Six separate experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of specific retrieval procedures on recall, recognition, confidence and the confidence / accuracy relationship for these retrieval domains. In experiment I the effects of retrieval procedures were considered as part of a recognised police interview technique, the Cognitive Interview (CI), while in experiments 11,111, and IV the retrieval procedures involved discrete context manipulations. Experiments V and VI focused exclusively on the confidence / accuracy relationship for recall as a function of specific retrieval procedures and question type. Results indicated that although frequently improving the quality and quantity of recall, the Cl and other types of context reinstatement manipulation did not reliably improve recognition accuracy from lineup presentations, nor did they have a significant moderating effect upon the confidence / accuracy relationship. However in experiment TV in which a long (three month) delay was utilised significant effects of context manipulation on recognition performance were found. With regard to confidence, experiment I indicated that the Cl was responsible for a significant increase in confidence of recall but not recognition. Results from experiments II, III, and iv indicated non consistent effects of context manipulation on confidence, rating-q for either recall and recognition. With regard to the confidence / accuracy relationship, results from the initial five experiments indicated that in very few instances was confidence and accuracy significantly related. However, in experiment VI confidence and accuracy was found to be reliably and consistently related The most important finding to emerge from this research suggests the retrieval procedure undergone by a witness (interactive interview / passive questionnaire), to be an important moderator of the confidence / accuracy relationship. As such the results are supportive of Leippe's (1980) two premises in which it is suggested that as reconstructional and social influences increase, the confidence / accuracy relationship will correspondingly decrease

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Children who have developmental disorders that involve memorial deficits and impairments in social interaction and communication, such as Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), can present challenges to professionals seeking their testimony when they are victims or witnesses of a crime. Most forensic interviews involve long delays after an event, underscoring the importance of conducting experimental studies which consider the effect of delay on children's memory. In this research, fifty-nine children (age 6-15 years) with ASD (N=27) and without disabilities (N=32) were questioned about their participation in a set of activities after a two-week delay and again after a two-month delay, using the Revised National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Investigative Interview Protocol. A detailed coding scheme was designed to code and analyse the interviewers' utterances and the children's responses in 118 interviews. Transcripts were coded for completeness (with respect to the gist of the event), amount of narrative details, and accuracy. Results indicated that autistic children did not differ from typically developing (TD) peers on any dimensions of memory after both delays. Specifically, both groups of children provided equivalently complete accounts on both occasions. However, children in both groups provided significantly fewer narrative details about the event in the second interview, and the accuracy rates were lower. Recall prompts elicited more detailed and more accurate responses from children in both groups than recognition prompts. Although autistic children recalled fewer correct narrative details than TD peers when questioned using open-ended recall prompts, they were as accurate as TD peers in response to recognition prompts. The informativeness and accuracy of children's reports remained unchanged over time. Finally, social support was beneficial when children were interviewed for the first time but not after a longer delay. The findings indicate that autistic children can provide meaningful and reliable testimony about an event they personally experienced, but several aspects of their memory reports deteriorate over time.

A wealth of research has highlighted the susceptibility of eyewitnesses to verbal influence. However, considerably less attention has been paid to the role of nonverbal influence in police questioning. The purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the extent to which gestures can exert an influence on witnesses and skew their responses when questioned. Study 1 initially investigated this by presenting participants with an on-screen 'police' interviewer who accompanied his questions with gestures conveying either accurate or misleading information about a piece of video footage they had witnessed. Results showed that, for one question in particular, participants' responses concurred with the information conveyed to them in gesture; accurate gestures led more participants to giving correct responses and misleading gestures led more participants to giving fabricated responses. Study 2 built on this by examining whether gestures could also affect the confidence attributed to their responses in order to give insight into whether gestures were knowingly processed for information. It was found that, in some cases, gestures were able to increase confidence in both accurate and misled responses. Study 3 examined participants' awareness of gesture further by studying their attention to gesture during its performance and ability to identify it retrospectively on a recognition task. A new set of questions confirmed that gestures could influence the responses of participants (including those working in the legal profession) and revealed that the influence of gesture appears to be at its strongest when unnoticed by participants. Finally, study 4 considered whether the results of the previous studies could be replicated in a more ecologically valid interview scenario and confirmed that gestures continued to be influential when performed face-to-face. Overall, it was concluded that gestures can impact accurate eyewitness testimony and can be a powerful influential tool in police interviews.

The goal of this paper is to outline the legal and scientific implications of the admissibility standard defined in Daubert v. Merrel Row Pharmeceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993). The evolution of scientific admissibility is discussed. In addition, the author looks at criticisms of Daubert from the legal and psychological literature. Empirical data is presented with respect to judges’ abilities to act as “gate keepers” and jurors’ sensitivity to expert testimony. The author concludes with a discussion of the limitations and implications of this research.

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Eyewitness testimony has as long history in the court system, and is very persuasive to juries. Jurors are hard pressed to ignore a witness' assertion of a perpetrator's identity. However, the juror's perception of eyewitness testimony is problematic as it has been documented as inaccurate and unreliable in numerous experiments. With the advent of DNA testing and efforts such as The Innocence Project, it has become apparent that faulty eyewitness accounts are central to many wrongful convictions. The intent of this thesis was to explore how law enforcement can facilitate more accurate eyewitness accounts via their interview process. Research suggests that a key problem in the current interviewing system is "post-event information," or outside information introduced by leading questions, exposure to police conversations or other witnesses' accounts. This information can contaminate a witness's memories of events and lead them to report things they did not see. The current experiment explores the effects of 1) warning and educating witnesses about suggestibility and 2) interviewing with leading or open-ended questions. Accuracy scores were then compared for each condition. The hope was to gain insight into methods for improving accurate recall of events and reducing memory contamination from "post-event information."

In a large body of research, Elizabeth Loftus (1975) first illuminated major concerns about the inaccuracy of eyewitness accounts. The primary goal of the present research was to test whether training regarding common eyewitness mistakes and witness suggestibility could improve eyewitness accuracy. The experimental group watched a presentation on research conducted by Elizabeth Loftus (1975) on eyewitness testimony and suggestibility during a Psychology course. Afterwards, an actor interrupted the classroom and had a discussion with the teacher. Students were asked a series of questions about the disruption. Some of the questions were leading and suggested certain things about the disruption that were inaccurate. After the misleading questions were asked, students were instructed to write a brief summary of what they saw. One week later, the students were asked direct questions about the disruption. A control group did not receive the presentation on eyewitness testimony, but witnessed the exact same event as the experimental group and followed the same procedure. The results suggest that participants who were trained were not as influenced as participants in the control group. Additionally, students in the control group reported the actor's behavior as more threatening than did the experimental group. This research not only adds to the existing literature, but has the potential to improve current eyewitness identification procedures in order to strengthen our justice system.

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