Olivier Dodier

University of Nantes | UNIV Nantes · Faculté de Psychologie

What do people really think of when they say they believe in repressed traumatic memory? In two studies (NStudy 1 = 3158; NStudy 2 = 305) using an integrative method taking into account recent methodological discussions, we found that, in total, 2458 participants (71% of the two combined samples) reported that they believed in repressed memory. In...

Based on converging research, we concluded that the controversial topic of unconscious blockage of psychological trauma –i.e., repressed memory- remains very much alive in clinical, legal, and academic contexts (Otgaar et al., 2019). In his commentary, Brewin (in press) conducted a co-citation analysis and concluded that scholars do not adhere to t...

We examined the incidence of recovered memories of child abuse in a large French general public sample (N = 3346). Of the 905 (27% of total sample) who reported having memories of abuse, 211 (23%) reported recovered memories of child abuse that they had no previous memory of, with 82 of these (9% of the 905) reporting that they did not know they we...

Recent research shows that baseline quality decreases when the second narrative is expected and deceitful. However, a first step would be to investigate whether the writing of a first narrative might influence the second, independently of its expectancy. Based on the cognitive load theory, we hypothesized that second narratives would be less detail...

Les années 1990 ont été le théâtre d’une vive opposition entre les partisans de l’idée de refoulement traumatique et les sceptiques, expliquant qu’un tel concept n’était pas soutenu par des preuves scientifiques. Aujourd’hui plus volontiers nommé amnésie dissociative et inclus dans la 5ème édition du manuel diagnostique et statistique des troubles...

We show that, in contrast to Brewin, Li, Ntarantana, Unsowrth, and McNeilis (2019), large proportions of laypersons believe in the scientifically controversial phenomenon of unconscious repressed memories. We provide new survey data showing that when participants are asked specific questions about what they mean when they report that traumatic memo...

Recovered memories of abuse in therapy are especially controversial if the clients were not aware they were abused before therapy. In the past, such memory recovery has led to legal action, as well as a debate about whether such memories might be repressed, forgotten, or false memories. More than two decades after the height of the controversy, it...

A context-driven analysis was performed to assess the quality of French investigative interviews with three age groups of child witnesses (under 7 years old, 7-10 years old, and 11- 17 years old). We measured how age was related to the quality of 24 real-life interviews by evaluating how child-centered the interview was: (i) did it follow recommend...

In criminal cases involving eyewitness reports, psychologists or psychiatrists may be recruited as expert witnesses to help triers of facts to evaluate eyewitness statements, on the assumption that psychologists and psychiatrists are real experts, familiar with scientific progress about how memory works. But are they knowledgeable concerning the sc...

Decades-old child sexual abuse cases stress the need to examine the accuracy of long-term memory regarding traumatic events. The article by Goldfarb, Goodman, Larson, Eisen, and Qin (published in the March 2019 issue of Clinical Psychological Science) showed that memories of genital contact occurring decades ago were highly accurate. We argue that...

We examined the knowledge of law enforcement officers regarding memory by conducting two levels of analysis. First, we compared memory-related knowledge and erroneous beliefs of officers (n = 200) and lay people (n = 403) and found similar low scores of knowledge across both groups as well as a greater number of erroneous beliefs among law enforcem...

Les psychologues peuvent parfois être confrontés à des victimes adultes déclarant avoir retrouvé des souvenirs de violences subies durant l’enfance. Souvent interprété comme de l’amnésie causée par le traumatisme consécutif aux violences, ce phénomène fait l’objet d’intenses débats au sein de la communauté scientifique. Dans cette présentation je d...

In the 90’s, repressed and recovered memories were at the heart of intense debates within the clinical field as well as in academia. Recent data suggest that this controversy has not yet resolved in the clinical field. However, it is unclear to what extent repressed and recovered memories are studied in peer-review outcomes in the 21st century. The...

The two present studies examined the influence of perspective instructions given during encoding and retrieval on the recall of a visual event. Participants viewed slides or a film depicting a day in the life of a man. Before viewing the to-be-remembered event, they were instructed to adopt the perspective of an alcoholic vs. an unemployed man vs....

One of the most debated issues in relation to child sexual abuse (CSA) is whether there should be a limitation period for prosecutions. In 2017 a French ministerial report was released proposing extension of the limitation period in part because of the sometimes long delay between the alleged events and the disclosure of the abuse. For this, the re...

Triers-of-facts sometimes face eyewitness or perpetrator memory issues in criminal cases. Their goal is therefore to evaluate the weight that should be given to those statements. The past 40 years of research about how memory works during a criminal event or in judicial contexts have widely documented how easily an eyewitness report may be biased a...

objectif de cette thèse était de fournir des recommandations aux professionnels de la justice pour recueillir la parole des adolescents, population de témoin peu étudiée en laboratoire. Pour cela, cinq études ont été conduites. Les deux premières avaient pour objectif de dresser un état des lieux des pratiques des enquêteurs français. Nous avons ob...

La mémoire est un concept central pour la justice. Enquêteurs et magistrats se basent en partie sur des témoignages afin de reconstruire la chronologie des faits, et que la vérité se manifeste. Pourtant, de très nombreuses études ont mis en avant la fragilité de la mémoire humaine. Ainsi, lors de l’instruction, il revient aux experts psychologues e...

Dodier, O., & Denault, V. (2017). The Griffiths Question Map: A forensic tool for expert witnesses’ assessments of witnesses and victims’ statements. Journal of Forensic Science. Advance online publication. doi : 10.1111/1556-4029.13477 Abstract : Expert witnesses are sometimes asked to assess the reliability of young witnesses and victims' state...

Denault, V., Jupe, L., Dodier, O., & Rochat, N. (2017). To veil or not to veil, detecting lies in the courtroom: A comment on Leach et al. (2016). Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 24(1), 102-117. doi: 10.1080/13218719.2017.1260619

Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the beneficial effect of a modified cognitive interview (MCI) on adolescents’ testimonies in case of a negative emotional event. Furthermore, the authors were interested in assessing the impact of a MCI on within-statement consistency. Design/methodology/approach – In total, 37 adolescent...