Legal Psychology

Gerhard OhrbandULIM University, Moldova

5th lectureTestimony assessment

Course structure

Lectures: • 1. Introduction into Legal Psychology – Theories of crime • 2. Correctional treatment• 3. Victimology• 4. Police psychology• 5. Testimony assessment• 6. Criminal responsibility• 7. Judicial judgments• 8. Psychological assessment of families

Course structure

Seminars:9. Eyewitness testimony10. Jury decision-making11. Child abuse12. Prostitution13. Rape14. Tax evasion15. Stereotypes and prejudices in the law system

• Competence to testify• Credibility assessment• Criteria-based content analysis• Effects of interviewer preconceptions on questioning

behavior and hypothesis testing in interviews• Suggestion• Testimony about traumatic experiences• Nonverbal indicators of deception• Psychophysiological assessment of testimony• Neuropsychological aspects of credibility assessments• Person identification

Content

1. Competence to testify

Basic requirements Forensic interview situation

-Adequate situation perception-Storage over a long time-frame-Adequate source-monitoring-Mostly independent retrieval

Capacity to produce description understandle for others-Linguistic expressive capacity-Existence of control instances against suggestive influences-Relevent communicative competences

What about small children?What about individuals with reduced intellectual capacitites?

2. Credibility assessment

Three domains of evaluation and analysis:

• Analysis of the testimony’s personality

• Analysis of the testimony’s genesis

• Analysis of the testimony’s quality

3. Criteria-based content analysis

Cognitive aspect Strategical aspect

Non-motivational features Motivation-related features

Concrete testimony elements

Contextual framework, interactions, conversations, story complications, unusual, unimportant, not understood, complicated, effects

Spontaneous corrections, admission of lacunes and insecurities, struggle to remember, control with reality, self-accusations

Entire testimony Degree of details, logical consistency, unstructred presentation, spontaneous correctibility

Beyond the testimony Constancy of the testimony, can be further completed

4. Effects of interviewer preconceptions on questioning behavior and hypothesis testing in

interviews

Distortions of cognitive processes:• Over-estimation of the hypothesis’ a priori

probability• Selective encoding and selective retrieval

of informational material congruent with the hypothesis

• Interpretation of unclear information in consistency with the hypothesis

• Affirmation bias

5. Suggestion

• False information effects

• Pseudo memories

Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS; Gudjonsson, 1997)

• The only validated instrument to assess interrogative suggestibility

• Frequently used in the assessment of whether people with intellectual disabilities have the capacity to testify in court

• Procedure: asking respondents to recall a short story, using leading questions and pressure to change their responses

• Using the GSS, people with intellectual disabilites appear highly suggestible, relative to the general population.

• Discussion: Why is that so?

Extracts of the GSS2

Extract

… they saw a small boy / going down a steep slope / on a bicycle / and calling for help. / Anna and John ran after the boy / and John caught hold of the bicycle / and brought it to a halt. / The boy appeared very frightened / but unhurt / … Anna and John recognized the boy / whose name was William.

Examples of leading questions

Did the boy on the bicycle pass a stop sign or traffic lights?

Did the boy drop the books he was carrying whilst riding the bicycle?

Was Anna worried that the boy might be injured?

Did John grab the boy’s arm or shoulder?

6. Testimony about traumatic experiences

• Definition 1: Trauma memories are memories about an especially traumatic experience

• Definition 2: Trauma memories are memories of an event which lead to PTSD.

• Psychological process: dissociation and repression

• Neurobiological processes

7. Nonverbal indicators of deception – theoretical assumptions

Behavior Stress/arousal

Fear Guilt Control Cognitive workload/working memory

Lay presumptions

Nonverbal behavior in the head region

Blinking > > ? ? ? >

Eye contact ? < < > < <

Averting gaze ? > > < > >

Head movements > > < < < >

Nodding > < </> ?/> ? >

Smiling ? < </> ?/> < ?

Nonverbal behavior in the body region

Adaptors > > ? < < >

Hand movements > > ? < < >

Gesticulating ? < < </> < >

Leg/foot movem. > > ? < < >

Body movements > ? ? < ? >

Theoretical assumptions (cont.)Behavior Stress/

arousalFear Guilt Control Cognitive

workloadLay assumptions

Paraverbal behavior

Length of message

? < ? >/< < ?

Number of words

? < ? >/< < ?

Speech rate > > < >/< < >

Filled pauses > > ? < > >

Unfilled pauses

? > ? < > >

Pitch > > ?/< ? ? >

Repetitions ?/> > ? ? > ?

Response latency

?/< ? > < > >

Speech errors > ? ? ?/< > >

Explanations

• > = increases with deception

• < = decreases with deception

• ? = no prediction or unclear prediction

• / = rivaling predictions dependent on different aspects of the theory

Results from meta-analysesVariable Zucker

man & Driver (1985)

DePaulo et. al. (2003)

Sporer & Schwandt (2006, 2007) weighted r

Sporer & Schwandt (2006, 2007) unweighted r

Zuckerman et. al. (1981)

Köhnken (1988)

Nonverbal behavior in the head region

Blinking .24* .03 .00 .00 .32 .53

Eye contact -.01 .00 -.01 -.02 -.45

Averting gaze .01/.03 .03 .02 .53

Head movements -.09 -.01 .06 .05 .29 49

Nodding .00 -.09* -.05

Smiling -.04 .00 -.03 -.07* .15 .23

Nonverbal behavior in the body region

Adaptors .17** .08* .02 .07** .84 .79

Hand movements .00 -.19** -.18**

Gesticulating -.06 -.07* .02 .02 .10 .58

Leg/foot movem. -.01 -.04 -.07* -.05 .67 .56

Body movements -.01 .02 .01 .03 .56 .66

Results from meta-analyses (cont.)Variable Zuckerma

n & Driver (1985)

DePaulo et. al. (2003)

Sporer & Schwandt (2006, 2007) weighted r

Sporer & Schwandt (2006, 2007) unweighted r

Zuckerman et. al. (1981)

Köhnken (1988)

Paraverbal behavior

Length of message

-.09* -.01 -.04 -.06 .22 .15

Number of words

-.01 -.01 .01

Speech rate -.03 0.03 .01 .01 .56 .65

Filled pauses .26** .00 .04 .03 .54

Unfilled pauses

.00 -.02 .02

Pitch .32* .10* 10* .13* .43

Repetitions .10* .08 .11 .77

Response latency

-.01 .01 .11** .09** .32 .79

Speech errors .11* .00 .04 .06* .72 .70

8. Psychophysiological assessment of testimony

• Indirect methods (deed knowledge technique; also Concealed information Test) – tests if a person has specific information which only a participant could have; tests presence or absence of a differential physiological reaction

• Direct methods (control questions techniques) – direct questions on the deed

9. Neuropsychological aspects of credibiliy assessment

Forms of false memory (Brainerd & Reyna, 2005)• Semantic intrusion in list recall• Semantic false alarms in list recognition• False memory for semantic inferences• Suggestibility of eyewitness memory• False identification of criminal suspects• False memory for schema-consistent events• False memory in reality monitoring• False memory from reasoning• Autobiographical false memory

10. Person identification

• Performance vs. motivation

• Motivational or social factors influences the tendency to choose someone from a lineup

• Cognitive and memory factors the accuracy of the decision

Literature

• Ask, K. & Granhag, P.A. (2005). Motivational sources of confirmation bias in criminal investigations: The need of cognitive closure. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 2, 43-63.

• Vrij, A. (2005). Criteria-Based-Content Analysis: A qualitative review of the first 37 studies. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 11 (1), 3-41.

• Sporer, S.L. (2001). Recognizing faces of other ethnic groups: An integration of theories. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 7, 36-97.

• Steblay, N.M. (1997). Social influence in eyewitness recall: a meta-analytic review of lineup instruction effects. Law and Human Behavior, 21, 283-297.