Chen, Lu and Dong, 2010), automated measures of gait analysis (Seckiner et al., 2019) and micro-expressions (Matsumoto and Hwang, 2018).

IN SUMMARY The application of psychological concepts offers more valid and reliable ways to ensure standardised methods for identification procedures and the preservation of memories.

CRITICAL THINKING AND APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1

Review three roles the forensic psychologist plays to ensure accurate identifications. Find a peer-reviewed research article related to one of these three roles. Include the source of the research, the hypothesis and at least one major finding.

2

In what ways should memories be treated like trace evidence found at a crime scene?

3

Despite the challenges and availability of better methods, why do you think the belief in the superiority of the live identification procedure exists?

CHAPTER REVIEW We began by investigating the myth that memory is a recording that can be accurately replayed when needed. The truth is that memories are continually rewritten with information from before and after the event, and altered based on our expectations, biases and preconceptions. Once the process of memory is understood, the advantages of the cognitive interview over the standard interview technique are obvious. We can obtain more accurate and useful information from eyewitnesses by applying the cognitive interview than the standard interview. Finally, despite the belief in the superiority of live identification procedures, this approach is not as effective, fair, or accurate as other methods like photo and video presentations. In conclusion, unless we are relentlessly sceptical of the past, we will continue to confuse fact with fiction while innocent victims are punished.

NAMES TO KNOW Elizabeth Loftus

A leading researcher in the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Her innovative studies show how leading questions could influence eyewitness reports and demonstrate the misinformation effect.

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••Loftus, E. F. (2018) Eyewitness science and the legal system. Annual Review of Law and Science, 14, 1–10.

••Loftus, E. F. and Palmer, J. C. (1974) Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An Becky Milne

A chartered forensic psychologist and scientist. The main focus of her work is the examination of police interviewing and investigation.

••Ryan, N., Westera, N., Kebbell, M. R., Milne, B. and Mark, H. (2019) Where is the

body? Investigative interviewing strategies in missing body homicide cases. Investigative Interviewing: Research and Practice, 10(1), 61–77.

••Ryan, N., Westera, N., Kebbell, M., Milne, B. and Mark, H. (2020) To know where

the bodies are buried: The use of the cognitive interview in an environmental scale spatial memory retrieval task. Applied Cognitive Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1002/ acp.3640.

Amina Memon

Investigates real-world cognitive techniques in police investigations by applying social psychological approaches to understanding memory, decision making, detection of deception and credibility assessment.

••Memon, A., Andrews, B. and Davies, G. (2014) Memory: Sifting the evidence. The Psychologist, 27(9), 636.

••Theunissen, T., Meyer, T., Memon, A. and Weinsheimer, C. (2017) Adult eyewitness memory for single versus repeated traumatic events. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 31(2), 164–74.

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example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13(5), 585–9.