Forensic Psychology

37 flashcards · Psychology · by Amber Cordingley

1. Why is research on human memory important for the law?

   Eyewitness evidence is considered compelling by jurors Eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions In 70% of DNA exonerations in the USA, misidentification was a key factor in convictions Average time served of fourteen years

2. Stages of memory processing and why errors occur

   Actual events Acquisition/ encoding - information the person perceives Storage/ retention- information the person stores in memory Retrieval- information the person retrieves at a later time Errors can occur at any time in this process

3. Acquisition/ encoding of events

   What is encoded is the basis for what is stored and later retrieved Many factors can affect the quality exposure duration crime seriousness violence weapon presence perpetrator characteristics e.g. disguises

4. Top-down processing

   stimulus processing that is determined by expectations, memory and knowledge rather than directly by stimuli

5. Bottom-up processing

   stimulus processing that is determined directly by environmental stimuli and is data-driven

6. Past experiences- Schemas

   A mental framework or body of knowledge that helps us make sense of familiar situations- guiding our expectations and provide a framework in which information is processed and organised

7. We have schemas for:

   Specific people e.g. our mother or best friend Groups of people e.g. police officers, colleagues, family Places Objects Common scripts for things we haven't experienced e.g. a robbery

8. Storage / Retention : Forgetting

   The Ebbinghaus curve illustrates the inverse relationship between memory and the retention interval over time The curve suggests that most forgetting happens directly after the material is encoded

9. O.J. Simpson Murder Trial - Memory Study

   Participants memories for how they heard the news about OJ Simpson trial verdict 3 days vs 15 days after or 32 months later Participants reported high confidence even when they contained major distortions

10. Retrieval

    Encoding specificity: the link between encoding and retrieval What is remembered later depends on the similarity of the retrieval situation to the original encoding conditions Learning involves laying down a memory trace and retrieval failure occurs when: the memory trace is no longer stored in memory the memory trace is stored in memory but cannot be accessed

11. Encoding specificity

    Only aspects of our experience which are specifically attended to during the study situation are certain to be encoded Memory is enhanced when conditions present during retrieval match those that were present during encoding

12. Types of Retrieval

    Recall a person brings to mind info in response to a cue the cue may be non-specific or specific from the beginning tell me what you saw when you were standing at the bus stop? the hat the man was wearing, what colour was it? Recognition When participants must judge whether the info presented to them has been previously encountered

13. Recall vs recognition

    Typically participants recognise information better than they recall it This is because recognition provides more relevant cues to retrieval Eyewitness memory for events largely involves recalling info Witnesses may also be asked to attend an identification parade however errors can occur here too, such as being misled by officers or over-hearing police beliefs

14. Non-optimal interviewing strategies

    Analysis of real police interviews (e.g. USA- fisher) Freq interrupting the witness's narrative Over-talking on the part of the police officer Excessive use of closed and compound questions Use of leading or suggestive questions Rarely using open questions Inappropriate timing and sequencing of questions These questioning styles interrupt witness concentration discourage elaboration, restrict the witness to reporting requested info only, and encourage the use of ineffective and superficial retr…

15. Confirmatory bias

    Wright & Alison (2004) analysed a sample of interviews given by Canadian Police Interviews predominately began with closed questions (who, what, were, how) Followed by abrupt, rapid-fire yes/no questions Police officers may have preconceived beliefs concerning the event An investigator may direct the witness to focus on aspects of the event which they believe are relevant

16. Informing police practices: the cognitive interview 1st Principle : Mental Context Reinstatement

    Witness is encouraged to recall the context in which they saw the event including the sights and sounds at the time of the event, how they were feeling and what they were thinking at the time of the incident Aims to increase the number of retrieval cues by reinstating the psychological context in which the event was encoded

17. 2nd Principle: Report Everything

    The witness is allowed to engage in free recall without interruption from the police interviewer The witness may be asked to remember everything they possibly can, no matter how small a detail seems to be Aims to increase the number of retrieval cues elicited by the witness by reinstating the psychological context in which the event was encoded. The instruction ensures the witness's chain of thought is not interrupted

18. 3rd Principle: Reverse Order

    The witness is encouraged to begin their description of an event from different starting points Aims to circumvent the "filling in" of information using scripts The different orders may activate different cues and hence lead to more details being recalled

19. 4th Principle: Change Perspective

    Witnesses are encouraged to try to give an account of the event from the POV of another person, such as another witness Aims to increase the number of retrieval cues available to tap into the memory of the event and avoid filling in gaps This instruction is not always used by the police as the info obtained may be construed as "hearsay"

20. The Cognitive Interview

    Open depth encourages a further round of recall uses instructions to focus explicitly on all the little details not able to be reported first time Open depth yielded more correct info with lots of surrounding details that are typically not reported by witnesses, outperformed both change perspective and motivated recall Re-enactment Focus on actions and accessing verbatim memories (not gist) these are less susceptible to influence from schemas Reported more correct info and more action details

21. Enhanced ci

    Std CI focused on using knowledge of how memory works to aid the retrieval process However other factors can affect retrieval in an interview situation: social dynamics and communication The enhanced CI has evolved to incorporate communication and cognitive techniques which work in tandem e.g. establish rapport, transfer control of interview to witness, enhancing the listening skills of interviewer, reduce intimidation

22. Schachter's Seven Sins of Memory

    transience absent-mindedness blocking misattribution suggestibility bias persistence the first three relate to issues about forgetting the next three relate to distortion or inaccuracy final one to pathological remembering

23. Transience

    forgetting a phone number, name, appointment etc Forgetting curve

24. Flashbulb memories

    Distinct vivid and detailed memories often for some sort of public event death of princess diana 9/11 Participants report very strong memories about which they are VERY confident They report details like who told them, where, ongoing event, emotional responses and any consequences Memory for crimes may be like FB memories

25. Transience and the slave systems: phonological loop

    responsible for 'inner speech' measured using memory span tasks most people can remember 7+2 items Phonological loop is implicated in transience Unless rehearsed info may be lost very quickly

26. Slave systems

    visuo-spatial sketchpad and phonological loop store a limited amount information Information is stored here in a temporal and serial fashion allows rehearsal for the retention of info think of it as a 'loop of tape' onto which info is recorded

27. Transience: evidence from neuropsychology

    patient HM was unable to remember info for more than a few seconds could retain info from past, not learning anything new HM had drastic brain surgery to reduce epilepsy non-functioning hippocampus the hippocampus must be crucial in memory formation not where memories are stored, but involved in the gradual transition from STM to LTM

28. Reducing transience

    deep processing e.g. adults had better memory when they were trained in prof acting suggested the techniques greater mental effort deeper processing animal models support the view that distinct, identifiable regions of the brain including the hippocampus are responsible for the transience and its reduction

29. Absent mindedness

    occurs due to paying insufficient attention at encoding or encoding has only been superficial change blindness

30. Absent mindedness and age

    people of all age reported it older adults are much more absent minded than young adults overall effect of age may be explained in terms of attention, older adults have less capacity to direct attention to the task at hand attention is clearly involved in the encoding stage less attention here results in poorer recall later

31. Blocking

    different from transience the information has been encoded the information is still stored different from absent-mindedness the information has been encoded you are often able to retrieve partial info blocking often carries a strong element of awareness

32. Retrieval induced forgetting

    Participants observed slides of a crime scene (Bjork 1995) Asked questions about some categories of items Some items not asked about at all (books) In later tests the participants recalled more about the non-retrieved items from non-asked about categories than 'asked about' categories- successful retrieving of some items blocks access to related items

33. Misattribution

    Memories may sometimes be attributed to the wrong 'source' Oklahoma city bombing Tim McVeigh- John Doe John Doe number 2 There was no John Doe 2 with McVeigh despite witness reports Thompson (1998) classic example of source misattribution

34. Misattribution

    False memory: the DRM (Deese/ Roediger- McDermott procedure) It is very easy to get participants to say with confidence that they have seen items that they have not in fact encountered previously Veridical versus illusory recognition Note source misattribution involves real memories but they become confused, whereas the DRM procedure is based on falsely recalling/ recognising info that never happened DRM- participants rely of semantic features or 'gist'

35. Can false memory be a good thing?

36. Suggestibility

    Incorporation of external info into personal recollection eyewitness testimony very susceptible related to misattribution in terms of creating a 'false memory'

37. Lofters & Palmer demonstrate how easy it is to distort memories

    Smash vs hit