PSYC325

Lecture 7/8

How do False IDs Occur? Encoding - estimator variable Storage - estimator variable Retrieval - system variable Estimator Variables What the CJS has no control over Things that affect how good the witness's stored memory of the perpetrator is I.e., when someone gets to a police station with information ready to divulge System Variables Under the control of the CJS The procedures we use to elicit the witness's memory for the perpetrator How they pull the information out e.g., line-ups, identifying pictures etc. Estimator Variable Problem Sometimes people just don't have a very good recollection of the perpetrator's appearance Estimator Variable Categories Stable Witness Factors Malleable Witness Factors Stable Target Factors Malleable Target Factors Environmental Factors Post-Event Factors Stable Witness Factors Things about the witness that can't change day-to-day Age: children don't tend to encode faces as well as adults Ethnicity: we are not very good at distinguishing between two people of a different ethnicity to us (own race bias) Malleable Witness Factors Things about the witness that change day-to-day E.g., alcohol consumption or tiredness Stable Target Factors Things about the perpetrator that can't change day-to-day People that have 'general' face characteristics are better at crimes because their faces aren't distinctive Malleable Target Factors I.e., disguises, changes in appearance between the event and the recognition test Descriptors given from witnesses (e.g., hair or clothing) are very easily changeable, so tricky to identify based on these factors Key Eyewitness Descriptors Hairstyle - 27% Eyes - 14% Nose - 14% Face shape - 13% Environmental Factors Light levels and visibility - hardest to see perpetrator in low light/visibility (fog) Presence of weapon - weapon focus effect Crime seriousness - importance of crime makes us pay attention, and vice versa Stress - effects how well you encode the memory Post-Event Factors Delay - forget information over time, forgetting curve Exposure to misinformation - misinformation for people works the same way misinformation for details of the crime does Verbal overshadowing - being asked to verbally describe a perpetrator makes it harder to identify them in a line-up (holistic) System Variable Problem The way in which eyewitness identification evidence is elicited can make things difficult for witnesses Types of System Variable Verbal Descriptions Facial Composites Mugshot Books Line-ups Verbal Descriptions Asking the witness what the perpetrator looked like Often too brief to be forensically relevant Often focus on factors that can be changed easily e.g., hairstyle or clothing When witnesses give a lot of detail, investigators put a lot of weight on the description and really trust the witness's line-up identification However, there is no reliable association between the verbal description and the following identification Facial Composites Ways of trying to go from a description to a physical/visual image e.g., sketch artists, manual systems or computer systems A successful composite = a witness putting it together easily and easy recognition from the public Problems with Facial Composites People are not good at constructing accurate faces, even if they're familiar We tend to process and remember faces in a configural/holistic way, instead of by features Mugshot Books Witnesses are asked to look through albums containing mugshots of known offenders Can easily contaminate subsequent identification performance (familiarity feeling from book transfers to line-up) Because all the people in the book are past-offenders, people think that there is no wrong answer Line-up Process Suspect apprehended by the police and put into a line-up with foils (people they know to be innocent of the crime) If a foil is selected, we know there's been a mistake in that the police have the wrong person - turns into a target absent line-up (e.g., Ronald Cotton situation) If the suspect is selected, the line-up turns into a target-present line-up Police can't detect this mistake because they believe the witness's selection (if it follows their initial suspect) Instruction Bias If the line-up doesn't contain the perpetrator, why isn't this noticed by witnesses? Witnesses can sometimes feel like they have to choose someone They don't know that target-absent line-ups exist, and think that everyone in the line-up is guilty of something Target-absent line-ups are dangerous when someone innocent is selected Instructions reduce this tendency i.e., telling the witness the perpetrator may not be in the line-up Though instructions may be ignored Relative judgement - people are likely to choose someone out of a line-up out of a process of elimination Memon, Hope, & Gabbert (2002) Example of how instructions aren't enough Participants given post line-up questionnaire (after being shown a crime simulation and subsequent line-up to identify the perpetrator) 90% of participants expected the target to be present (even with instructions) 95% recalled the instructions (just didn't believe them) 47% of incorrect witnesses would make the same decision in 'real life' Memon, Hope, & Gabbert (2002) - Child Implication Children are especially reluctant to reject line-ups Pick someone because they think they're doing a good thing Zajac & Karageorge (2009) Giving children something to pick to reduce incorrect identifications 8-11 year olds visit to the Police Station Confederate event - while a police officer was talking to the children, a confederate came in asking for keys to "lock someone up" - saw the confederate for 30-40 seconds Children shown a target-present or a target-absent line-up the next day Asked to tell the experimenter if the man who borrowed the keys wasn't there, and if he wasn't, to point to the "wild card" Zajac & Karageorge (2009) Results Wild card option increased children's performance in the target-absent line-up Wild card option did not affect children's performance in the target-present line-up Presentation Bias Live line-up - not used often, as difficult to get everyone in the same spot at once (only used when pool of foils is limited) Simultaneous line-up vs. sequential line-up Simultaneous Line-up Relative judgement When we see all the photos at once, we tend to compare them to each other Sequential Line-up Absolute judgement - introduced to try stop people making relative judgements Photos are presented one at a time For each photo, the witness makes an absolute judgement i.e., they cannot compare line-up members Important Points of Sequential Line-ups The witness is not told how many photos they will see They can't return to earlier photos The line-up stops as soon as an identification is made Benefit/Negative of Sequential Line-ups Result in fewer identifications overall, but fewer false alarms - trade-off is worth it Data says that sequential line-ups result in an 8% reduction in identification of suspects who are guilty, but a 22% reduction in identification of suspects who are innocent Foil Bias Foils that are too dissimilar to the suspect may increase the changes of an innocent suspect being wrongly identified (backfire effect) Foils that are too similar will confuse witnesses and increase the chances of an innocent foil being identified Optimal Similarity Similarity to the witness's verbal description (matching foils to description) Similarity to the suspect (match foils to suspect) Wells et al. (2000) Suggested that the foils should be chosen based on the witness's verbal description Clark & Tunnicliff (2001) Participants asked to give verbal descriptions of the perpetrator (from some sort of simulated crime) 3 line-ups, simultaneous type TP, description-matched foils TA, description-matched foils TA, suspect-matched foils Results say line-ups should be suspect-matched as opposed to description-matched Investigator Bias Police officer influencing the eyewitness's decision through: Verbal behaviour - e.g., "take another look and make sure that's the one" Facial gestures - e.g., frowning and smiling Body movements - e.g., nodding and shaking head Phillips et al. (1999) TA line-ups Single blind (investigator is not aware of suspect's position in line-up) Double blind (neither investigator nor witness are aware of suspect's position in line -up) When the investigator knows who the suspect is, the witnesses are massively likely to pick the suspect Postdiction Variables Estimator and system variables are both related to witness accuracy in a causal way Postdiction variables are different - they are things that might be associated with accuracy, but they don't cause the witness to be accurate/inaccurate I.e. measurable products that correlate with identification accuracy in a non-causal manner Postdiction Variables: Confidence Doesn't directly cause accuracy in identifications, but is associated instead Confidence-Accuracy Calibration = people tend to be over-confident Confidence tends to get stronger over time and over subsequent identifications e.g., line-up "I think" to court "I'm positive" Positive feedback artificially inflates confidence i.e., police and interviewers need to be careful to not confirm beliefs Positive feedback also inflates retrospective reports of confidence and viewing conditions Postdiction Variables: Response Latency How long you take to make a decision Accurate witnesses may make their decisions more quickly than inaccurate witnesses Fast or slow? Need something to compare to Dunning & Perretta (2002) - 10-12 seconds = more likely to be correct Subsequent research suggests that this magic number may differ widely across viewing conditions

Lecture 18

How do we Study Jurors? Mock jurors - Getting eligible jurors and presenting them with mock "evidence" to see how they evaluate it - Good for manipulating factors that impact jurors (e.g., level of confidence in a witness) Case studies/archives - Looking through past cases to find discrepancies and the differences between factors - E.g., cases with DNA evidence lead to 80% conviction vs. cases without that lead to 30% conviction Post-trial interviews - Dependent on the country, you can interview jurors about the trial - Doesn't happen in NZ Field experiments with real jurors - Conducting experiments that could benefit jurors - E.g., whether it would be beneficial to take notes - Doesn't happen in NZ Pre-Trial Publicity Can media coverage of the crime affect jurors' decisions? - Particularly useful in NZ context where there aren't many major crimes - I.e., those that come up are given heavy media coverage The pre-trial publicity problem represents a conflict between the right to a fair trial and freedom of the press - We only want jurors listening to in-trial information, media coverage impacts this feed of information Research looking at pre-trial media reports in criminal cases indicates a slant in favour of the prosecution - Media articles reflect badly on the defendant i.e., focusing on the life of the victim, or the trouble the defendant's gotten into before - Exception being a defendant of another country's criminal justice system - Then we're given reports on how sorry we should feel for them Therefore, pre-trial publicity can be expected to disadvantage the accused - Pre-trial publicity = more convictions Pre-Trial Publicity: Steblay et al. (1999) Meta-analysis Investigated 44 PTP studies involving 5755 participants Participants exposed to negative PTP were more likely to judge the defendant guilty than participants exposed to less or no negative PTP i.e., PTP = more convictions Factors that Increase PTP Effects (Steblay et al., 1999; Ogloff & Vidmar, 1994) All lead to an increase in guilty verdicts: - Murder, sexual abuse, or drug crimes - Multiple negative points in PTP - E.g., hurt caused to the victim, something bad in the person's past, not pleading guilty, etc. - Increased length between PTP and trial - Gives people more time to consolidate views based on media coverage - Emotional PTP (instead of factual) - Graphic descriptions of injuries, upset family members etc. - PTP from TV (as opposed to print media) - More engaging and memorable Instructions to Disregard Can't just disregard PTP factors, they stick in juror minds regardless of being told not to take them into consideration - Can often backfire, and make things worse and get jurors to put more emphasis on PTP factors Why Might Instructions to Disregard Backfire? Theory of Ironic Processes - When we make an effort not to think about something it often dominates our thoughts Reactance Theory - People are motivated to maintain their freedom - "You can't tell me what to do" Jurors may prefer to rely on broad, common-sense notions of justice - While the law says to disregard, jurors often think they know better and consider the PTP factors - E.g., a jury for a rapist already in jail that committed another rape - They're going to take that information into account How do Jurors Make their Decisions? Mathematical Models Cognitive/Explanation-Based Models Mathematical Models The idea of a meter in your head with 0 being not-guilty to 100 being guilty Based on the information given, your needle for the meter will go towards either side and you'll feel that the defendant is guilty or innocent - The needle can move back and forth, but some models say once they reach 0 or 100, they don't move again because you're sure of innocence/guilt Cognitive/Explanation-Based Models The Story Model (Pennington & Hastie, 1992) *** EXAM CONTENT *** - Juror constructs a story of how events unfolded (e.g., the defendant decided to murder his friend, so he did X, and then he covered his tracks by doing Y and then he told the police Z, etc.) based on: - Evidence presented during the trial - Personal knowledge or expectations of similar events i.e., not just the evidence, but what they know about the world - Expectations or knowledge of what constitutes a complete story i.e., what a complete story would need to have (coverage, uniqueness, coherence) - Story is evaluated based on: - Coverage - how well does the story account for all of the evidence? Do you need to ignore certain bits of evidence for the story to "work"? - Uniqueness - does one story "stick out" from all the other possible stories? - Coherence - does the story make sense? § Three things factor into coherence: · Completeness: is it a complete story, or does it have gaps? · Consistency: are all the aspects of the story compatible with each other? · Plausibility: could the story actually have happened like that in real life? The Story Model (Pennington & Hastie, 1992) Implication - Pennington and proposed that jurors may simultaneously weigh up several stories. - Others have proposed that jurors form one story early on. - As the trial progresses, they accept or reject new evidence based on how it conforms to the story (Carlson & Russo, 2001) § This is referred to as pre-decisional distortion Defendant and Juror Characteristics E.g., Attractiveness - jurors (and other people in the world) take attractiveness intro consideration Defendant Attractiveness: Efran (1974) Part 1 - 108 students answered the following 2 questions on a 6-point likert scale - Should jurors be influenced by the defendant's character and previous history? (77% said yes) - Should jurors be influenced by the defendant's attractiveness? (7% said yes) - In theory, no one thinks attractiveness should factor in, but what about in practice? Part 2 - 66 students - simulated jury experiment - Presented with a case study of a student caught cheating in an exam - Accompanied by: § Attractive photo of the student § Less attractive photo of the student § No photograph of the student - Participants were asked to rate defendant attractiveness (manipulation check to make sure what's being measured is correct) Defendant Attractiveness: Efran (1974) Results Attractiveness was successfully manipulated As attractiveness went up, guilt and punishment severity went down When no photo was provided, ratings were midway between the two Exception to these results - If the attractiveness of the person helped them commit the crime, they're seen to have more guilt Juror Attractiveness 1. Shared attributes between the juror and the defendant may increase the affinity between the individuals, resulting in increased leniency (Shaver, 1970) - Jurors go easier on defendants if they identify with them 2. "What is beautiful is good" (Efran, 1974) - Theories between defendant and juror attractiveness clash when there's an attractive defendant and an unattractive juror - 1 says the juror will be harder on the defendant - 2 says that the juror will be easier on the defendant - Next study looks at what would happen in this scenario Juror Attractiveness: Darby & Jeffers (1988) Participants read and evaluated 3 judicial cases Defendant attractiveness was manipulated (high, medium, low) Asked to make judgments of guilty, punishment severity, and attractiveness of defendant. Asked to complete a Self-Assessment Questionnaire - Including questions about how attractive they think they are (there's no point looking at how attractive the jurors actually are, because it's what they think that will influence their behaviour) Juror Attractiveness: Darby & Jeffers (1988) Results For both juror groups, guilty convictions increased as defendant attractiveness decreased Overall, attractive jurors were more likely to convict For attractive jurors, punishment severity decreased as defendant attractiveness increased - Red line does exactly what the previous experiment did For unattractive jurors, high attractive and low attractive defendants were given lower sentences than medium attractive defendants - Yellow line - more lenient in both ways Both theories seen as not only are the unattractive jurors being more lenient on attractive defendants' due to their attractiveness (Efran, 1974), but they're also being more lenient on unattractive defendants because of similarity to them (Shaver, 1970) Can Lawyers Select the Right Jurors? Being called to be a jury member is a random selection, but once you're in the trial, a lawyer can remove you Voir dire - in the US, lawyers can question potential jurors on all sorts of things - In NZ, lawyers can't - they can only do this based on electoral information at the very beginning (and have limited number of vetos) Lawyers think they're doing the right thing based on stuff like the type of case and the gender/social status of the jury members - E.g., use women in rape or baby cases Actual evidence sees no real way to predict a person's verdict - Exception here is gender - Women are more likely to convict in cases where the victim is a child or in sexual violence cases Can Lawyers Select the Right Jurors? - Ziesel & Diamond (1978) Tested: - Are jurors who are dismissed during juror selection any more or less likely to convict? And does it depend on who dismissed them? o Dismissed because they "challenged" the lawyer o Experimenters knew which jurors were dismissed by which lawyer - Examined juror votes in 12 criminal trials - Persuaded dismissed jurors to stay in court, observe the case and then give a verdict If a person stayed and watched the trial and said they thought the defendant wasn't guilty, this result would be coded as a bad decision from the lawyer to dismiss Can Lawyers Select the Right Jurors? - Ziesel & Diamond (1978) Results Overall, lawyers are not much better than chance at selecting jurors who will return the "right" verdict Defence lawyers tend to be better than prosecution lawyers ("best" defence was one lawyer) There is, however, a substantial degree of individual variation in lawyers' success rates The Effect of Deliberation After the trial, jurors convene in a room to cast their verdict to hopefully reach a unanimous verdict We don't know a lot about what happens in this room (not allowed in). What we do know is: - Selection of a foreperson o The foreperson speaks for the jury (giving the verdict, liaising with court staff) and also "manages" the deliberation process - Likely to be: male, middle-aged, of high status in the community, professional or managerial position, experienced with regard to jury service (if you've been on a jury before, you're very likely to be selected as foreperson) o It's also statistically more likely to be the person who sits themselves at the head of the table - Foreperson participates in deliberation process far more than the other jurors (accounting for 25 to 35% of speaking time) o It's important to think about the characteristics of the foreperson because they probably have more sway than the other jurors o If everyone on a 12-person jury spoke for an equal length of time, they would speak for 8.3% of the time Exposure to Others' Views Asch's conformity research (line-conformity task) - Mean conformity rate was 33% - 30% conformed on more than half of the trials - Group size made little difference - The presence of one other dissenter reduced conformity, even if that dissenter was also incorrect. o E.g., if the correct response was A and everyone said B, you'd be more likely to say A if even one person said C - Participants attributed their responses to: o Their own misjudgment (informational conformity - you conform because you think you must be wrong and the others must be right); o Or the desire to fit in (normative conformity - you conform because you know everyone's wrong but you want to fit in - sound familiar? It's like compliance) Deliberation Style Research asking real jurors what they did or putting mock jurors in a deliberation situation Fall into one of two types: - Verdict-Driven o Where the ultimate goal of the jury is to reach a verdict as quickly as possible o Getting straight to the point and focusing on disagreements to come to a quick consensus - Evidence-Driven o Where the jury concentrates on forming a logical story from the evidence o Trying to make sense of the evidence and working out what happened to then come up with a verdict Juries tend to prefer the verdict-driven approach while the legal system would rather judies were evidence-driven The effect of deliberation style on final verdict is not yet known Guilty or Not Guilty? Group Polarisation Hypothesis: the average post-group response will tend to be more extreme in the same direction as the average pregoup response - E.g., if most people go into the deliberation thinking the person is guilty (at 50%), they'll come out thinking they're definitely guilty (at 80%) Leniency Bias: in criminal trials where the judge has disagreed with the jury's decision, the jury was almost always more lenient than the judge - Judge would have convicted, jury would not have Guilty or Not Guilty? - Devine et al. (2001) 12-person juries - If 7 or fewer jurors favour conviction at the beginning of deliberations, the jury will probably acquit - If 10 or more jurors favour conviction at the beginning of deliberations, the jury will probably convict - If 8 or 9 jurors favour conviction, "the final verdict is basically a toss-up." Jurors are more cautious about convicting than acquitting Decision Rule Should the jury be allowed to return a majority verdict (e.g., 11:1) - "Rogue juror" problem - the one who has a fixed view and won't budge o Can result in a "hung jury" where a new trial has to take place - Table is for if the jurors know they only need to reach 11 unanimous votes - In NZ, jurors aren't told this o They're told they need a 12-person unanimous decision o Later on, if they've been deliberating for days, the judge is allowed to tell them that they can return a majority verdict Jury Size 12-person jury is the most common - Can be up to 15 or as low as 6 (even in serious crimes involving life imprisonment) Jury size seems to affect process more than outcome - Although as juries get smaller, there is more chance of a wrongful conviction and failure to convict a guilty person Larger juries are likely to be more representative of the community, and tend to deliberate longer - Recall the evidence more accurately, and make decisions that are more consistent o Juries of 15 people get more consistent verdicts than juries of 6 people

Lecture 17

Trial Tactics The courtroom is a ready-made environment in which to study different forms of social influence Who is being influenced? - Everyone in one way or another o "Triers of fact" - jury and judge o Witnesses - based on lawyer manipulation (prosecution and defence) Influencing "Triers of Fact" Persuasion - lawyers try to persuade jurors to agree with their version of events - E.g., "this defendant is not guilty" Compliance - lawyers may bypass persuasion and directly attempt to make jurors comply to their assumptions and adhere with their wishes - I.e., agreeing with the lawyer's stance without internally believing it Dissuasion - lawyers may try to dissuade jury members from being persuaded by the opposing lawyer Persuasion Persuasion can be seen as an attempt to change someone's attitudes. - Attitude = a psychological orientation towards a particular stimulus - Attitude towards the defendant, and whether or not you think they committed the crime The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) The model proposes that people can be persuaded by one of two routes: - Central Route - involves a high degree of thought and scrutiny o Process information, compare to world knowledge, elaborate, make inferences o You're actually considering all the information - Peripheral Route - less cognitively effortful o When we don't process things centrally, we use outer cues e.g., physical characteristics, stereotypes etc. to make decisions Route of processing depends on: - Motivation - lack of motivation leads the juror to travel down the peripheral route out of choice - Ability - lack of ability leads the juror to travel down the peripheral route out of necessity o E.g., not understanding the material leads to no choice but the peripheral route Implications for Lawyers Encourage central processing when the evidence is good - Find ways to increase motivation to process centrally (make it interesting) and by increasing their ability to do so (make it easy to understand) Encourage peripheral processing when evidence is flawed - Find ways to decrease motivation to process centrally (make it boring) and by increasing their ability to do so (make it hard to understand) Always ensure that peripheral cues are in your favour, just in case ability factors prevent central processing - E.g., looking like you know what you're doing or dressing nice Dissuasion Lawyer attempts to stop the jurors from being persuaded by the opposing lawyer - Forewarning o Telling the jurors what the other lawyer's arguments will be - Inoculation o Giving jurors a weak version of the other lawyer's argument that they can easily fight off (e.g., an accountant with 30 years' experience forgetting to add up two columns - fraud) - Stealing thunder o Revealing something damaging about your case before the other lawyer does (e.g., "my client has been stealing for 30 years") - Credibility challenges o Trying to discredit the evidence and the person giving it o Cross-examination - Reactance o Reverse psychology - lawyer telling the jury to convict their client, but hoping they'll do the opposite because they don't like being told what to do Influencing the Witness: Cross-Examination Witness is questioned by the opposing lawyer - From a justice perspective, it aims to uncover inaccuracies in a witness's evidence and/or draw out the truth o Textbooks say the purpose of cross-examination is the truth - In practice, it's used with the aim of discrediting the witness, regardless of accuracy o Lawyers say the purpose of cross-examination is to have the better argument, regardless of the truth Reasons for Concern Cross-examination is a "how not to" guide to investigative interviewing Involves: - Leading questions o "You went straight home after that, didn't you?" o Detrimental to accuracy - Complex or confusing questions o "So, neither of your brothers weren't there?" o Poorly constructed and confusing, aiming to catch you up (not always deliberate though, lawyer could just be fumbling) - Confrontational questions o "You're not telling the truth, are you?" o Can cause distress leading to people with good memories for what happened make mistakes - Long delays o Big gap between charges laid and the case going to trial o For some witnesses (children), direct evidence is pre-recorded and played in court later These factors are likely to be especially problematic for children Zajac, Gross, & Hayne (2003) How do children respond to cross-examination questions? 5-13-year old child complainants of sexual abuse Analysed court transcripts for the questions that were asked during direct examination and cross-examination, and their responses Zajac, Gross, & Hayne (2003) Results Showed: - High rates of compliance with leading questions o Almost always said yes to these kinds of questions - Low rates of clarification seeking o Even with questions beyond child comprehension, they didn't ask for clarification - Misunderstandings o Clear misunderstandings from the child During cross-examination, 75% of children made at least one change to their earlier testimony - Ranged from peripheral details to major detail changes, and sometimes allegation retractions Note: don't know if the children were accurate in their direct examination and then inaccurate in their cross-examination, and vice versa - Can only answer this if we use a laboratory experiment where we know what the truth is Cross-Examination in the Lab (Zajac & Hayne, 2003) Tried to make the experiment as close to a real-world example as possible Trying to talk children out of each of 4 direct examination responses, regardless of accuracy This was done using questioning techniques used on courtroom cross-examinations Zajac & Hayne (2003) Results 85% of children made at least one change to their earlier testimony during the cross-examination interview 33% changed all of their earlier responses This graph doesn't tell us about accuracy. - The changes might predominantly be directed towards the truth, i.e., correcting a direct examination error Left-hand bar shows the percentage of direct-examination errors that children changed during cross-examination We want this number to be high Right-hand bar shows the percentage of direct examination correct responses that children changed during cross-examination We want this number to be 0 - These bars were the same, so this tells us that children were just as likely to make changes to their statements irrespective of accuracy Below 50% is due to chance, i.e., at cross-examination level, children were performing at chance levels 78% accuracy in direct examination as children purposefully made errors (part of experimental design so could see accuracy changes in both directions) Subset: The children who were 100% accurate during cross-examination These children still ended up performing at chance - Overall, cross-examination significantly decreased children's accuracy, even for children who started out 100% accurate More Recent Findings Cross-examination style questioning decreases children's accuracy even when it takes place very soon after the event - I.e., Zajac study that left 8 months between charge and trial case to mimic real like situations resulted in large differences in accurate responses o Regardless of amount of time, children showed the same pattern Children do not appear to believe the changes that they make during cross-examination style questioning - When interviewed again after cross-examination, children mostly returned to their original accounts of what happened - Reflects compliance in the children Cross-examination style questioning also decreases the accuracy of children's reports about forensically relevant events - Hard to mimic a real-world event that leads to a child testifying o 'Police officer tells the child a secret and tells them not to tell anyone or the police officer will get in trouble' - closest example, so can relatively confidently generalise this result Children who are more likely to be targets for abuse may also be more likely to fare poorly during cross-examination - Children who perform worst under cross-examination tend to have low self-esteem, low assertiveness, and low self-confidence = often consequences of abuse or make them vulnerable to abuse Brief verbal warnings appear to have no effect on accuracy during cross examination - Even by warning them of the "tricky" nature of the questions and that it's okay to get the questions wrong, it didn't affect performance Comprehensive preparation shows promise as a means of reducing the negative effect of cross-examination on accuracy - Giving children practice in answering those types of questions and then feedback results in better performance in cross-examinations, but still worse performance than their original direct examination

Lecture 13/14

Why is this Important? Confession evidence is a prosecutor's most potent weapon The way in which confession evidence is obtained has become increasingly controversial in recent years Of the first 143 DNA exonerations in the US, 20% had confessed Why Conduct an Interrogation? 1. To elicit further information relevant to a case - NZ's primary stance - treating it like a witness interview - Only at the end of the interview does the interviewed start questioning the suspect's story - Very different approach to "front-footing" the evidence (like in the US 2. To obtain a full (e.g., "I did it") or partial confession (e.g., "I was there") - "Confession culture" o 80% of police officers cite confessions to be the main aim of interrogations o Think the person is guilty, rather than having an open mind Why the Focus on Confessions? Pressure on the police to solve crimes quickly (instead of doing detective work to find a perpetrator) Suspects who confess are more likely to plead guilty Confession evidence has an enormous impact on jurors - Fundamental Attribution Error o Jurors over-emphasise confessions o They don't care how the confession came to light, they just care that someone confessed so they must be guilty instead of police interrogation might have made this person confess Confessions are seen as a mark of prowess (police bragging about getting heaps of confessions) Police officers readily assume that suspects are guilty - "You can tell if a suspect is lying by whether he is moving his lips" idea Inbau, Reid, & Buckley (1986) - How do Police Elicit Confessions? Most common way of interrogating suspects in the US is based on the 'Reid Technique' Goal is to remove as much of the outside world in the interrogation 9-step procedure in order to get a confession out of a reluctant suspect Maximisation and minimisation Inbau, Reid, & Buckley (1986) - Maximisation "Bad cop" approach One officer/interviewer treats the suspect as guilty/inhuman Inbau, Reid, & Buckley (1986) - Minimisation "Good cop" approach One officer/interviewer treats the suspect as innocent/human Inbau, Reid, & Buckley (1986) - Innocent and Guilty Suspects Reid Technique acknowledges that not everyone interrogated will be guilty Says that innocent suspect will: - Give concise answers because he has no fear of being trapped - Sit upright, but not rigid Says that guilty suspects will: - Fail to make direct eye contact - Be overly polite No empirical evidence to support either of these claims i.e., a truly guilty or innocent person can show any of these things Is Confession Evidence Valid? Four possible outcomes from an interrogation - False positives and false negatives are concerning, and false positive is the most concerning Do False Confessions Occur? Estimates range from 35 per year to 600 per year in the US alone Identifying cases is difficult due to: - A confession may be true even if it is coerced and later retracted o "That's not fair, they manipulated me! I didn't do it!" o Can work either way - someone may be guilty and confess, but then retract their confession - A confession may be false even if the suspect is convicted and imprisoned o Wrongful conviction statistics - Independent evidence is required o Hard evidence is needed, but that is quite hard to find in most cases Types of False Confession 1. Voluntary False Confessions 2. Coerced Compliant Confessions 3. Coerced Internalised Confessions Voluntary False Confessions Self-incriminating statement that is offered without external pressure from the police Protection of a friend or relative Need for fame, acceptance, recognition, or self-punishment Coerced Compliant Confessions Self-incriminating statement that is obtained after intense interrogation pressures Suspect confesses to escape or avoid an aversive interrogation or to gain a promise reward Suspect knows that he or she is innocent Coerced Internalised Confessions An innocent person subjected to a coercive interrogation actually comes to believe that he or she is guilty Original memories may be irretrievable Has two things in common: - The presentation of false evidence - A suspect with a vulnerability Kassin et al. (2005) Aimed to investigate the "I'd know a false confession if I came across one" claim of many police investigators Police know that some people will be innocent, but think they can spot if someone is truly guilty Kassin et al. (2005) - Experiment 1 Undergraduates and police officers were exposed to prison inmates confessing to crimes Manipulated two factors: - Whether the confession was true or false - Whether the confessions were presented via audiotape or video recording Overall accuracy rate was only 54% - which is basically chance Kassin et al. (2005) - Experiment 1 Results Participants were more accurate with audiotape confessions, as opposed to video recordings Police were more confident in their judgements than students Students were more accurate than police Police showed a positive guilt bias - believed all confessions as guilty people instead of 50/50 Kassin et al. (2005) - Experiment 2 Removed the positive guilt bias Participants were told that half the confessions were true and half were false Positive guilt bias was eliminated, but this did not increase accuracy or reduce confidence Kassin & Kiechel (1996) Participants took part in a "reaction time" study with an experimental confederate Confederate read out lift of letters, and the participant typed them into the computer Instructed not to hit the "Alt" key (told this would crash the computer) Computer crashed 60 seconds into task (without "Alt" key pressed) Experimenter enters and asks, "did you hit the alt key?" Manipulated 2 variables: - High or low perceived vulnerability - Fast paced or slow-paced nature of the letter-typing task o Fast-paced people were hitting the letters quickly, therefore would believe they accidentally pressed the alt key (more vulnerable) Confederate acted as a "witness" and said they did it (mimicking the role of a police officer presenting false evidence) Kassin & Kiechel (1996) - Measurements Compliance - did they sign the form saying that had pressed the key? Internalisation - did they tell a second confederate outside that they had pressed the key? Confabulation - did they add details? (E.g., "I accidentally hit in when I was trying to hit the Z" Kassin & Kiechel (1996) - Results People can relatively easily be led into confessing to something that they didn't do Confessions increase as a function of subjective vulnerability (fast-based task led to more confessions, and more internalisation/confabulation) Confession, internalisation, and confabulation rates increase when false evidence is presented Doesn't tell us about true confessions Russano et al. (2005) Undergraduate students took part in a decision-making study alongside experimental confederate Participants either cheated at the request of the confederate or didn't - On some tasks they worked on their own, on other tasks, they were allowed to work with a partner (the confederate) All participants were accused of cheating Two "interrogation factors manipulated" - Minimisation (good cop, face-saving excuses, suggested they cooperate out of their best interest) or no minimisation - Deal or no deal (deal being having to repeat the experiment the next day, or no deal being the professor would give more severe punishment) Russano et al. (2005) - Results Diagnosticity - tells us that if there is a confession, how likely is it that the confession is true? We want high diagnosticity ratings When minimisation and deals were introduced, diagnosticity dropped Recommendations Reduction of police pressure and use of trickery - Decreases false confessions and increases diagnosticity Videotaping of suspect interviews - Jurors can see how the confession was given (i.e., under pressure or freely given) Solicitor presence of vulnerable individuals - Less risk of manipulation Additional corroborative evidence Researching involving "higher stakes" confessions - More studies with punishments being more than just a professor coming to talk to you i.e., going to jail or capital punishment is way higher stakes

Lecture 11/12

Why is this Important? Understanding how crime comes about can aid crime prevention Theories of the development and course of criminal behaviour can help us to predict future behaviour, and can have implications for how we deal with offenders Some theories of crime and offending have formed the basis of psychological treatments for offenders Original Schools of Thought Classical Positivist Classical School of Criminology Law-breaking occurs when people, faced with a choice between behaving rightly and wrongly, choose to behave wrongly Emphasises philosophical concepts such as free will and hedonism (doing what makes us feel good) Takes the stance that punishment must fit the crime Positivist School of Criminology Emphasises factors that determine criminal behaviour, seeking to understand crime through scientific method and analysis of data Factors may include sociological factors, biological factors, psychological factors, and environmental factors Takes the stance that the punishment must fit the criminal How Valid are Theories of Crime? Validity of criminal theories varies greatly - How well the theory accounts for criminal behaviour o High validity if something directly caused you to commit a crime (e.g., a TV show) o Unemployment shows a valid link, but isn't as high in validity No one theory explains all forms of criminality Many theories focus exclusively on violent crime Many theories focus exclusively on men Sociological Theories Propose that crime results from social and cultural forces that are external to any specific individual, and exist prior to the criminal act - I.e., existing circumstances that are outside of you o Not individual yet Crime emerges from social class, political, ecological, or physical structures affecting large groups of people - Individual's experiences within their environment Structural and Subcultural theories Sociological Theories: Structural Dysfunctional social arrangements prevent people from achieving goals in a legitimate way E.g., poor education, unemployment, financial hardship, disorganised communities Doesn't account for white collar crimes (people that didn't experience this dysfunctional social arrangement) Sociological Theories: Subcultural Criminal behaviour occurs because different behavioural norms are held by different groups - "Falling into the wrong crowd" Groups pressure their members to deviate from the norms that underlie criminal law - Members daring other members to behave in a deviant way Doesn't account for white collar crimes (people that didn't experience this dysfunctional social arrangement) Social-Psychological Theories Propose that crime is learned through social interaction Differ on what is learned and how it is learned Attempts to bridge the gap between the environmentalism of sociological theories and the individualism of psychological and biological theories - somewhat in the "middle" in terms of theories of criminality Social-Psychological: Learning Theories Proposes that we learn to commit crime (i.e., no one would be a criminal if they hadn't learned to be) Go-go doll studies: adult beats up a doll, the child learns and does the same Social-Psychological: Control Theories Proposes that we have to learn not to commit crime (i.e., we'd all be criminals if we didn't learn not to be) Social-Psychological: Social Labelling Theory Proposes that being branded a criminal by society can result in that belief within the individual Social-Psychological: Conditioning Classical - learning process with two stimuli paired together e.g., Pavlov's dogs Operative - learning behaviour based on punishments and rewards Social-Psychological: Social Learning Theory Behaviour based on learning and observing others and then replicating that behaviour Psychological Theories Proposes that crime results from personality attributes that are uniquely possessed, or possessed to a special degree, by the potential criminal Psychological: Psychoanalytic Theory Freud's theory We all have a superego (good side) and the id (bad side), and the ego which mediates the fight between them Explains crime as a dysfunctional superego or ego Closest thing to Freud's theory is antisocial personality disorder Psychological Theories: DSM Antisocial Personality Disorder Behaviour that goes against society's moral code (usually things that are against the law) Criteria: (presents before age 18) - Failure to obey laws and norms by engaging in criminal behaviour - Lying, deception, and manipulation, for profit or self-amusement - Impulsive behaviour - Irritability and aggression (manifests as assaults and fighting) - Disregards safety of self and others - Pattern of irresponsibility - Lack of remorse for actions Prefrontal cortex possibly important for detection, but depends on environment (gun and bullets analogy) Psychological Theories: Psychopathy Described as a particularly severe case of antisocial personality disorder People have proposed that psychopaths have particular difficulties with executive functioning (prefrontal cortex) - planning and regulating their behaviour Psychological Theories: Sensation-Seeking Theory The idea that some people need more stimulation than others to achieve a tolerable level of sensory input and physiological arousal E.g., skydiving to get arousal vs. going shopping for new things Biological Theories Propose that genetic influences, neuropsychological abnormalities, and biochemical irregularities play a role in criminal behaviour Biological Theories: Twin/Adoption Studies Good way of seeing the influence of biology or environment in criminal behaviour Concordance rate - percentage of twins that share the behaviour of interest - Taking identical and fraternal twins and comparing the likelihood of the "other twin" displaying the same disease/trait - Rate is higher for identical twins than fraternal = behaviour is genetically influenced, and vice versa for environmentally influenced What Gets Inherited? Constitutional predisposition i.e., your build (physical traits in relation to how good a criminal you are) Neuropsychological abnormalities i.e., higher rates of abnormal EEG (this is somewhat normal, so not very diagnostic - more of a similarity in criminal population) Autonomic nervous system differences i.e., arousal causing high heart rate, blood pressure, sweating etc. Physiological differences i.e., hormone levels in prison population (high testosterone and insulin in criminal populations, low serotonin) Personality and temperament differences i.e., personality related to antisocial behaviour traits An Integrated Theory Theory talks about a variety of theories in one, relating to antisocial behaviour Robins found that when you look at antisocial adults, it's unlikely that they were well-behaved kids, but when you look at antisocial adolescents, most of them turn out to be okay adults An Integrated Theory: Offending Peak Spike of criminal behaviour during adolescence Why is there an offending peak? Prevalence seems to win Option 1 - A change in the number of people willing to offend i.e., prevalence - Different numbers of offenders at each age point Option 2 - A change of the number of crimes people are committing i.e., incidence - Same number of offenders, but different numbers of criminal activity per person Moffitt (1993) Longitudinal study of criminal behaviour (antisocial behaviour) through the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Study Distinct individual differences in the stability of antisocial behaviour - Temporary and situational - behaviour for a limited amount of time - Stable and persistent - behaviour across time and all types of situations Result: two qualitatively different categories (taxonomy) of individuals requiring two theoretical explanations - Life-Course Persistent Antisocial Behaviour (LCP ASB) - Adolescence-Limited Antisocial Behaviour (AL ASB) Life-Course Persistent ASB Displays consistency across the lifespan and across situations Heterotypic continuity = antisocial tendencies manifest differently over time (severity increases) Underlying disposition changes when age and social circumstances alter opportunities Risk of LCP ASB? Neuropsychological deficits that present at birth or occur around the time of birth - E.g., maternal drug use, poor nutrition, exposure to toxic agents etc. - Presents as problems with temperament, verbal functioning, and/or executive functioning Can be addressed if the problems are picked up early, but most cases involve children born into unsupportive environments: Interactional Continuity LCP ASB: Interactional Continuity Children with cognitive/temperamental problems are often not born into supportive environments Seen in: - Temperament and personality - Cognitive ability - Home and neighbourhood environment Development of LCP ASB? Evocative Interactions - when behaviour evokes distinct responses from others - E.g., behaviour that pushes other children and teachers away Reactive Interaction - when we interpret our environment according to our behavioural style - E.g., if someone trips you up when you usually do that to others, you're going to see that behaviour as deliberate Proactive Interaction - when we seek out environments that support our own style - E.g., misbehaving children interacting together Consequences of these Interactions? Cumulative Consequences - "the snowball effect" - A à B à C à D - E.g., struggling in school à truancy à lack of qualifications à unemployment Contemporary Consequences - the same factor influences several later factors - A à B, and A à C, and A à D - E.g., poor language à problems in school à problems in workplace à problems in relationships Continuation of LCP ASB? Limited behavioural repertoire - Haven't learnt to behave any other way - Nothing to fall back on as that is all they know Becoming ensnared by the consequences of ASB - Trapped by consequences of behaviour i.e., drug addictions or criminal records or teenage pregnancies Adolescence-Limited ASB Antisocial teenagers who have no notable history of ASB in childhood and no future as antisocial adults Beginnings of AL ASB Moffitt suggests it occurs through social mimicry of antisocial youths (we copy others that have a valuable resource that we don't have) Valuable Resource = mature status - They have freedom, excitement etc. that AL teens want i.e., statements of personal independence AL teens notice that LCP teens don't suffer through the maturity gap (time between physically becoming an adult and being allowed to do stuff)) Why Don't All Teens Become Delinquent? 1. Maturity gap doesn't occur/is not perceived - Late puberty (look younger, shrinks the maturity gap time) - Access to roles respected by adults (getting a job, shrinks the maturity gap time) - Studies support this 2. Lack of exposure to LCP adolescent role models - Lack of physical access (can't mimic if they're not there) - Personal characteristics (you don't go near them, and vice versa) Ceasing of AL ASB 1. Waning motivations - Maturity gap closes, no more "wanting" to be an adult, you just are 2. Shifting contingencies - deterrents - Behaviours that seemed rewarding are now viewed as punishing e.g., behaviour leads to criminal convictions which lead to less jobs 3. The presence of options for change - Falling back on knowing what's right and wrong from childhood - LCP teens don't have this because they weren't taught any better

Lecture 19

Goals of Punishment Incapacitation Retributive Justice Deterrent Sentencing Rehabilitation Goals of Punishment - Incapacitation Aims to reduce criminal conduct by means of imprisonment or by isolating offenders from the rest of society so that they are unable to commit criminal offences Many crimes have minimum and maximum sentences - individual case factors are used to tailor the sentence to the offender Two types: - Selective Incapacitation o Decision is based on the individual offender o Can be seen in parole decisions § I.e., will this particular person engage in criminal activity if allowed out of jail? o Risk factors included § I.e., how good are we at predicting what an individual offender will do if not imprisoned? - Collective Incapacitation o Decision is based on the offence Goals of Punishment - Retributive Justice - Motivated by the theory of "just deserts" and dictated by moral outrage o The worse your behaviour, the worse the punishment - Not concerned with future outcome, merely that the punishment should fit the crime committed o "You have this bad experience, and then we're even" - Retributive justice theories have given rise to victim participation in sentencing o E.g., victim impact statements might be read to the court and used in sentencing § Victim impact doesn't change the nature of the crime or the offender, so its use in sentencing really comes down to an element of retribution o Emphasis on harm-done on the victim - When asked to rank the philosophies people believe should guide sentencing, retribution ranks very highly o Most people think that retribution is an important element of why we put people in jail Goals of Punishment - Deterrent Sentencing Based on the notion that the punishment of the offender should prevent future instances of the offence Two types of deterrence, based on whom we're trying to deter: - Specific Deterrence o Aims to discourage a particular offender from committing crimes o "You commit a crime, so we put you in jail, and then you won't do the crime again when you're released" - General Deterrence o Aims to discourage potential offenders from committing crimes o Penalty for crime X is punishment Y so people won't do it Goals of Punishment - Deterrent Sentencing: The Verdict Does it work? - Empirical uncertainty exists as to the extent to which punishment precents future offending in individuals - To be successful, general deterrence involves emphasising both the punishment and the likelihood of apprehension - Given that offenders underestimate the chances of being caught, high visibility enforcement is needed o E.g., road-side breath testing for drunk-driving Goals of Punishment - Rehabilitation Emphasises changes that can and should be brought about in the criminal's behaviour in the interests of the community and the criminal Based on the notion that we can identify and change the social, psychological, psychiatric, or other factors outside a person's control that may have wholly or partially contributed to the criminal behaviour - Links back to the theories of offending - Can try change this offender, but can also use what you learn from the offender's background to safeguard against more instances of the type of offender Goals of Punishment - Rehabilitation: The Verdict Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) - Based on the idea that how we think, how we behave, and how we feel all interact together o E.g., we can challenge thought patterns so that those thoughts don't lead to unwanted behaviours - CBT-based rehabilitation programmes are the most successful for offenders - Important components: o Problem solving skills, interpersonal skills, social learning, and communication skills - CBT programmes have been successful in treating juvenile offenders, sex offenders, and violent offenders o Bonta and Andrews - Offenders and Offending Lecture Goals of Punishment - Restorative Justice Aims to re-establish victims, offenders, and communities following an offence - Getting the affected parties together to solve the issue and move forward Sentencing Circles and Indigenous Courts - Partnerships between the criminal justice system and the community, to work out how an offender should be dealt with o E.g., marae-based justice system for Māori offenders Reintegrative Shaming - E.g., Family Group Conferences in New Zealand - Used in NZ through Oranga Tamariki Goals of Punishment - Restorative Justice: The Verdict Restorative justice programmes appear to be successful in decreasing recidivism For victims, desirable outcomes include - The offender being held accountable, being able to explain the harm caused, receiving an apology, and satisfaction with the way the case was handled For offenders, desirable outcomes include - Understanding the harm to the victim, getting to apologise, and satisfaction with the way the case was handled Factors Influencing Sentencing How are Sentences Decided? - Many sentences are decided through the process of plea-bargaining (~ 90% in the US, ~ 30% in Australia) o An agreement that if the person pleads guilty, this will be the sentence - Otherwise, in most criminal cases, sentences are decided by a judge o Judge decides on the sentence for the specific offender based on the min/max sentences of the crime in the law - Judges are vulnerable to the same sorts of biases as jurors Factors Influencing Sentencing: Judicial Biases Male and black offenders are 50% more likely to receive harsher sentences than similarly situated women and white offenders The lowest sentences are given to female offenders by female judges A study showed that less than 10% of the variance in sentences could be explained by the facts of the case, whereas over half of the variance was explained by characteristics of the judge - E.g., meal break timing The Death Penalty Capital punishment applies in cases of aggravated murder in 30 states of the US. - Aggravated murder is murder with additional characteristics that make it more heinous o E.g., more than one victim, murder of a police officer, murder of someone under 14, murder with torture etc. Conflicting evidence as to whether the death penalty is a successful general/collective deterrent - A good specific deterrent i.e., the person isn't going to offend again Some statistical models indicate that each execution saves 5 to 18 lives (by deterring others) Concern has been raised that the death penalty makes killing more acceptable to offenders. - Brutalisation effect o I.e., we're showing people that killing is wrong by killing people The Death Penalty Qualification Death penalty decisions are made by jurors, not judges - If you're a juror in a case where the death penalty is an option, you sit through the case and deliver your verdict, and then you sit through the arguments about whether the death penalty should apply, and you then decide on that When the death penalty is an option, potential jurors undergo rigorous questioning in a procedure called 'death qualification.' - Not everyone can be a juror in these cases - You can't be morally against the death penalty, but you also don't think it should be used every time it's an option Much concern has been raised that 'death qualified juries' are more prone to conviction than juries including "excludables" - Do they arrive at the same verdict as a "normal" jury would? The Death Penalty Qualification: Fitzgerald & Ellsworth (1984) Surveyed a sample of 811 eligible jurors - 64% supported the death penalty - 17% said that they could never impose the death penalty (i.e., excludable) o These people would be excluded from a death penalty jury, but they weren't excluded here The researchers asked everyone questions about the justice system The Death Penalty Qualification: Fitzgerald & Ellsworth (1984) Results Compared to 'excludables,' death qualified jurors were: - More likely to favour the prosecution's viewpoint - More likely to mistrust criminal defendants - More in favour of punitive approaches toward offenders - More concerned with crime control than with due process Suggests that death qualified juries may indeed be more likely to convict people in the first place The Death Penalty Qualification: Cowan et al. (1984) Showed a 2-hour murder trial re-enactment to 288 eligible jurors - Categorised into death qualified and excludable jurors - Formed juries comprising all death qualified jurors, or a mixture of death qualified and excludable jurors Assessed verdict - not whether the offender should get the death penalty The Death Penalty Qualification: Cowan et al. (1984) Results Juries comprised entirely of death qualified jurors (75%) were significantly more likely to convict than juries including excludables (53%) 'Mixed' juries took a more serious approach to their deliberation task, were more critical of eyewitness testimony, and were better able to remember the evidence - Vice versa for death qualified jurors o I.e., took a less serious approach to their deliberation task, were less critical of eyewitness testimony, and were less able to remember the evidence The Death Penalty Qualification: Cowan et al. (1984) Implication A "normal" jury to decide the verdict and then a death qualified jury to decide the sentence - Generally rejected as the sentencing jury needs to have sat through the case so they know all the details o Based on the grounds of it being more "efficient" Juror Instructions in Capital Cases Jurors in death penalty cases given complex instructions outlining their duties and explaining how to evaluate aggravating and mitigating factors To decide whether or not to hand down the death penalty, jurors have to weigh up: - Aggravating factors o Things that made it worse o Might include things like a particularly gruesome means of killing someone - Mitigating factors o Things that made it less bad, but not better o Might include things like a defendant having low intellectual functioning Several studies indicate that these instructions are not well understood by jurors. - Complicated instructions, not just an 'aggravating vs. mitigating' outweighing list Jurors who do not comprehend the instructions may rely unduly on more familiar factors to guide their decision-making - Peripheral processing - E.g., racial stereotypes, sympathy for the victims, and heinousness of the crime Juror Instructions in Capital Cases: Lynch & Haney (2000) Potential jurors either presented with a description of a black defendant/white victim murder case, or a white defendant/black victim murder case. - Facts of the case were identical except for ethnicity Presented with death penalty instructions Capital case assessed (death penalty or no death penalty) and comprehension of instructions assessed Juror Instructions in Capital Cases: Lynch & Haney (2000) Results When jurors' comprehension of the instructions was high (left side), the race of the defendant/victim had no impact on whether or not death was recommended When jurors' comprehension was low (right side), race played a significant role in decision-making - I.e., a black defendant who murdered a white victim was almost twice as likely to be put to death than the other way around

Lecture 5/6

`Retrieval Not everything can be retrieved all of the time Joint product of: Stored memory trace Cues that are available at retrieval Better that this joint process occurs at a similar time Context plays a large role in retrieval Investigator Influence on Memory Encoding - little or none Storage Retrieval - enormous amounts Interviewing Eyewitnesses Good vs. bad interviews steer the investigation in different directions All interview protocols agree on four key features for interviewing eyewitnesses Questioning style Rapport Clarification of interview rules Interviewers objectivity Questioning Style Hierarchy from witness doing the work (good) à witness being told what to say (bad) Open-ended questions Specific questions Forced choice questions Suggestive questions Leading questions Open-ended Questions Letting the person say anything they want about what happened with no filter Everything they remember, no guidance with questioning Specific Questions Not giving any clues, but instead narrowing down what they're allowed to recall Can be used with open-ended questions Forced Choice Questions Choices that contain possible scenarios Tends to plant ideas of what could have happened Tried to use this on children, didn't work Suggestive Questions Instead of free recall, witnesses are getting told what information to provide Free Recall Problems Interviewers tend to just want a written statement and interrupt the free recall to get it Sometimes not very interested in what really happened, just need to file the reports Loftus & Palmer (1974) Participants viewed film of a car accident Then asked questions about the film immediately afterwards Used question manipulation, changing the verb used to describe the collision Loftus & Palmer (1974) Results Participant estimates of speed were dependent on the question wording Then asked if there was broken glass on the scene - verb again dictated whether the participant said yes or no Loftus & Zanni (1975) Indefinite article ("did you see a") vs. definite article ("did you see the") Participants more likely to say yes when the definite article was used Worse to confirm than to suggest Important for child witness interviews (careful not to suggest anything as they are highly suggestible) Anatomically Detailed Dolls Used before research on them was conducted - "high face validity" (they should work in theory) Require children to understand dual representation, map past events onto dolls, and stay on task without drifting into play Not supported by researchers and policy groups Anatomically Detailed Dolls - Problems Unsupported by literature Children suspected of abuse engage in more "play" - leads to unrealistic/logically impossible statements Dolls lead to increases in false reports of genital touching Dolls tend to increase errors without necessarily leading to an increase in detail Visual Aids: Jack, Martyn, & Zajac (2015) Showed children, adolescents, and adults a film of a simulated crime POV from a person in a dairy, watching people go inside, run out and the owner of the dairy running out after them 15 minutes later, participants were asked to give a free recall of what happened After free recall was given, they were then asked to recall the event again (depending on condition Visual Aids: Jack, Martyn, & Zajac (2015) Conditions Group 1: own sketch - draw what happened and use it to talk through what happened (tests if the actual act of drawing helps to retrieve memories) Use the other groups to distinguish if drawing themselves was better Group 2: provided sketch Group 3: photograph Group 4: no visual aid Visual Aids: Jack, Martyn, & Zajac (2015) Results Regardless of age, visual aids increased the amount of information given and increased the accuracy of information How Might Visual Aids Help? Increases the amount of time spent in the interview Decreases social barrier between interviewer and interviewee Help witnesses to provide their own retrieval cues Helps witnesses to mentally reinstate context Influences the interviewer's behaviour Encoding Specificity Principle (Tulvig, 1983) "Helps witnesses to mentally reinstate context" Encoding and retrieval are linked in context E.g., being in the same room you learnt the content in for an exam Imagining what it was like at the event and then putting themselves mentally within that context Rapport The more at ease a witness is, the more information they are likely to give Not a lot of literature in this field Especially true when nature of the interview is traumatic or sensitive Linked to interview performance Sternberg, Lamb, Hershkowitz, et al. (1997) 51 interviews with child complainants of sexual abuse Style of building rapport manipulated (open-ended or direct questions) Sternberg, Lamb, Hershkowitz, et al. (1997) Results Children in open-ended rapport uttered twice as many words and twice as many details to the first question Improvement was maintained over subsequent open-ended questions Clarification of Interview Rules Different interviews have different rules e.g., interviews with doctors Witness should be in control of the whole conversation, and they will be doing most of the talking - important that this is established with the witness Interviewer Objectivity Interviewer bias can: Shape witness reports (questions that confirm their own beliefs) Overlook important information (narrative formed, ignores other information) Inaccurately report the interview contents (need to be recorded) McMartin Preschool Case (1983) Mother noticed redness around her son's genital area Police and mother became certain Ray Buckey (a teacher at the preschool) Police send letters to other parents at the school, led to more allegations (350 by 1984) Children interviewed, but case was dropped Multiple Suggestive Techniques (Garven, Wood, Malpass, & Shaw, 1998) Identified 4 problematic questioning techniques Suggestive questions Referring to other people Positive and negative consequences Asked and answered Inviting speculation Tested this package with children of the same age as in the McMartin preschool case Garven, Wood, Malpass, & Shaw (1998) Results "Yes" answers to misleading questions were much higher for the package condition than the suggestive questioning condition Resulted in many false allegations "Yes" answers increased across the course of the interview

Lecture 1/2

Why is it Important? DNA exonerations tell us that eyewitness evidence is vulnerable to error, yet it is powerful to jurors and investigators US - Eyewitness testimony accounts for over 77,000 crimes Innocence Project gives us details on how eyewitness error is the biggest contributor to wrongful convictions Components of Eyewitness Memory Perception à Memory (3 stages) Encoding - forming the memory Storage - storing the memory Retrieval - retrieving the memory Perception Based on how we perceive our surroundings Senses - vision, hearing, taste, touch, smell etc. Our memories aren't like video cameras, we chose what we see and how we interpret it based on the context e.g., cognitive biases like pareidolia or interpreting characteristics about people Perception is Not Purely Physical Our perception of stimuli and our reaction to them depends on: Past experiences Stereotypes Expectations Schemas Schemas Beliefs and expectations based on previous encounters Essentially a blueprint to the world Schemas on crime can be very misleading Schemas: Potential for Error Activation of schemas can manipulate our perception, therefore impacting how we interpret new information Temporary influences can trigger schemas and make us perceive something that isn't entirely true e.g., a bank robbery occurring and a jogger running past being a 'suspect' Potential for Error: Fraser (2011) Participants were assigned to two groups Group 1 primed to believe David Bain shot his family, and group 2 primed to believe David's father shot the family 7 different audio clips given to each group, groups asked what was said at each clip Potential for Error: Fraser (2011) Results Participants perceptions of the tape's contents were significantly influenced by the information they had been primed with Potential for Error: Payne (2001) Participants primed with either black or white face, then asked to classify objects as tools or weapons Potential for Error: Payne (2001) Results Those primed with a black face were quicker to categorise weapons (schema for 'crime', in association with a black face, activated) Vice versa for white face priming Potential for Error: Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbank (2002) Computer simulation, in which participants were asked to shoot only targets holding weapons Potential for Error: Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbank (2002) Results Participants were more likely to shoot at unarmed black people than unarmed white people (police officers included) We even see this bias in black people, though it is less common Implications for Eyewitnesses: Perception Environmental or health conditions may impact on our perception of forensically relevant events Our expectations/experiences may influence what we perceive, or how we interpret it Encoding: Not Everything Gets In We cannot attend to and encode everything that we experience A number of factors may influence encoding: Attention Salience - if we think it is more important, we pay more attention Stress/Arousal Presence of a Weapon - people are less able to identify the perpetrator The Effect of Salience: Leippe, Wells, & Ostrom (1978) Staged a theft in front of a group of students Thieved item was either expensive or trivial Eyewitnesses made more accurate identifications when the crime was perceived as more serious (expensive items) The Effect of Stress/Arousal Yerkes Dodson Law (1908) - stress will impair your memory Actual evidence is more controversial The Effect of Stress/Arousal: Loftus & Burns (1982) Showed participants a short movie of a bank robbery with either a violent or non-violent ending Those who watched the violent version had poorer memories for detail seen immediately before the violence - possible disruption of memory consolidation? The Effect of Stress/Arousal: Wessel & Merkelbach (1997) Exposed people with or without spider phobia to a live spider in a jar Memory for central events did not differ between groups, but peripheral details for spider-phobic participants did The Effect of Stress/Arousal: Easterbrook (1959) Cue Utilisation Theory People can only attend to a limited number of cues at any one time. As stress increases, their attention narrows to the stress-generating features "Weapon Focus" Effect Visual attention by eyewitnesses is focused on the perpetrator's weapon during the course of a crime Why? - could be not used to seeing guns (context) When a weapon is used, peoples' attention arrows to in expense to the rest of the memory (selective attention) "Weapon Focus" Effect: Loftus, Loftus, & Messo (1987) Participants saw slides of a customer pulling out either a chequebook or a handgun More accurate identifications in no weapon condition, and vice versa "Weapon Focus" Effect: Loftus, Loftus, & Messo (1987) Implication Even in harmless situations (i.e., being shown slides of the situation), witness' eyes are automatically drawn to a weapon Thus, the weapon focus effect is not solely due to arousal = when stress is taken away, it still happens "Weapon Focus" Effect: Pickel (1999) Participants saw slides of a target dressed either as a policeman or a priest, and carrying either a gun or a cellphone "Weapon Focus" Effect: Pickel (1999) Results Witnesses were less accurate about the priest when he carried a gun Memory accuracy for the policeman did not differ according to the prop that he/she carried Impacting Factor Strength Amount of exposure - easier to encode if you see them often Age - children encode worse than adults Salience Knowledge Not everything makes it into encoding Implications for Eyewitnesses: Encoding Sometimes we can't remember things simply because they were never encoded in the first place Numerous factors influence whether or not perceived information is encoded Numerous factors influence how strongly information is encoded

Lecture 20

Psychological Contributors to Wrongful Convictions Common biases in thinking Unhelpful top-down processing Psychological Contributors to Wrongful Convictions: Common Biases to Thinking Confirmation Bias - Seeking out evidence to confirm one's beliefs, while ignoring disconfirming evidence. o E.g., pushing for a confession because you're sure the person is guilty, disregarding witnesses who don't support your hypothesis, pulling out the aspects of the lab work that support the side you've been called for, while not acknowledging that there are other bits that aren't so persuasive etc. Cognitive Dissonance - The feeling of discomfort that arises when two beliefs (or a belief and a behaviour) conflict with each other o We act to resolve the dissonance by altering either our belief or our behaviour Psychological Contributors to Wrongful Convictions: Unhelpful Top-Down Processing Bottom-up processing - The outside data drive the system o Information is processed at higher and higher levels until a match is finally found with something in memory o E.g., pink animal à four legs à snout à curly pink tail = a pig Top-down processing - Occurs when the processing of bottom up information is mediated by a variety of factors, such as prior experience and knowledge and the person's beliefs and expectations o E.g., if you expect to come across a certain pattern, then you (consciously or unconsciously) look for evidence consistent with that pattern Top-down processing can facilitate the processing of information by making it more efficient and faster - It can also help us to interpret ambiguous information or to fill in missing information - Not ideal in the case of forensic scientists Unhelpful Top-Down Processing: Dror, Peron, Hind, & Charlton (2005) 27 participants asked to decide whether or not two fingerprints matched Manipulated task difficulty (i.e., ease of bottom-up processing) - Non-ambiguous = match/mismatch - Ambiguous = partial prints Manipulated contextual information - Control = pair preceded by no information - Low emotion = pair preceded by a photo with low emotion - High emotion = pair preceded by a photo with high emotion - High + subliminal = pair preceded by a photo with high emotion and the words "guilty" and "same" Unhelpful Top-Down Processing: Dror, Peron, Hind, & Charlton (2005) Results No effect of contextual manipulations when task was non-ambiguous - Clear match and clear mismatch - Due to bottom-up processing being possible When the task was ambiguous (when bottom-up wouldn't work), those in the 'high emotion' condition and the 'high emotion + subliminal' condition were more likely to find a match - "Contextual information actively biases the way gaps are filled, but was not sufficient to override clear bottom-up information" Unhelpful Top-Down Processing: Osbourne & Zajac (2015) Looked at whether the presentation of contextual information in Dror et al. (2005) affected results - Thought that their findings might mean that people made more matches on ambiguous stimuli as the experiment progressed, regardless of emotional context Repeated experiment with 200 undergraduate students - Half presented with increasing emotional context on each block (red bars) - Half given no contextual information in any of the blocks (blue bars) Unhelpful Top-Down Processing: Osbourne & Zajac (2015) Results Results suggested that Dror and colleagues' findings were due to emotional context, rather than people merely making more matches over time (original result) Emotion is not the driving force behind these findings - no effect is observed when we use highly emotional pictures that are not crime-related (e.g., photos of victims of natural disasters) Implication: context impacts for forensic scientists - Need to figure out a way to remove the context or bias could occur - Easy to remove context for fingerprint analysts o Not so easy for e.g., bite marks § Bleeding and bruising of the bike mark match a 'high emotion' type of photo

Lecture 9/10

Repressed and Recovered Memories Memories that surface, usually during therapy Can range from very vague, non-detailed memories to highly specific, detailed memories Idea became very popular around the 1990s when therapists started using memory recovery techniques to help unearth "buried" memories The Notion of Repression Listed as one of Freud's "defence mechanisms" Freud said: - That traumatic events were banished from conscious recall until it came to a time where you could psychologically deal with them - That the emotions of the repressed memory seeps out day-to-day - That when recovered, the memory would be pristine and as clear as the day it 'happened' Media Started reporting things like this during the 90s: "most incest survivors have limited recall of their abuse" "total repression of abuse is common" Self-Help Books Around the time the ideas surrounding repression surged, self-help books were written for adult victims of childhood abuse - and many of these included some elements of repression Had many misleading quotes that planted ideas of childhood abuse if there were unexplained moments of high emotion in the reader's lives "Symptom" List Depressive symptoms Feeling anxious Being scared or having phobias Sexual difficulties Sense of failure or helplessness Dangerous Therapy Chain of events that led to a "recovered memory" - Priori (theoretical) assumptions regarding abuse - both the client and therapist - Confirmation biases and specific hypothesis testing - information only relevant to the idea of abuse with therapist asking leading questions - Plausibility-enhancing "evidence" - symptom lists - Adopting and confirming belief in abuse - agreement on abuse, now looking for the "memory" Questionable Therapy Techniques Guided imagery Rebirthing Hypnosis - not a "trance", just a state where you are highly suggestible Age regression Dream work Past life analysis What Constitutes Evidence? Pope and Hudson's Three-Pronged Approach (1995) Need to prove: 1. That the abuse did take place 2. That it was forgotten and inaccessible for some time 3. That it was later remembered Need all three for a repressed memory, but they're all really hard to be certain of each Repressed Memory Studies Retrospective Studies - relying on people's memory - Individuals are interviewed today - Asked about history of abuse - Asked about the memory continuity Prospective Studies - actual evidence - Individuals with a documented history of abuse - Interviewed many years later Williams (1994) - Prospective Study Women with documented records of sexual abuse as children between the ages of 10 months and 12 years Interviewed around 17 years later 38% did not mention the abuse Interpreted as evidence for repression Williams (1994) Problems 1. Many of the abusive events occurred during a period called childhood amnesia (hard to remember things before age 3-4) 2. Repression is not the only reason someone wouldn't report abuse (they simply don't want to divulge this information) 3. Participants were never directly asked about the documented event (no cue of the event, so might have forgotten) 4. Participants reported abusive events outside of the documented event (recalled other traumatic events, so wouldn't they remember this one?) Summary of Findings No good evidence to support the repression and recovery of traumatic memories Evidence does not suggest anything beyond ordinary forgetting and remembering Methodological concerns are rife in the existing repressed memory literature Evidence for False (Implanted) Memories False Memories for Trauma "Retractors" Laboratory Research - research that proves memories can be easily implanted False Memories for Trauma Some recovered memories have been shown to be impossible - Psychologically - e.g., memories from before age 3-4 - Biologically - e.g., no scar when the memory described should've left one - Geographically - e.g., recovered memories from a place you'd never been to - Factually - e.g., a recovered memory of a murder but the person is still alive These all require a burden of proof - hard to do "Retractors" Hundreds of individuals that recovered memories of abuse eventually retracted their allegations Many have sued their therapists Retractors have enabled psychologists to gain insight into the processes by which the memories were uncovered Retractions seemed primarily based on qualities of the memories The False Narrative Paradigm - Loftus & Pickrell (1995) Interviewed about 4 childhood events - three events true (supplied by family members) one false Three interviews, spaced up to 3 weeks apart Guided imagery instructions (mentally putting themselves into the memory) 25% remembered and described the false event by the end of the 3rd interview Recipe for a Recovered Memory 1. Suggestion of memory 2. Considering the false event to be personally plausible 3. Developing a belief that the memory happened 4. Constructing a memory (e.g., an image or narrative) 5. Making a source monitoring error (e.g., was this memory from a dream or real life?) 2-4 interact with each other for the end result Plausibility and Script Knowledge Plausibility - would that happen to me? Script knowledge - know what would happen if it did happen to you (i.e., if you don't know what the event would look like, you can't construct a memory image or narrative) Pezdek, Finger & Hodge (1997) Gave Jewish and Catholic students written narratives of true and false events from their childhoods Jewish students were more likely to form a false memory of taking part in a Jewish event than a Catholic event, and vice versa for Catholic students Pezdek, Finger & Hodge (1997) - Increasing Plausibility Can increase plausibility and script knowledge by making people think the event/memory is plausible E.g., experimenters told students that it was common for children to be given enemas during childhood - resulted in the false memories for enemas to increase Media: Braun, Ellis & Loftus (2002) 1 Participants viewed an ad for Disney showing Mickey Mouse Participants' confidence that they had shaken hands with Mickey Mouse at a Disney resort increased Media: Braun, Ellis & Loftus (2002) 2 Different participants shown an ad for Disney showing Bugs Bunny Participants' confidence that they had shaken hands with Bugs Bunny at a Disney resort increased More compelling results as Bugs Bunny would not be in a Disney add as the character belongs to Warner Brothers Photos: Wade et al. (2002) Undergraduate participants Obtained photos from sibling (similar to false narrative paradigm) Participants shown 4 photos, 1 of which was doctored (manual Photoshop) Over 50% of participants formed a partial or complete memory for the doctored image Photos: Lindsay et al. (2004) Half of participants took part in a standard false narrative paradigm (framed as if it was coming from a sibling) Remaining half were given a school photo as an additional cue 78% of those in the "photo + narrative" condition formed a false memory, compared to 45% in the "narrative only" condition Implications for therapists that try use photos with suggestions to "recover" memories Imagination: Garry et al. (1996) Participants rated 40 childhood events on a scale ranging from 1 (definitely didn't happen) to 8 (definitely happened) Events were things like "finding $10 on the street", "being rescued by a lifeguard" etc. 2 weeks later, participants were asked to image some of the events occurring Participants were then asked to complete the rating form again More likely to see an increase for events that were imaged, relative to events that were not imagined - call this "Imagination Inflation" Believing False Memories How do we know participants believe these memories? 1. They are genuinely surprised when debriefed 2. They are willing to say that they are making something up 3. They were happy to report that they didn't remember the true events 4. They came up with reasons for not being able to remember Alien Abduction Memories Claims of abduction by space aliens Narrative accounts of these abductions are often strikingly similar Sleep paralysis can account for a lot of "alien abduction" episodes Clancy et al. (2002) DRM test - reading people a list of words that are associated with one word not given in the list Three groups - repressed, recovered and control Participants were presented with 20 DRM trials (of either 3, 6, 9, 12, or 15 words) Those who claimed to have recovered or repressed memories of alien abduction were more prone to falsely recall items from the list Similar findings observed for women who report recovered memories of sexual abuse Distinguishing True and False Memories: McNally et al. (2004) People with PTSD exhibit several distinct physiological reactions when recounting their traumatic experiences - Increased heart rate - Tension in facial muscles - Increased skin conductance 60% of "abductees" showed physiological signs consistent with PTSD - Showed that it's hard to distinguish between true and false memories as if you believe a false memory, your body behaves like it's real

Lecture 3/4

Storage The status of memory may be altered between storage and retrieval due to: Passage of time Intervening knowledge/experience Misinformation Memories are not Static A lot of the factors that affect encoding stem from a lack of attention Eyewitness memory is reconstructive We make things fit when they don't Some of what you get back can be damaged and skewed by misinformation The Passage of Time Hermann Ebbinghaus Looked at how we remember things over time Came up with the forgetting curve and serial position effect Dropped off very quickly and over time, it flatlined Intervening Knowledge/Experience: Snyder & Uranowitz (1978) Two groups read a story about "Betty K" One group was told Betty was homosexual, the other was told Betty was heterosexual Participants asked to recall initial case history Intervening Knowledge/Experience: Snyder & Uranowitz (1978) Results Found that participants made label consistent errors Skewed towards information they received after the case study was presented Hindsight Bias When knowledge of current events, emotions, or outcomes biases judgements and memory of processes leading up to them i.e., selective recall Can influence judgements about what happened and memory of what happened Intervening Knowledge/Experience: Davis, Lopex, Koyama, et al. (2005) Listened to argument between a couple Half the participants were told the couple broke up, and the other half were told that the woman had been found dead, and the boyfriend had been charged with murder Intervening Knowledge/Experience: Davis, Lopex, Koyama, et al. (2005) Results Participants in murder condition: More likely to accurately remember that the man had made threatening statements towards the girl More likely to inaccurately recall that he had hit her and that he had threatened to harm her classmate Participants were more likely to be accurate about what we remembered if she was murdered The Misinformation Effect (Loftus) "Jelly to be set" Event à Misled à Interviewed Results tend to be very reliable e.g., watch a red car in accident, and then ask, "how fast was the blue car going", then later asked "was the car blue or red?" Loftus, Miller, & Burns (1978) People saw pictures of a car going through either a stop sign or a yield (give-way) sign Later asked how fast the car was going through a stop sign vs. a yield sign Which sign was the one actually in the pictures? Sources of Misinformation: Media El Al Crash, Amsterdam (1995) Residents claimed they saw a video of the crash, but there wasn't one - planted misinformation by media Loftus & Banaji (1989) 4-minute clip of robbery and shooting, then shown a TV report of incidence with either correct information, or incorrect information 1/3 of incorrect information group incorporated incorrect details in their memory of the clip Co-Witness Discussions: Paterson & Kemp (2006) Many crimes involve more than one eyewitness 86% of witnesses engage in co-witness discussion Results in sharing information, or 'group' accounts, instead of individual accounts Paterson & Kemp (2006) Advantages May trigger recollection of forgotten details May reinforce memory (like rehearsal) May aid recovery from trauma (not fully supported in literature) May paint a more accurate overall picture Paterson & Kemp (2006) Disadvantages May contaminate independent recollection (interfering with own encoding) May weaken prosecution case Witnesses may become unsure of their testimony Collusion Solomon Asch - Conformity Looking at whether people will conform to other people's beliefs/accounts Line comparison study Asked to match the left line with one of the three lines to the right When surrounded with confederates, people conformed their answers, even if the answer was wrong Types of Conformity Normative - you know the right answer, but you say something else Informational - says the wrong answer because they believe themselves to be wrong ("everyone else can't be wrong") How to Fix Conformity? Ask participants to write down answers instead of saying them Results in a drop in normative conformity Conformity and Forensic Application Evidence is in front of their eyes, they should not be getting it wrong If you take the evidence away, information accuracy will increase Also shows that individual interviews are better than group interviews Co-Witness Discussion Paradigm Original paradigm MORI technique Confederate paradigm Co-Witness Discussion: Original Paradigm Two people in a lab, sit them down separately and show them a video of a crime Show different videos (but make them think they're watching the same video) One video of a red getaway car, one of a green getaway car Let them chat before the interview, and then ask what colour the getaway car was See if colours match, or information has been influenced Co-Witness Discussion Paradigm: MORI Technique Cass Mori Polarisation of glasses makes people watching the same video see different things, i.e., depending on polarisation, colour of car changes Co-Witness Discussion: Confederate Paradigm Bring people in one at a time and sit them next to a confederate they think is just another participant Shown same video of a red car, but during discussion, confederate says the car was green Flaw: only half the data of the other paradigms Retelling/Recounting Illusory Truth Effect - the more we say something, the more we believe it "Audience Tuning" - how we recount something depends on our audience (whether we dress the story up or down changes parts of the story) Show a bias in retelling the story in a way that benefits them Retelling/Recounting: Allport (1947) Showed participants photos of a shabbily-dressed white man holding a razor arguing with an unarmed, well-dressed black man In subsequent retellings, over half of the participants reversed the characters How Does Misinformation Work? Option 1: person reports misinformation, but knows it's wrong Option 2: original memory gets overwritten or changed Option 3: there are now two memories, but the original one becomes less/not accessible or simply indistinguishable Option 4: there is no original memory Retelling/Recounting: McCloskey & Zaragoza (1985) Disentangling option 2 and 3 Instead of presenting participants with a choice between the correct item and the misinformation item, these researchers presented them with a choice between the correct item and a novel item Retelling/Recounting: McCloskey & Zaragoza (1985) Results If the apple memory was still there, then in the modified paradigm, after misinformation is given, there would be a 50/50 split in what people recollect (either the orange or the apple) Factors Influencing Misinformation Age Delay IQ Repeated exposure Types of misinformation Hypnosis Confidence in memory Absolute Distortions: Assefi & Garry (2003) Participants drank tonic water beverage, but half were told that it was alcohol Misinformed on some things, but not others Participants in the "alcohol" group were more susceptible to misleading post event information Encoding did not differ between groups Implications for Eyewitnesses: Storage What happens between the event and the memory interview is of the utmost importance Eyewitness evidence should be treated as we treat physical evidence Distortion can be minimised, but can't always be avoided

Lecture 16

What is Deception? "A successful or unsuccessful deliberate attempt, without forewarning, to create in another individual a belief which the communicator knows to be untrue." - Doesn't need to be successful to be a lie - Have to be trying to lie - Don't tell people you're going to do it - Need to know that what you're saying is untrue (it's not a lie if you accidentally tell someone something false because you're mistaken) Why do we Lie? Self-oriented lies Other-oriented lies Why do we Lie? - Self-Oriented Lies Lies told to protect or enhance the liars psychologically, or to advantage or protect the liars' interests I.e., a guilty person lying and saying "no, I did not commit the crime" Why do we Lie? - Other-Oriented Lies Lies told to protect or enhance another person psychologically or advantage or protect the interests of others. I.e., a lie to make yourself or someone else feel better, "you look great today" Means of Detecting Deception Non-verbal - body language Verbal - the words people use and how they use them Physiological - what people's bodies are doing on the inside e.g., lie-detector tests Non-Verbal Cues to Deception A typical nonverbal response during deception doesn't exist i.e., "people look up and to the left when they're lying" - false claim, isn't generalizable Behaviours that can increase when lying: - Emotion - Cognitive Load/Content Complexity - Attempted Behavioural Control Non-Verbal Cues to Deception: Emotion A person's emotional state is likely to influence their nonverbal behaviour The 3 most common types of emotions associated with lying are fear, guilt, and 'duping delight' (getting excited or a thrill out of lying) Non-Verbal Cues to Deception: Cognitive Load Telling a convincing lie is not easy Liars need to think of plausible answers, avoid contradictions, tell a lie that is consistent with the interviewer's present and future knowledge, remember what they've said etc. Body language - when you have a large cognitive load, you tend to stay still and not move (opposite to what we're told about people lying Non-Verbal Cues to Deception: Attempted Behavioural Control Liars engage in "impression management" to avoid being caught i.e., acting like a trustworthy person - Leads to "over-control" o Controlling behaviour can result in unnatural looking behaviour The Verdict: Depaulo et al. (2003); Vrij (2000) Meta-analysis 4 behaviours are more likely to occur when lying than when telling the truth - Voice pitch á o Need technology to actually see the difference in pitch - Speech errors á o "um" and "ah" o Verbal cues of deception - Illustrators â o Gesticulating - Hand/finger movements â Last two are what we expected in the 'cognitive-load' section The Verdict: Depaulo et al. (2003); Vrij (2000) Results Looking at: 1. How good is it at detecting lies when someone is lying? 2. How good is it at detecting the truth when someone is telling the truth? Interpretation: - If 100 people told the truth, non-verbal tests would lead to 55% of them being correctly classes as telling the truth and 45% of them being classed as liars o And vice versa = non-verbal tests are not good Reasons for Failure 1. People hold false beliefs about indicators of deceit 2. People can be taught the wrong cues to deceit 3. Empirical research may send us missed messages - E.g., emotion increases blinking rate and cognitive load decreases blinking rate o Which is the correct one? Contradictory research 4. Inadequate comparisons - Changes in behaviour aren't useful unless we have a baseline and within-subject comparison o There's no good time to get this baseline Reasons for Failure 1: Vrij (2000) Examined people's beliefs regarding deceptive body language Most cited increases in gave aversion (looking away), fidgeting, and latency periods (time between answering questions) Result: none of these have been shown to increase in liars Reasons for Failure 1: Vrij, Semin, & Bull (1996) Examined people's behaviour when they were lying Then asked them how they thought they behaved - "What was your body language doing when you were lying?" Result: responses were consistent with stereotypes of liars, not actual behaviour - People were really bad at judging what they were doing, "I was looking away" Reasons for Failure 2: Kassin & Fong (1999) Testing the supposed 'what guilty people do and what innocent people do' thoughts from the Reid Technique Half of the participants were trained on Inbau et al.'s (Reid Technique) nonverbal cues to deceit Result: this group performed worse than controls when asked to detect lies Verbal Cues to Deception Looking at what people say and seeing whether we can distinguish a lie based purely on verbal cues alone Not a lot of research done in this area, mostly on Statement Validity Assessment (SVA) - Structured Memory Interview: asking the person for details about what happened, in a prescribed way - Interview Coded: frequency of various features in the person's statement (presence or absence of...) - Evaluation of Outcome: interpreting those features as lies or truth-telling - Based on Criterion-Based Content Analysis (CBCA) Verbal Cues to Deception: SVA CBCA Originally used for assessing validity of child sexual abuse statements Based on the Undeutsch Hypothesis - Statements from memory are qualitatively (presence or absence of certain features) and quantitatively (frequency of certain features) different than those based on lies 19 criteria used in credibility assessment Verbal Cues to Deception: SVA CBCA Results Still not great at detecting deception "34% of truth-tellers would be classified as liars; 32% of liars would be classified as truth-tellers" Higher scores = truth-tellers Verbal Cues to Deception: SVA CBCA - Reasons for Failure CBCA scores may be variable due to factors other than deception: - Age o Scores tend to increase as age increases - become better story tellers o Implication for child statements - Interviewer's Style (open-ended) o Scores tend to increase if open-ended questions are used o Might get classed as a truth-teller, but really, they're just allowed to talk more - Verbal and Social Skills o People with high verbal and social skills get higher scores o Classed as truth-tellers, when they could be lying Physiological Cues to Deception Scientific measuring device that can display a direct and valid representation of various types of bodily activity e.g., polygraph or lie-detector - CQT or GKT Most commonly measured activities are sweating of the fingers, blood pressure and respiration - All increase when someone is physiologically aroused These kinds of tests are good for what they're designed for, but controversy surrounds whether they can be used to assess lying The Control Question Test Compares responses to relevant questions with responses to control questions E.g., "On March 4, did you murder Mr Jones?" - Relevant question = question to which only guilty suspect lies by saying no; everyone else says no because they didn't E.g., "Have you ever hurt someone in order to get revenge?" - Control question = question to which all examinees are expected to lie - Has a similar theme to the relevant question, but will make the suspect look suspicious so they say no Theory is that for the guilty person, the relevant questions will create more arousal than the control questions, and vice versa for the innocent person - The control questions should freak the innocent people out as they either have to lie to avoid suspicion, or say yes and admit that they've done a behavior that is thematically related to the crime Results: CQT - Reasons for Failure 1. False positives are likely when innocent suspects are nervous 2. Countermeasures - Suspects try to influence polygraph outcomes in order to "pass" e.g., increasing arousal (tensing feet etc.) o Guilt people will try to increase arousal (can't really decrease arousal) on the control questions so they exhibit an 'innocent' response Result: liars look like truth-tellers (red and yellow lines match, just at different arousal rates) CQT Failure - Honts, Raskin, & Kircher (1994) Stimulated theft - Volunteers given a "mission" - 2/3 asked to go to the professor's office and steal a "valuable coin" from their desk drawer. Other 1/3 were told about the coin, but not asked to steal it Groups - Innocent (not asked to steal the coin) - Guilty Untrained (stole the coin, no CQT training) - Guilty Trained in Countermeasures (stole the coin and taught how to cheat the CQT) CQT Failure - Honts, Raskin, & Kircher (1994) Results Guilt training helped people pass the polygraph test - though innocent people still came out on top Compared to untrained participants, over twice as many trained participants passed the test (classified as truth-tellers) Compared to untrained participants, just under half as many trained participants failed the test (classified as liars) The Guilty Knowledge Test Testing recognition of information, and how that might relate to guilt - based on physiological factors Examines whether suspects possess knowledge that they do not want to reveal about a particular crime - E.g., if murder weapon was a knife: o Innocent and guilty suspects will deny the murder, but the guilty suspect will recognise the knife The Verdict CQT correctly identifies more liars, but GKT correctly identifies more truth-tellers (bad at identifying liars) GKT - Reasons for Failure Limited Applicability - few situations we can use the GKT in, following criteria needs to be filled: - The test designer needs to know the answer - Innocent suspects should not know the answer o Fail because e.g., knowing the answers due to media coverage - The guilty examinee needs to know the answers o If the guilty person left a hat at the crime scene and doesn't know this, then using it as a GKT question won't work - Podlesny (1995) o Only 9% of CQT cases could have used GKT - Suspect could have guilty knowledge but deny guilt o Recognise a gun that someone else used in their presence General Problems with Lie Detection - No "Pinocchio" Test o No reliable giveaway clue that lie catchers can use - regardless of the types of expected behaviours being seen - Research Difficulties o It can be hard to get applicable research based on laboratory work - Othello Error o Liars and truth tellers may experience the same processes (emotion, cognitive load, and attempted behavioural control), so they might respond similarly to measures aimed at detecting deception § E.g., can be stressed because you committed the crime, but can also be stressed if you're being questioned and are innocent o Verbal tests are the least likely to be affected - False Beliefs o If you have a false memory, you're unlikely to display physiological or non-verbal signs of deception o Could use verbal tests to test this, but difficult as while these techniques provide some link with memory, it's hard to distinguish a true statement from a false statement (false memories lecture) New Wave of Lie Detection Research: Target Interviewing Aims to elicit diagnostic cues to deception, rather than just assuming that they will arise - Example 1 o Assumption = deception is more demanding than truth telling o Solution = place suspects under additional cognitive load § E.g., ask for the story in reverse order or get them to maintain eye contact - Example 2 o Assumption = liars often prepare themselves for an interview o Solution 1 = ask suspects unanticipated questions § E.g., "describe the décor" o Solution 2 = ask anticipated questions in an unanticipated format § E.g., ask them to draw the scene New Wave of Lie Detection Research: Brain Scanning Rather than looking at measurements of autonomic activity, this approach measures blood flow to various parts of the brain using fMRI Hypothesis: brain activity when lying could differ from brain activity when telling the truth Two main areas for lying - both associated with coming up with responses: - Prefrontal cortex - Anterior cingulate gyrus Brain Scanning - Reasons for Caution - Generalisability o "Liar" participants in the research might not behave the same way as actual offenders o Offenders chose to lie, participants were asked to lie § Could show different results when your intent is to lie o Participants were not threatened with jail time, so stakes are low - Measurement can be accounted for by other things - could just be nervous you're in an MRI machine - 'CSI Effect' o Jurors will over-estimate this data, and then expect it in every trial because it's "science-y" - Ethical concerns o We don't know enough about the field - Cognitive liberty - freedom/privacy of thoughts - Legal concerns o Admissibility o fMRI needing a warrant - searching the brain? o Right to avoid self-incrimination

Lecture 15

What is an Alibi? An excuse or plea that one was somewhere other than the scene of a crime - Definition - shows that we don't know a lot about it A specific legal strategy in which a suspect tries to show that he or she could not have committed the crime because he or she was somewhere else at the time - Treating it as a legal strategy Alibi witness - can either be the person accused of the crime, or a person that can corroborate the suspect's alibi Eyewitness Testimony vs. Alibis Both are technically eyewitnesses, but are treated differently based on what side of the suspect they are on Eyewitnesses Alibi Providers Usually realise at the time (or soon after) that a witnessed event is important to notice and recall Often have to recall an event that was of no particular significance at the time There is a presumption that the witness is making a good-faith effort to tell the truth There is no presumption of honesty Errors are presumed to be the result of faulty perceptions or memory Errors are presumed to be a sign of guilt or cover-up Evidence is elicited in a supportive, accepting climate Evidence often elicited in a climate of disbelief Corroborative evidence is not expected from each witness Corroborative evidence is expected Alibis in Real Cases - Connors et al. (1996) Examined the first 28 DNA exoneration cases in the US - Included an analysis of the factors that led to the erroneous convictions 7/28 of these cases (25%) listed a "weak alibi" or "no alibi" as a leading factor - I.e., as they couldn't vouch for what they were doing at the time, that itself was treated as evidence of guilt A "weak alibi" appears to be one provided by someone who might be motivated to lie, such as someone related to the suspect e.g., "mothers and lovers" - It appeared that this kind of alibi was seen to be of as much value as no alibi at all - 25% of DNA exonerations involved an alibi that was not believed Types of Alibi True alibi - Where an innocent alibi-provider gives an accurate account of his or her whereabouts at the time of a crime False alibi - Where an alibi-provider gives an inaccurate account of his or her whereabouts at the time of a crime - Two types: fabricated and mistaken False Alibi: Fabricated An alibi that is deliberately false, either because of the guilt of the provider, or because the provider is unwilling to reveal the truth for a different reason (could be having an affair and doesn't want that to come out) False Alibi: Mistaken An alibi given initially as fact because the innocent alibi-provider believes it to be true, but which later turns out to be false (e.g., Ronald Cotton case) Can be seen as a sign of untrustworthiness in the suspect Model for Studying Alibis John Turtle and Gary Wells came up a framework for studying alibis (with help from PhD student Tara Burke) Generation Domain: Story Phase The suspect is required to work out what they were doing The alibi provider gives a verbal account of his or her whereabouts at the time of the crime Alibis have a unique time-space requirement - To be valid, they must speak to both the time of the crime and the space that the alibi provider was occupying o E.g., "At 5pm, I was at McDonalds with Wayne" Demographic variables - How easy it is to remember where you were and where you weren't. If you have a job, large chunks of your day are accounted for. Similarly, if you use a diary or smartphone - Can disadvantage certain members of society i.e., unemployed or poverty-stricken individuals Time period - Various types of time period we might need to account for when providing an alibi - Some require time down to minutes (e.g., David Bain), others to hours (e.g., Mark Lundy), and also days or years - The stretch of time since the time of the incidence really impacts how accurate we are Memory - Delay o Harder to remember where we were a long time ago. Supported by the forgetting function - not keeping inconsequential memories for long periods of time o Most events during these crime times are inconsequential, which can really impact an alibi - Temporal tags and dating memories o Certain events line up with certain days. We can use memories to pinpoint days depending on the type of life you lead o E.g., I was in PSYC325 that day, so it must've been a Monday or Tuesday - Schemas o Can be helpful if you did a task that has a schema attached to it e.g., going to the supermarket, so you can pinpoint what you did during that time easily Generation Domain: Story Phase - Memory Schema Generalised accounts of our common events that are usually good enough for us to know our past Minor departures from how things usually go are often forgotten - E.g., forgetting that you missed a lecture Major departures are remembered (the memory inconsistency effect) - E.g., not going to a lecture because you set fire to your toast and your flat burnt down Generation Domain: Validation Phase When the suspect is asked for proof that their alibi is true Big gap between what you can provide and what investigators expect to really believe you Two types: person evidence and physical evidence Generation Domain: Validation Phase - Person Evidence Two categories: - Motivated familiar other (e.g., family members, partner etc.) o Someone familiar to you, but has your interests at heart so investigators might not trust them o Unlikely to make a mistake o More likely to lie for the alibi provider - Non-motivated stranger (e.g., taxi driver) o Not motivated to lie o Pose a greater risk of being mistaken People counted on to support an alibi might not be as helpful as initially assumed (they might not remember you being with them) McCloskey, Wible, & Cohen (1988) Memories for the challenger space shuttle disaster (a flash bulb memory) When participants tried to corroborate their own memories, people they claimed being with remembered being elsewhere Implications for memory of a typical mundane day? - If people can't remember who they were with during big days like this, then they won't remember regular other days Generation Domain: Validation Phase - Physical Evidence Easy to fabricate (e.g., movie tickets or a TV guide) - Your name isn't on the movie ticket, could've just found it - You could say you're watching a specific TV show and show that it was on at that time, but it doesn't mean you're watching it Difficult to fabricate (e.g., CCTV footage) - Doesn't often happen on CCTV No physical evidence available (e.g., being asleep) Turtle & Burke (2003) Examined court cases where alibi evidence was crucial The majority of crimes studied took place between 8am and midnight In most cases (68-86%), an alibi provider was available In all but two of the cases, the person was a friend, family member, or co-worker Very few cases (2-24%) involved physical evidence Believability Domain - Evaluation Phase The truthfulness of the alibi is evaluated by anyone who may come into contact with it (e.g., police, jurors, lawyers etc.) Taxonomy of Alibi Strength (Olson & Wells, 2004) - Motivated familiar other = mother or lover - Non-motivated stranger = taxi driver - Non-motivated familiar other = regular barrista or regular bus driver Olson & Wells (2004) Participants presented with crime scenario where there are multiple suspects and so suspects need to be evaluated on the basis of their alibis Each participant was presented with alibis for 3 suspects Alibi evidence varied as a function of person evidence and physical evidence (4x3) Participants were asked to rate believability of each alibi, and likelihood of guilt for each suspect Olson & Wells (2004) Results The believability of alibis (and likelihood of guilt) tended to follow the taxonomy's predicted pattern - Predicted least (blue bar) and most (red bar) believable alibi Physical evidence, when present, tended to overwhelm the person evidence - If physical evidence is present, people are less concerned with the person evidence When evaluating person evidence, people appear to care more about motivation than possibility of error - That is, they preferred person-evidence in a non-motivated stranger instead of a non-motivated familiar - Suggests that they're worried that people lying for the suspect Ultimate Evaluation Phase A definitive determination is made as to whether the accused actually committed the crime Not necessarily identical to previous phase - Believing or not believing is not always the same as thinking someone is guilty or innocent - You may believe someone's alibi, but still think they committed the crime, and vice versa Conclusions - There is a significant absence of psychological research on alibis - The state of the field resembles that of eyewitness testimony 30 years ago (i.e., important, but not very well researched) - Psychological researchers have much to offer in assisting law enforcement to evaluate and elicit alibi evidence