Technology-mediated interviews are a promising supplement to in-person interviews for questioning eyewitnesses. We sought to develop and test a virtual self-administered memory-elicitation procedure--The Virtual Memory Assistance Tool (VMAT). The VMAT is a web-based memory retrieval tool designed around the principles of the Cognitive Interview.…

In existing studies of investigative interviewing, the effects of interviewing contexts have often been measured with little consideration of the reciprocal interviewee's stable characteristics. To clarify the factors and conditions under which adults are likely to retain accurate information and be resistant (or vulnerable) to suggestions during…

Witnessing or experiencing a crime can be emotionally distressing and this emotional reaction can affect the formation and retrieval of event-related memory. Extant eyewitness research, however, has generated inconsistent conclusions regarding the effects of emotional arousal on eyewitness memory. In the planned study, we will use a mock witness…

This paper provides a historical review of the interview research that has been used by science educators to investigate children's basic astronomy knowledge. A wide range of strategies have been developed over the last 120 years or so as successive teams of researchers have endeavoured to overcome the methodological difficulties that have arisen.…

The self-administered interview (SAI©) is a booklet in which eyewitnesses write down their memories of an incident without assistance. The SAI can gather a significant amount of eyewitness information, and completing the SAI soon after witnessing an event can improve later recall. This study aimed to reveal the factor of effectiveness of the SAI…

Missing body homicide cases have gained public interest globally due to some high-profile cases. In many of these cases, the task of locating the victim's remains relies on the information investigators can gain through the interviewing of willing suspects. To date, investigative interviewing research has largely focused on the retrieval of…

This research started as an effort to recover lost childhood memories. I (Emilio Bassail) used the film-making apparatus as a device that allowed me to excavate, elaborate and produce representations based on the small fragments of memory I had left. After creating an archive of reconstructed memories, I started questioning the images I had…

The typical misinformation effect shows that accuracy is lower for details about which people received misleading compared to non-misleading (control) information. In two experiments, we examined the misinformation effect for non-witnessed details (i.e., absent). Three question types introduced control, misleading, and absent details (closed,…

This research is based on 28 in-depth interviews with Kenya-based journalists who report terrorism. The objective of the research was to recount their lived experiences. The theme of safety of journalists comprised psychological and physical safety of the newspeople, and there were various ways in which the psychological and individual safety of…

Recurring forms of abuse like domestic violence are unfortunately common. When an individual makes an allegation about their experience, however, there is rarely additional evidence to corroborate their claim. The veracity of the allegation is thus likely to be a central concern in subsequent proceedings. This experiment explored evaluator's…

Averting gaze from another person's face generally improves cognitive performance, yet, little is known about how witnesses' gaze direction affects their recall during investigative interviews. Here, participants witnessed a video-recorded incident, and were interviewed via free recall and closed questions following a short delay. In Experiment 1,…

We experimentally investigated how different mnemonic techniques employed in an interview conducted immediately after an event affected truth tellers' and liars' responses when they were interviewed again after a 2-week delay. We also compared how verbal accounts changed over time within truth tellers and liars, and how consistent both groups…

Intoxicated witnesses are common, making it important to understand alcohol's impact on witness accuracy and suggestibility. Participants assigned to an immediate retrieval condition encoded and recalled in one of the three intoxication conditions: sober control, placebo, or intoxicated. Participants in the delayed retrieval condition were…

Investigators sometimes use timelines (visual depictions of time) to help children identify temporal information from experienced events or details from a particular instance of a repeated event. However, little is actually known about the efficacy of this visual aid on children's memories. Six- to 9-year-olds participated in four occurrences of a…

Years of psychological research has demonstrated that the use of investigative interviewing methods based on up-to-date scientific evidence is important to ensure the reliability of child witnesses' statements. Ideally, professionals working with children are equipped with knowledge of memory functioning, as erroneous beliefs may impact how they…