Legal and Criminological Psychology

Purpose The current study examined the role of eyewitness metamemory in predicting participants’ memory accuracy and risk of misinformation acceptance when describing previously encountered faces. Methods In an online experiment, participants (N = 1036) observed the faces of a female and male target before completing the Eyewitness Metamemory Scale. Participants then encountered descriptions of the targets from previous participants which depending on the experimental condition, either contained misinformation about the target's features or did not include any misinformation. Participants were later asked to describe the targets’ facial appearances through free recall and closed questions. Results A misinformation acceptance effect was observed in closed questions and free recall memory reports of both targets, with a greater effect observed for additory misinformation. Weak predictive associations were observed between metamemory scores and misinformation acceptance, such that greater memory contentment was associated with misinformation acceptance. Additionally, data from the no‐misinformation group suggested that metamemory was unable to predict general recall accuracy for faces. Conclusions Implications of the findings suggest that post‐event information could potentially mislead witnesses and highlight the need for such risks to be detected during investigations.

Purpose This review examined reproducibility in verbal lie detection research, wherein studies typically involve coding statements to identify deception cues. Such coding is prone to analytic flexibility that can invite false positives. I focused on the cue called complications as a case study. The variable emerged in the literature simultaneously with the availability of open science resources—providing a reasonable expectation that the relevant materials would be archived in accessible repositories if not in the publication. Methods I reviewed 30 relevant publications to assess whether complications research is amenable to auditing. Results The findings indicated sufficient consistency in the definitions of complications and little ambiguity regarding what the variable denotes. Additionally, numerical estimates indicated that the extant results in the literature might be replicable—but with a significant caveat. Such replicability entirely depends on acquiring the coding protocols and anonymized raw data of published studies. However, that critical information is not publicly available. I discuss the ramifications of this barrier to reproducibility: it prevents the auditing of published findings, which allows explaining null findings away with post hoc explanations that depend on inaccessible information. Conclusions At a minimum, journal editors and reviewers must insist on the codebooks of coding protocols. Providing the corresponding anonymized raw data should also be a requirement unless specific obstructions like grant agreements prevent data sharing. The nature of verbal lie detection research necessitates this policy.

Purpose This study explored the victim‐perpetrator nexus in the context of cognitive online radicalisation. Specifically, we examined if a person's age and whether they were exposed to extremist content/users incidentally or following active search shape perceptions of victimhood. We further assessed whether and how perceptions of victimhood shape support for distinct criminal justice responses. Methods We conducted a pre‐registered two‐factorial (age: young person, adult x exposure type: active selection, incidental exposure) between‐subjects online experiment (N = 383), employing vignettes that depicted four scenarios of cognitive online radicalisation. Results The process by which a person was exposed to extremist materials/settings online had no significant effect on perceptions of victimhood. However, young people (as compared to adults) who were cognitively radicalised online were more readily considered victims. A higher level of perceived victimhood, in turn, was associated with increased endorsement of rehabilitation; levels of perceived victimhood were not associated with support for criminal charges. Exploratory analyses further highlighted that young people (rather than adults) who were radicalised online were more strongly perceived as victims, which predicted elevated support for rehabilitation interventions. Young people were also attributed lower responsibility for their engagement with extremist materials and users online, which was related to lower endorsement of criminal charges. Conclusions Taken together, the findings underscore that more than one issue frame was used to make meaning of the phenomenon of online radicalisation. A safeguarding frame was applied with respect to young people, reflecting the victim‐perpetrator nexus; a criminalisation frame was, in turn, adopted when considering adults radicalised online.

Purpose: Abundant research has explored the conditions under which eyewitnesses are likely to identify guilty versus innocent suspects. Research suggests there is a relationship between witness confidence and accuracy, such that confident witnesses tend to be accurate, and this relationship can persist even across delays between witnessed events and identification procedures. Emerging research suggests that witnesses' metacognitive evaluations made prior to identification procedures are also diagnostic of accuracy. These findings about eyewitness memory are valuable, but it is unclear how these factors are evaluated when assessing witness confidence and accuracy. Method: Two studies using a mock-officer paradigm examined how perceptions of witness confidence and accuracy are affected by variations in confidence both before and after identifications (Experiments 1 and 2), and the delay between the crime and the identification (Experiment 2). Results and Conclusion: Although high confidence at either time increased perceived confidence and accuracy, longer delays between the event and identification procedure lowered ratings of perceived confidence and accuracy.

Purpose The self‐administered interview© (SAI©) is a tool used to effectively collect eyewitness information. It has been shown that conducting the SAI immediately after a witnessed event facilitates later recall. However, the effects of the SAI on subsequent identification remain unclear. Therefore, we investigated whether the SAI affects subsequent identification when a lineup is involved. Methods After 164 undergraduate participants watched a mock crime video, those in the SAI condition described the recalled objects and aspects of the video using the SAI. Meanwhile, in the control condition, participants did not describe the recalled objects or aspects but wrote about what they had learned in regular psychology classes. Afterwards, the participants made identifications and answered a few questions. Results The results showed that conducting the SAI did not alter the subsequent identification rates in the lineup, but the metacognition for description—participants' thoughts on how the description task affected identification—was more positive in the SAI condition than in the control condition. Moreover, when participants made a false identification in the target‐present lineup, their confidence in the SAI condition was greater than that in the control condition. Conclusions The results suggest that the SAI can be used for witnesses with the potential to make identifications later because it does not interrupt identification itself. However, the confidence levels in identifications made by eyewitnesses answering questions in the SAI should be carefully assessed. This is because the SAI may distort the metacognition for description and increase false confidence levels in the identifications made by eyewitnesses.

Purpose The British False Memory Society (BFMS) is a registered charity founded in 1993 following an epidemic of false‐memory type allegations by adult accusers who claimed to have remembered childhood sexual abuse for which they previously had no cognitive recollection. Many of these accusers had entered counselling after typically suffering from anxiety, depression, and relationship problems. Many came out of therapy with what appeared to be false memories, and the accused sometimes contacted the BFMS for advice. Since its inception, the BFMS has kept a record of all calls to its telephone helpline. Methods In this article, we document several caseload details by year from 1993 onwards. Results In the peak year of 1994, 268 cases were taken up by the BFMS. During recent years in the last 10 years the number of cases taken on by the BFMS oscillated around about 40 each year. The 2010s had just 3% of the total cases leading to a guilty verdict (1990s = 8%; 2000s = 17%). We found the 2000 decade to be the most likely for those accused to be imprisoned, and the most recent years the least. Conclusions We conclude that although the numbers have lessened since the 1994 peak, there are still today a number of individuals being affected by allegations stemming from recovered memories.

Memory of childhood sexual abuse: Forgotten and recovered Three cases of allegations of childhood sexual abuse committed by fathers on their daughters have been brought to the attention of the Israeli Supreme Court. The prosecution was based on recovered memories of traumatic experiences that had been completely forgotten by the plaintiffs for many years. Amnesia accounted for in terms of repression The expert witness for the prosecution accounted for the long amnesia in terms of unconscious repression of the traumatic memories. Recovered memory: Veridical or false? The repression hypothesis has encountered severe theoretical and methodological criticisms which have cast doubt on the very existence of this mechanism. Proposal for a solution of the dilemma This controversy, which has far‐reaching legal implications, may be reconciled by adopting the notion of multiple “truths”, and by accepting recovered memory allegations only when corroborated by external evidence.

Purpose: The discussion on the degree of similarity and continuity between more neutral memories and genuine traumatic memories lies at the core of the (at times too heated) debate on the possibility of having declarative memories for traumatic personal experiences. In this paper, we aim at taking a middle ground in the debate, by examining, albeit very briefly, clinical, neurological and behavioural data from a hopefully more objective point of view. Method: In discussing traumatic memories, the first necessary step is to clarify the concept of trauma, its use and the consequences of the definition in applied areas such as the legal arena. It is not meaningful to talk about traumatic memories if trauma is defined too loosely and refers to any type of negative experience. Second, we provide a very brief overview of data deriving from both sides of the debate. Results: The brief review suggests that the definition of trauma has been the object of a 'conceptual bracket creep', extending to events and behaviours that should not be considered trauma. This has consequences on the definition of what a traumatic memory is, hindering a productive discussion on the topic. Data from clinical observations, which strongly speak in favour of the special nature of traumatic memories, unfortunately suffer from such conceptual looseness , while neurobiological studies have adopted a more strict conceptualisation of trauma, but mainly in animal models. These studies converge in indicating that neuro-biological processes involved in traumatic compared with non-traumatic memories are different, but the effect of trauma can be both of impairing and enhancing declarative memory. Behavioural studies which oppose the special nature of traumatic memories are rigorous, but such studies lack exposure to genuine traumatic experiences. Conclusion Only by taking a more dispassionate middle ground, it becomes possible to evaluate merits, flaws and the validity of results. We suggest that the nature of traumatic memories will be better understood by accepting solid data indicating that encoding and consolidation are different in case of very strong emotionally negative events (leading at times to memory impairment, but also often to memory improvement) and by integrating these data with equally solid behavioural data. Overall, traumatic memories can be special. Research should help define specific conditions for special processes to be involved.