Repressed Memories (of Sexual Abuse Against Minors) and Statutes of Limitations in Europe: Status Quo and Possible Alternatives.

One of the most heated debates in psychological science concerns the concept of repressed memory. We discuss how the debate on repressed memories continues to surface in legal settings, sometimes even to suggest avenues of legal reform. In the past years, several European countries have extended or abolished the statute of limitations for the prosecution of sexual crimes. Such statutes force legal actions (e.g., prosecution of sexual abuse) to be applied within a certain period of time. One of the reasons for the changes in statutes of limitations concerns the idea of repressed memory. We argue that from a psychological standpoint, these law reforms can be detrimental, particularly when they are done to endorse unfounded psychological theories. The validity of testimonies is compromised many years after the alleged facts, and abolishing the statute of limitations increases the chance that even more (false) recovered memories of abuse might enter the courtroom. We propose solutions to these changes such as establishing an independent expert committee evaluating claims of sexual abuse.

Self-relevance enhances susceptibility to false memory.

Eyewitness testimony serves as important evidence in the legal system. Eyewitnesses of a crime can be either the victims themselves-for whom the experience is highly self-referential-or can be bystanders who witness and thus encode the crime in relation to others. There is a gap in past research investigating whether processing information in relation to oneself versus others would later impact people's suggestibility to misleading information. In two experiments (Ns = 68 and 122) with Dutch and Chinese samples, we assessed whether self-reference of a crime event (i.e., victim vs. bystander) affected their susceptibility to false memory creation. Using a misinformation procedure, we photoshopped half of the participants' photographs into a crime slideshow so that they saw themselves as victims of a nonviolent crime, while others watched the slideshow as mock bystander witnesses. In both experiments, participants displayed a self-enhanced suggestibility effect: Participants who viewed themselves as victims created more false memories after receiving misinformation than those who witnessed the same crime as bystanders. These findings suggest that self-reference might constitute a hitherto new risk factor in the formation of false memories when evaluating eyewitness memory reports.

Diagnosing eyewitness identifications with reaction time­based Concealed Information Test: the effect of viewpoint congruency between test and encoding.

Mistaken eyewitness identifications continue to be a major contributor to miscarriages of justice. Previous experiments have suggested that implicit identification procedures such as the Concealed Information Test (CIT) might be a promising alternative to classic lineups when encoding conditions during the crime were favorable. We tested this idea by manipulating view congruency (frontal vs. profile view) between encoding and test. Participants witnessed a videotaped mock theft that showed the thief and victim almost exclusively from frontal or profile view. At test, viewing angle was either congruent or incongruent with the view during encoding. We tested eyewitness identification with the RT-CIT (N = 74), and with a traditional simultaneous photo lineup (N = 97). The CIT showed strong capacity to diagnose face recognition (d = 0.91 [0.64; 1.18]), but unexpectedly, view congruency did not moderate this effect. View congruency moderated lineup performance for one of the two lineups. Following these unexpected findings, we conducted a replication with a stronger congruency manipulation and larger sample size. CIT (N = 156) showed moderate capacity to diagnose face recognition (d = 0.63 [0.46; 0.80]) and now view congruency did moderate the CIT effect. For lineups (N = 156), view congruency again moderated performance for one of the two lineups. Capacity for diagnosing face recognition was similar for lineups and RT-CIT in our first comparison, but much stronger for lineups in our second comparison. Future experiments might investigate more conditions that affect performance in lineups vs. the RT-CIT differentially.

Alleged false accusations of abuse: characteristics, consequences, and coping.

ABSTRACTWe have very little knowledge about the characteristics and consequences of false abuse accusations. Sixty-one members of a German support organisation for allegedly falsely accused individuals provided information about themselves, the accuser, the accusation, the consequences of the allegation, and their coping strategies. The majority of respondents were male (90%), accused of sexual abuse (89%), and a parent of the accuser (71%). The initial allegations were frequently (72%) associated with the accuser undergoing psychotherapy. The consequences for the accused were psychological, physiological, familial, job-related, personal, and legal in nature. These included a loss of contact (98%), altered family dynamics (92%), depressive symptoms (48%), and problems focussing at work (44%). Eleven accused (18%) faced legal prosecution, but none of them were charged. Frequent strategies to cope with the allegation included contacting the victim support organisation (100%), seeking therapy (51%), contacting counselling centres (43%) and other victim support organisations (23%). Most of the accused felt supported by their environment (84%). Supporting and elaborating upon previous studies, this study exposes the potential consequences of alleged false accusations.

Camera footage and identification testimony undermine the availability of exculpatory alibi evidence.

The present field experiment investigated how alibi witnesses react when confronted with camera footage or identification testimony that incriminates an innocent suspect. Under the pretext of a problem-solving study, pairs of participants (N = 109) and confederates worked on an individual task with a dividing wall obstructing their view of each other. When the mobile phone of the experimenter was missing from an adjacent room at the end of the session, all participants confirmed that the confederate had not left the room. After several days, participants returned to the lab for a second session. They were asked to confirm their corroboration, orally and in writing, after learning that the confederate either had been identified from a photograph or was present on camera footage. A control group received no evidence. In this second session, written (but not oral) alibi corroboration was weaker in the incriminating evidence conditions (47%) than the no-evidence condition (81%), as hypothesized. Unexpectedly, corroboration was equally strong in the camera and identification evidence conditions. As expected, alibi corroboration was stronger in session 1 than in session 2 for both camera (89% and 31-46%) and identification evidence conditions (86% and 31-49%). The current findings provide first evidence that camera footage and eyewitness identification testimony can bear on the availability of exculpatory alibi evidence in court and emphasize the need to document incidents of evidence contamination.

The confidence-accuracy relationship for lineup decisions holds for the Dutch identification procedure.

Post-decision confidence from witnesses who make a positive identification decision can serve as a valuable indicator of identification accuracy under certain conditions. International best-practice guidelines therefore recommend asking witnesses to indicate their confidence following a selection from a lineup. Three experiments that used Dutch identification protocols, however, reported no significant post-decision confidence-accuracy association. To examine this conflict between the international and the Dutch literature, we tested the strength of the post-decision confidence-accuracy relationship for lineups that followed Dutch protocol in two ways: we conducted an experiment and re-analyzed two experiments that implemented Dutch lineup protocols. As expected, the post-decision confidence-accuracy relationship was strong for positive identifications and weak for negative identification decisions in our experiment. The re-analysis of the pre-existing data showed a strong effect for positive identification decisions of participants up to the age of 40 years. For exploratory purposes, we also tested the confidence-accuracy relationship between lineup administrators' perception of witnesses' confidence and eyewitness identification accuracy. In our experiment, the relationship was strong for choosers and weak for nonchoosers. The re-analysis of pre-existing data showed no correlation between confidence and accuracy, unless we excluded adults over 40 of age. We recommend adapting the Dutch identification guidelines to reflect the current and previous findings on the post-decision confidence-accuracy relationship.

Diagnosing eyewitness identifications with reaction time-based concealed information test: the effect of observation time.

Eyewitness identification procedures rely heavily on explicit identification from lineups. Lineups have been criticized because they have a considerable error rate. We tested the potential of implicit identifications in a Concealed Information Test (CIT) as an alternative. Previous experiments have suggested that implicit identification procedures might be suited when viewing conditions were favorable. In two experiments, mock eyewitnesses (Ns = 94, 509) witnessed a videotaped mock theft with longer or shorter observation time. We derived eyewitness identifications either implicitly from CIT reaction times or explicitly from simultaneous photo lineups. In Experiment 2, we also manipulated perpetrator presence. In both experiments, the perpetrator-present CIT showed capacity to diagnose face recognition, with large effect sizes (dE1 = 0.85 [0.51; 1.18]; dE2 = 0.74 [0.52; 0.96]), as expected. Unexpectedly, no moderation by observation time was found. In line with our hypothesis, no CIT effect emerged in the perpetrator-absent condition, indicating the absence of recognition (dE2 = 0.02 [- 0.17; 0.20]). We found no compelling evidence that one method would outperform the other. This work adds to accumulating evidence that suggests that, under favorable viewing conditions and replication provided, the RT-CIT might be diagnostic of facial recognition, for example when witnesses are hesitant of making an explicit identification. Future work might investigate conditions that affect performance in one, but not the other identification method.

Time-of-day effects on eyewitness reports in morning and evening types.

Our performance varies throughout the day as a function of alignment with our circadian rhythms. The current experiment tested whether similar performance patterns can be observed in eyewitness memory performance. One-hundred-and-three morning-type and evening-type participants watched a stimulus event, provided a free report and answered cued questions in the morning and the evening hours, respectively. We expected eyewitness reports to be more detailed and more accurate at participants' circadian peaks than at circadian troughs. Contrary to our predictions, time of testing did not significantly affect quantity and accuracy of eyewitness statements. Future studies might investigate whether matching chronotype with time of day would be beneficial when encoding or retrieval conditions are suboptimal or when eyewitnesses are vulnerable.

Reaction time-based Concealed Information Test in eyewitness identification is moderated by picture similarity but not eyewitness cooperation.

The reaction time-based Concealed Information Test (RT-CIT) has high validity in assessing recognition of critical information. Findings on its usefulness for diagnosing face recognition in eyewitnesses are inconsistent. Experiment 1 (N = 82) tested whether closely matching the faces of the probes and irrelevants, as required for a fair lineup, undermines RT-CIT usefulness. Preregistered Experiments 2a and 2b (Ns = 48), tested the role of eyewitness cooperativeness for RT-CIT validity. All participants watched a mock crime video and then completed an RT-CIT. As expected, the usefulness of the RT-CIT was moderated by picture similarity, with better detection for non-matched faces. Unexpectedly, eyewitness cooperation (conceal vs. reveal recognition), did not affect the validity of the RT-CIT. A large CIT effect observed in Experiment 2b further suggested that-even with matched faces-the RT-CIT might be of use when encoding conditions during the crime were favorable. Cases in which witnesses are unwilling or afraid to make an explicit identification might concern another possible application.

Teaching psychology students to change (or correct) controversial beliefs about memory works.

Therapists, judges, law enforcement, and students often believe in the existence of automatic and unconscious repression. Such a belief can be perilous as it might lead therapists to suggestively search for repressed memories leading to false memories. Recovering therapy-induced false memories of criminal acts can have serious consequences. Here, we tested whether erroneous beliefs in repressed memories can be corrected. Surveying two cohorts of Forensic and Legal Psychology Master's students, we examined whether education about the science of (eyewitness) memory can correct erroneous beliefs in repressed memories. Students assessed memory statements before taking a course on eyewitness memory, six weeks after the course exam, and 18 or 6 months later, respectively (Ns = 33-74 per cohort and measurement). As expected, students in both cohorts on average initially strongly agreed with the statement that memories of traumatic events can be unconsciously blocked, but strongly disagreed with the statement after the course. Belief-corrections also persisted after the longer delay. These findings show that educating people about the science of (eyewitness) memory can be effective in correcting false and controversial memory beliefs in general and the existence of repressed memories in specific.

Facing stress: No effect of acute stress at encoding or retrieval on face recognition memory.

Eyewitnesses may experience stress during a crime and when attempting to identify the perpetrator subsequently. Laboratory studies can provide insight into how acute stress at encoding and retrieval affects memory performance. However, previous findings exploring this issue have been mixed. Across two preregistered experiments, we examined the effects of stress during encoding and retrieval on face and word recognition performance. We used the Maastricht Acute Stress Test (MAST) to induce stress and verified the success of the stress manipulation with blood pressure measures, salivary cortisol levels, and negative affect scores. To examine differences in stressor timing, participants encoded target faces or words both when confronted with the stressor and during the subsequent cortisol peak and retrieved these stimuli 24 h later. We found neither effects of acute stress on face recognition memory during encoding or retrieval (Experiments 1 and 2), nor effects of encoding stress on word recognition memory (Experiment 2). Bayesian analyses largely provided substantial or strong evidence for the null hypotheses. We emphasize the need for well-powered experiments using contemporary methodology for a more complete understanding of the effect of acute stress on face recognition memory.

The effects of acute stress on eyewitness memory: an integrative review for eyewitness researchers.

The eyewitness and fundamental memory research fields have investigated the effects of acute stress at encoding on memory performance for decades yet results often demonstrate contrasting conclusions. In this review, we first summarise findings on the effects of acute encoding stress on memory performance and discuss how these research fields often come to these diverging findings regarding the effects of encoding stress on memory performance. Next, we critically evaluate methodological choices that underpin these discrepancies, emphasising the strengths and limitations of different stress-memory experiments. Specifically, we elaborate on choice of stressors and stimuli, stress manipulation checks, stressor timing, and the interval between encoding and retrieval and discuss how methodological shortcomings in both the eyewitness and fundamental memory fields have limited our understanding of how encoding stress may affect eyewitness memory performance. Finally, we propose several recommendations for researchers interested in this topic, such as confirming stress inductions with physiological measures, implementing sufficient retrieval intervals to isolate the memory phase of interest and using ecologically valid memory paradigms. We conclude that the best progress can be made if researchers are responsive to the methodologies and findings reported in other research fields and encourage collaborations between the different disciplines.

Mitigating the negative effects of retrieval stress on memory: an arousal reappraisal intervention.

In a preregistered experiment, we examined the efficacy of arousal reappraisal as an intervention for reducing the negative effects of stress at retrieval on memory. Participants (N = 177) were semi-randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a Stress-intervention condition, a Stress-placebo condition, and a No-stress-placebo control condition. Participants viewed four images of complex, mildly negatively valenced scenes. One day later, they received an arousal reappraisal intervention or placebo before exposure to a laboratory stressor (or a control version for the No-stress condition). Participants were then tested on their memory of the images using a free recall instruction and multiple-choice recognition questions. As expected, negative affect and blood pressure increased for the stress conditions but not the control condition. Contrary to our hypotheses, memory performance did not statistically significant differ between the Stress-placebo condition and the No-stress-placebo control condition, indicating a lack of negative effects of acute retrieval stress on memory. Furthermore, we also found no statistically significant differences between the Stress-intervention condition and Stress-placebo condition in terms of memory performance, suggesting that the intervention did not assist with enhancing memory. We integrate interpretations of the findings from this study with a discussion of avenues for future research in this area.

Self-Reported Voluntary Blame-Taking: Kinship Before Friendship and No Effect of Incentives.

Inspired by theories of prosocial behavior, we tested the effect of relationship status and incentives on intended voluntary blame-taking in two experiments (Experiment 2 was pre-registered). Participants (N E1 = 211 and N E2 = 232) imagined a close family member, a close friend, or an acquaintance and read a scenario that described this person committing a minor traffic offense. The person offered either a monetary, social, or no incentive for taking the blame. Participants indicated their willingness to take the blame and reasons for and against blame-taking. Overall, a sizable proportion of participants indicated to be willing to take the blame (E1: 57.8%; E2: 34.9%). Blame-taking rates were higher for family members than close friends or acquaintances in both experiments, as expected. Unexpectedly, there was no difference between a close friend and an acquaintance in Experiment 2. Social incentives did not have an effect on voluntary blame-taking in either experiment. Neither did we find an interaction between relationship status and incentives. The results highlight the importance of kin relationships in the context of voluntary blame-taking.

Eyewitness identification performance is not affected by time-of-day optimality.

The circadian rhythm regulates arousal levels throughout the day and determines optimal periods for engaging in mental activities. Individuals differ in the time of day at which they reach their peak: Morning-type individuals are at their best in the morning and evening types perform better in the evening. Performance in recall and recognition of non-facial stimuli is generally superior at an individual's circadian peak. In two studies (Ns = 103 and 324), we tested the effect of time-of-testing optimality on eyewitness identification performance. Morning- and evening-type participants viewed stimulus films depicting staged crimes and made identification decisions from target-present and target-absent lineups either at their optimal or non-optimal time-of-day. We expected that participants would make more accurate identification decisions and that the confidence-accuracy and decision time-accuracy relationships would be stronger at optimal compared to non-optimal time of day. In Experiment 1, identification accuracy was unexpectedly superior at non-optimal compared to optimal time of day in target-present lineups. In Experiment 2, identification accuracy did not differ between the optimal and non-optimal time of day. Contrary to our expectations, confidence-accuracy relationship was generally stronger at non-optimal compared to optimal time of day. In line with our predictions, non-optimal testing eliminated decision-time-accuracy relationship in Experiment 1.

The effects of stress on eyewitness memory: A survey of memory experts and laypeople.

This survey examined lay and expert beliefs about statements concerning stress effects on (eyewitness) memory. Thirty-seven eyewitness memory experts, 36 fundamental memory experts, and 109 laypeople endorsed, opposed, or selected don't know responses for a range of statements relating to the effects of stress at encoding and retrieval. We examined proportions in each group and differences between groups (eyewitness memory experts vs. fundamental memory experts; experts vs. laypeople) for endorsements (agree vs. disagree) and selections (don't know vs. agree/disagree). High proportions of experts from both research fields agreed that very high levels of stress impair the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. A majority of fundamental experts, but not eyewitness experts, endorsed the idea that stress experienced during encoding can enhance memory. Responses to statements regarding moderating factors such as stressor severity and detail type provided further insight into this discrepancy. Eyewitness memory experts more frequently selected the don't know option for neuroscientific statements regarding stress effects on memory than fundamental memory experts, although don't know selections were substantial among both expert groups. Laypeople's responses to eight of the statements differed statistically from expert answers on topics such as memory in children, in professionals such as police officers, for faces and short crimes, and the existence of repression, providing insight into possible 'commonsense' beliefs on stress effects on memory. Our findings capture the current state of knowledge about stress effects on memory as reflected by sample of experts and laypeople, and highlight areas where further research and consensus would be valuable.

Testing a potential alternative to traditional identification procedures: Reaction time-based concealed information test does not work for lineups with cooperative witnesses.

Direct eyewitness identification is widely used, but prone to error. We tested the validity of indirect eyewitness identification decisions using the reaction time-based concealed information test (CIT) for assessing cooperative eyewitnesses' face memory as an alternative to traditional lineup procedures. In a series of five experiments, a total of 401 mock eyewitnesses watched one of 11 different stimulus events that depicted a breach of law. Eyewitness identifications in the CIT were derived from longer reaction times as compared to well-matched foil faces not encountered before. Across the five experiments, the weighted mean effect size d was 0.14 (95% CI 0.08-0.19). The reaction time-based CIT seems unsuited for testing cooperative eyewitnesses' memory for faces. The careful matching of the faces required for a fair lineup or the lack of intent to deceive may have hampered the diagnosticity of the reaction time-based CIT.

Developmental trends in lineup performance: Adolescents are more prone to innocent bystander misidentifications than children and adults.

We tested developmental trends in eyewitness identification in biased and unbiased lineups. Our main interest was adolescent's lineup performance compared with children and adults. 7-10-year-olds, 11-13-year-olds, 14-16-year-olds, and adults (N = 431) watched a wallet-theft-video and subsequently identified the thief, victim, and witness from simultaneous target-present and target-absent six-person photo lineups. The thief-absent lineup included a bystander previously seen in thief proximity. Research on unconscious transference suggested a selection bias toward the bystander in adults and 11-13-year-olds, but not in younger children. Confirming our hypothesis, adolescents were more prone to bystander bias than all other age groups. This may be due to adolescents making more inferential errors than children, as predicted by fuzzy-trace theory and associative-activation theory, combined with lower inhibition control in adolescents compared with adults. We also replicated a clothing bias for all age groups and age-related performance differences in our unbiased lineups. Consistent with previous findings, participants were generally overconfident in their decisions, even though confidence was a better predictor of accuracy in older compared with younger participants. With this study, we show that adolescents have an increased tendency to misidentify an innocent bystander. Continued efforts are needed to disentangle how adolescents in comparison to other age groups perform in forensically relevant situations.

Showup identification decisions for multiple perpetrator crimes: Testing for sequential dependencies.

Research in perception and recognition demonstrates that a current decision (i) can be influenced by previous ones (i-j), meaning that subsequent responses are not always independent. Experiments 1 and 2 tested whether initial showup identification decisions impact choosing behavior for subsequent showup identification responses. Participants watched a mock crime film involving three perpetrators and later made three showup identification decisions, one showup for each perpetrator. Across both experiments, evidence for sequential dependencies for choosing behavior was not consistently predictable. In Experiment 1, responses on the third, target-present showup assimilated towards previous choosing. In Experiment 2, responses on the second showup contrasted previous choosing regardless of target-presence. Experiment 3 examined whether differences in number of test trials in the eyewitness (vs. basic recognition) paradigm could account for the absence of hypothesized ability to predict patterns of sequential dependencies in Experiments 1 and 2. Sequential dependencies were detected in recognition decisions over many trials, including recognition for faces: the probability of a yes response on the current trial increased if the previous response was also yes (vs. no). However, choosing behavior on previous trials did not predict individual recognition decisions on the current trial. Thus, while sequential dependencies did arise to some extent, results suggest that the integrity of identification and recognition decisions are not likely to be impacted by making multiple decisions in a row.