Interviewing in virtual environments: Towards understanding the impact of rapport-building behaviours and retrieval context on eyewitness memory.

Given the complexities of episodic memory and necessarily social nature of in-person face-to-face interviews, theoretical and evidence-based techniques for collecting episodic information from witnesses, victims, and survivors champion rapport-building. Rapport is believed to reduce some of the social demands of recalling an experienced event in an interview context, potentially increasing cognitive capacity for remembering. Cognitive and social benefits have also emerged in remote interview contexts with reduced anxiety and social pressure contributing to improved performance. Here, we investigated episodic memory in mock-eyewitness interviews conducted in virtual environments (VE) and in-person face-to-face (FtF), where rapport-building behaviours were either present or absent. Main effects revealed when rapport was present and where interviews were conducted in a VE participants recalled more correct event information, made fewer errors and were more accurate. Moreover, participants in the VE plus rapport-building present condition outperformed participants in all other conditions. Feedback indicated both rapport and environment were important for reducing the social demands of a recall interview, towards supporting effortful remembering. Our results add to the emerging literature on the utility of virtual environments as interview spaces and lend further support to the importance of prosocial behaviours in applied contexts.

Police Survey: Procedures and Prevalence of Intoxicated Witnesses and Victims in Sweden / Encuesta policial: procedimientos y prevalencia en testigos y víctimas intoxicados en Suecia

AbstractBackground:Despite the common occurrence of alcohol-related crimes, the Swedish police authority currently lacks national guidelines for dealing with intoxicated victims/witnesses.

Antecedentes: A pesar de que los delitos relacionados con el alcohol son bastante frecuentes, la policía sueca carece en la actualidad de directrices con las que hacer frente a los interrogatorios y entrevistas de víctimas y testigos intoxicados. Método: Esta encuesta trata de explorar los procedimientos de la policía ante personas intoxicadas y comparar los resultados con estadísticas internacionales. Con el fin de facilitar la comparación internacional la encuesta fue ajustada en contenidos a la investigación previa y adaptada al contexto sueco. Se envió una solicitud con un enlace a la encuesta a todas las regiones policiales de Suecia. Resultados: Ciento treinta y tres agentes de policía respondieron que era habitual interactuar con testigos/víctimas intoxicados. Algunos departamentos de policía disponían de directrices locales sobre cómo llevar a cabo entrevistas de investigación con personas intoxicadas pero dependía de cada agente formarse un juicio subjetivo sobre la interacción con estos testigos. Los datos evidenciaron que la alta prevalencia de testigos/víctimas intoxicadas en Suecia es similar a la de Australia, EE. UU. y Reino Unido. Parece que la policía sueca desconoce la investigación sobre cuándo y cómo llevar a cabo entrevistas de investigación con testigos y víctimas intoxicados, un grupo vulnerable. Conclusiones: Se recomienda la colaboración estrecha entre policía e investigadores para crear directrices para la investigación policial con personas intoxicadas.

Supporting older eyewitnesses' episodic memory: the self-administered interview and sketch reinstatement of context.

Environmental support at retrieval improves episodic performance, yet there exists very few empirically evaluated techniques for supporting older witnesses/victims' remembering (>65 years). We investigated two techniques for use in a criminal justice context - the Self-Administered Interview and Sketch Reinstatement of Context. Older adults (N = 134) witnessed an unexpected live event, following which half immediately completed a Self-Administered Interview and half did not (Time 1). All were interviewed 48 h later (Time 2) using one of three face-to-face interview techniques: Sketch Reinstatement of Context, Mental Reinstatement of Context, or no support Control. Those who completed a Self-Administered Interview at Time 1 recalled more correct information at Time 2 irrespective of interview condition and confabulated less. Likewise, participants interviewed using the Sketch Reinstatement of Context technique recalled more correct information and confabulated less, whether they had completed a Self-Administered Interview, or not. However, the Self-Administered Interview + Sketch Reinstatement of Context was the most effective combination, indicating an interaction between stabilising a memory trace quickly and how sketching appears to scaffold memory retrieval during face-to-face interviews.

Conformidade entre testemunhas oculares: efeitos de falsas informações nos relatos criminais / Conformity among eyewitnesses: effect of false information on criminal reports / Conformidad entre testigos oculares: efectos de falsas informaciones en testimonios criminales

Este estudo investigou como informações falsas fornecidas a testemunhas oculares podem afetar a fidedignidade de seus relatos. Os participantes foram divididos em duas condições experimentais. Todos assistiram ao vídeo de um crime e responderam a um questionário sobre informações nele descritas. Em uma condição, os participantes preencheram o questionário individualmente e, em seguida, discutiram suas respostas com um confederado, que fornecia informações falsas ao participante. Após discutirem tais informações, os participantes eram requisitados a fazer um novo relato. Em outra condição, os participantes realizaram todo o procedimento individualmente, sem receberem informações falsas. O número de erros na presença do confederado foi maior quando comparado com a condição sem o confederado. São discutidos possíveis fatores que envolvem a distorção da memória por meio de conformidade, assim como implicações práticas dos resultados encontrados...

The current study investigated how misinformation presented to eyewitnesses can affect the reliability of their reports. An experiment was conducted with 54 participants, divided in two conditions. All participants watched a video of a crime scene, and then answered a questionnaire about the content of the video. In one condition participants filled the questionnaire individually and then discussed their answers with a confederate, instructed to provide misinformation to participants. After the discussion participants were required to provide a new report. In another condition participants made the whole procedure individually, without receiving any misinformation. Mistakes in the presence of the confederate were higher when compared to the condition with no confederate. Potential factors underlying the distortion of memories through conformity, as well as practical implications of the results are discussed...

Este estudio investigó cómo información falsa proporcionada a testigos oculares puede afectar la veracidad de los testimonios. Los participantes fueron divididos en dos condiciones experimentales, y todos asistieron el video de un delito y luego respondieron a un cuestionario sobre la información contenida en el mismo. En un grupo los participantes completaron el cuestionario de forma individual y luego discutieron sus respuestas con un asociado que les proporcionaba informaciones falsas. Después de discutir esas informaciones se les solicitaba hacer un nuevo testimonio. En el otro grupo los participantes realizaron todo el procedimiento individualmente, sin recibir información falsa. El número de errores fue mayor en la presencia del asociado. Se discuten los posibles factores implicados en la distorsión de la memoria mediante la conformidad, así como las implicaciones prácticas de los resultados...

Conformidade entre testemunhas oculares: efeitos de falsas informações nos relatos criminais / Conformity among eyewitnesses: effect of false information on criminal reports / Conformidad entre testigos oculares: efectos de falsas informaciones en testimonios criminales

Este estudo investigou como informações falsas fornecidas a testemunhas oculares podem afetar a fidedignidade de seus relatos. Os participantes foram divididos em duas condições experimentais. Todos assistiram ao vídeo de um crime e responderam a um questionário sobre informações nele descritas. Em uma condição, os participantes preencheram o questionário individualmente e, em seguida, discutiram suas respostas com um confederado, que fornecia informações falsas ao participante. Após discutirem tais informações, os participantes eram requisitados a fazer um novo relato. Em outra condição, os participantes realizaram todo o procedimento individualmente, sem receberem informações falsas. O número de erros na presença do confederado foi maior quando comparado com a condição sem o confederado. São discutidos possíveis fatores que envolvem a distorção da memória por meio de conformidade, assim como implicações práticas dos resultados encontrados.(AU)

The current study investigated how misinformation presented to eyewitnesses can affect the reliability of their reports. An experiment was conducted with 54 participants, divided in two conditions. All participants watched a video of a crime scene, and then answered a questionnaire about the content of the video. In one condition participants filled the questionnaire individually and then discussed their answers with a confederate, instructed to provide misinformation to participants. After the discussion participants were required to provide a new report. In another condition participants made the whole procedure individually, without receiving any misinformation. Mistakes in the presence of the confederate were higher when compared to the condition with no confederate. Potential factors underlying the distortion of memories through conformity, as well as practical implications of the results are discussed.(AU)

Este estudio investigó cómo información falsa proporcionada a testigos oculares puede afectar la veracidad de los testimonios. Los participantes fueron divididos en dos condiciones experimentales, y todos asistieron el video de un delito y luego respondieron a un cuestionario sobre la información contenida en el mismo. En un grupo los participantes completaron el cuestionario de forma individual y luego discutieron sus respuestas con un asociado que les proporcionaba informaciones falsas. Después de discutir esas informaciones se les solicitaba hacer un nuevo testimonio. En el otro grupo los participantes realizaron todo el procedimiento individualmente, sin recibir información falsa. El número de errores fue mayor en la presencia del asociado. Se discuten los posibles factores implicados en la distorsión de la memoria mediante la conformidad, así como las implicaciones prácticas de los resultados.(AU)

What Italian Defense Attorneys Know about Factors Affecting Eyewitness Accuracy: A Comparison with U.S. and Norwegian Samples.

We surveyed 100 Italian defense attorneys about their knowledge and beliefs about factors affecting eyewitness accuracy. The results of similar surveys show that U.S. defense attorneys were significantly more knowledgeable than other legal professionals, including U.S. prosecutors and U.S. and European judges. The present survey of Italian defense attorneys produced similar results. However, the results suggest that the defense attorney's superior performance may be due at least in part to their skepticism of eyewitness testimony rather than their greater knowledge of eyewitness factors.