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We investigated how voluntary confessions, coerced-compliant confessions, and no-confessions influenced guilt assessments in combination with other exculpatory or ambiguous evidence. In three experiments (total N = 808), participants studied case information and provided guilt assessments. As expected, in Experiment 1 and 2a, (i) voluntary confessions to protect a family member elicited stronger guilt attributions than no-confessions and (ii) ambiguous evidence led to stronger guilt attributions than exculpatory evidence. In Experiment 2b, voluntary confessions to protect a group-member (but not to protect a family-member) elicited stronger guilt attributions than no-confessions. Exculpatory eyewitness evidence elicited stronger guilt attributions than exculpatory DNA evidence and participants assigned more weight to exculpatory DNA than eyewitness evidence. Participants were able to discount coerced-compliant confessions when they received information about the interrogations (Experiments 2a/b), but did not consistently consider risk factors for (voluntary) false confessions outside the interrogation room when assessing guilt.

A suspect of a crime can avoid legal repercussions by creating a false alibi. We examined whether creating such a false alibi can have adverse effects on memory. To do so, participants watched a mock crime video and were either instructed to create a false alibi or to provide an honest account for what they actually saw in the video. After a 2-day and 1-month delay, all participants were instructed to come forward with the truth using a free recall task. Participants who initially created a false alibi had more commission errors after a 2-day and 1-month delay (vs. truth telling participants). Moreover, participants who created a false alibi reported fewer correct details after a 2-day and 1-month delay (vs. truth telling participants). Our study suggests that like other types of deception, creating a false alibi can elicit memory undermining effects in the form of commission and omission errors.

Research has consistently shown people predominantly rely on undiagnostic nonverbal cues when detecting deceit, whereas verbal cues are more accurate. In three experiments, we investigated whether the simple instruction not to focus on nonverbal cues would make people focus more on diagnostic verbal cues and hence more accurate in detecting lies. Participants judged the veracity of true and deceptive statements and either received (1) no instruction, (2) the instruction to ignore nonverbal cues, or (3) to ignore nonverbal cues and focus on verbal cues instead. In the second and third experiments, condition 3 was changed to an audio condition in which visual cues were inaccessible. Results showed no effect of instruction on lie detection performance. Overall, we found no evidence that the simple instruction not to focus on nonverbal cues while judging veracity is an effective strategy to make people focus more on verbal cues or to improve lie detection.

In the present study, we used a new approach to establish the smallest effect size of interest (SESOI) for false memory research by asking memory researchers what they considered to be the SESOI in false memory research. They were presented with three hypothetical and three influential paper scenarios. These scenarios depicted studies examining the effects of certain manipulations (e.g., therapy) on false memory formation using well-known false memory paradigms: Deese/Roediger-McDermott, misinformation, and forced fabrication. Subsequently, they were asked for each scenario what they would consider to be the SESOI for practical and theoretical purposes and justify their decisions. We found that there was no clear consensus for the SESOI. However, memory researchers tended to accept smaller SESOIs or "any difference that leads to a p < .05," especially for theoretical ends. We argue that the lack of a general consensus is acceptable as long as proper justification is used. We discuss such rationales and provide recommendations for setting the SESOI.

In the Netherlands, there is currently no quality standard for conducting child forensic interviews in Child Protective Services (CPS) . The lack of such standard causes concern regarding the quality of these interviews, which are used to determine the child's safety and implementing treatment. In the current study, we implemented the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) protocol at Safe Home, the Dutch national reporting agency for child abuse and domestic violence. Professionals at Safe Home received a three-day training in the NICHD protocol with regular follow-up feedback sessions. We compared 38 NICHD interviews with 30 control interviews on variables such as the type of questions asked, number of reported words, and children's mood state. NICHD interviews contained more invitations and fewer suggestive questions compared to non-standardized interviews. Furthermore, children reported more information related to the reported incident when they were interviewed with the NICHD protocol compared to control interviews. After being interviewed, children reported a more positive mood state independent of how they were interviewed (NICHD or control interview). Finally, children interviewed with the NICHD protocol were less likely to succumb to suggestive probes provided after the interview than children in the control group. We argue that child protection professionals need training in an evidence-based interview protocol to improve fact-finding in CPS.

We report on a unique Italian criminal case in which a court ruled that a therapist implanted false memories of abuse in a young girl. Using therapeutic excerpts, we show that the therapist used a multitude of problematic interventions that are all linked to false memory creation. Specifically, an analysis of the therapeutic excerpts showed that across many sessions, the therapist asked highly suggestive questions to the girl, implying that she was abused by her father. In addition, the girl underwent EMDR techniques that have been associated with memory undermining effects. Our analyses showed that although before treatment the girl did not have any recollection of being abused by her father, she gradually started to remember the abuse and identified the father as her abuser during the therapeutic sessions. Our case report clearly shows the danger of suggestive pressure in a therapeutic context causing patients to form false memories of abuse and supports the need to prevent the therapeutic practice of suggestive techniques. ispartof: JOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES vol:67 issue:5 pages:2122-2129 ispartof: location:United States status: published

There is emerging evidence that the performance of risk assessment instruments is weaker when used for clinical decision‐making than for research purposes. For instance, research has found lower agreement between evaluators when the risk assessments are conducted during routine practice. We examined the field interrater reliability of the Short‐Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability: Adolescent Version (START:AV). Clinicians in a Dutch secure youth care facility completed START:AV assessments as part of the treatment routine. Consistent with previous literature, interrater reliability of the items and total scores was lower than previously reported in non‐field studies. Nevertheless, moderate to good interrater reliability was found for final risk judgments on most adverse outcomes. Field studies provide insights into the actual performance of structured risk assessment in real‐world settings, exposing factors that affect reliability. This information is relevant for those who wish to implement structured risk assessment with a level of reliability that is defensible considering the high stakes.

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 handle cases of alleged abuse. Fifty police officers and 23 victim care officers serving the Royal Malaysian Police completed a 20-statement questionnaire assessing beliefs about memory functions and child investigative interviewing. The police sample also read a child sexual abuse case vignette and listed the questions they would ask the alleged victim in an investigative interview. Consistent with findings from other parts of the world, the beliefs of child protection professionals were not always in line with the latest memory research. Directive-type questions were used more than option-posing and suggestive questions. Findings are considered in relation to variations in culture and legal systems.

The current experiments examined the creation of nonbelieved true and false memories after imagining bizarre and familiar actions using the imagination inflation procedure (Goff & Roediger, 1998). In both experiments, participants took part in three sessions. In Session 1, participants had to perform or imagine simple familiar actions (e.g., “stir the water with the spoon”) and bizarre actions (e.g., “balance the spoon on your nose”). A day later, participants needed to imagine simple actions of which some were new actions, and some were old actions that appeared in the first session. After a week, the participants completed a recognition task. For those actions that were correctly or incorrectly remembered as having been performed, the participant was challenged that the action was not performed in order to evoke nonbelieved true and false memories. In general, we found that the imagination inflation procedure can successfully induce participants to produce nonbelieved memories. In Study 1, we successfully induced nonbelieved memories for bizarre actions, although in general nonbelieved memory rates were low. In Study 2, more participants formed nonbelieved memories for bizarre actions than for familiar actions. Also, we found that especially belief was more susceptible to revision when memories were challenged than recollection. In two experiments, we showed that nonbelieved memories can successfully be induced for both familiar and bizarre actions.

The literature on information elicitation in psycholegal settings has predominantly focused on the investigator–interviewee dynamic, with little attention to the environment in which the interview takes place. The present study compared the impact of two interview locations on the disclosure of crime‐related information and perceptions of rapport building. Participants experienced a virtual reality mock crime, and 1 week later were interviewed at either their homes, or a formal room akin to a real‐world police interview room. Participants in the home setting reported feeling more at ease and in control compared to participants interviewed in the formal room. However, we found no differences between conditions on the quantity and quality of information disclosure and participants' perceptions of rapport building. Based on our findings, we found no advantages or disadvantages for conducting witness interviews at their homes. However, these results underscore the practicality of interviewing witnesses outside the police interview room if deemed as more convenient.

Research suggests that both internal (i.e., lying) and external (i.e., misinformation) factors can affect memory for a crime. We aimed to explore the effects of post‐event misinformation on crime‐related amnesia claims. We showed participants a mock crime and asked them to either simulate amnesia (simulators) or confess to it (confessors). Next, some participants were provided with misinformation. Finally, all participants were requested to genuinely recollect the crime. Overall, simulators reported less correct information than confessors. Moreover, these two groups were equally vulnerable to misinformation. In addition, exploratory analyses on strategies adopted by simulators revealed that those who previously, mostly omitted information while simulating amnesia exhibited the lowest amount of correct details. Simulators who instead used a mixed strategy disclosed more fabricated memory errors. Findings suggest that legal professionals and jurors should take into account that even offenders, irrespective of confessing or simulating memory loss for a crime, can be susceptible to post‐event misinformation.

We explored under-reporting of mental health symptoms and its correlates in adults receiving psychological treatment. We administered the Supernormality Scale (SS, Cima et al., 2003), the Minnesota Multiple Personality Inventory-2 (Restructured Form) (MMPI-2, Butcher et al., 1989), the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI, Raskin & Terry, 1979), and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-2, Beck et al., 1996) to 147 patients at the start of their treatment. Supernormality (i.e., denial of common symptoms) was positively associated with MMPI faking good parameters supporting the construct validity of the SS. Narcissism was negatively related to self-reported depression symptoms, but this association failed to reach significance (r = -.15, p = .07). This suggests that patients high on grandiose/overt narcissism might tend to deny common symptoms. The link between supernormality and depression symptoms as measured by the BDI was substantial and negative (r = -0.72). Our data suggest that supernormality is associated with constricted self-reports of depression. Given the clinical relevance of symptom under-reporting, our preliminary findings require a large-scale replication.

The present experiment investigated to what extent providing participants with a model statement influences the ability of the verifiability approach to detect deception. Participants gave a true and false statement about a negative autobiographical event, with half of the participants receiving a detailed model statement just before giving their statement. We expected false statements to include more nonverifiable and less verifiable details than true statements and that providing a model statement would increase these differences. False statements indeed included more nonverifiable details than truthful statements but did not differ in the number of verifiable details. True statements included a higher ratio of verifiable details. The model statement encouraged participants to give a longer and more detailed statement. However, it prompted participants to increase the number of included verifiable-and not nonverifiable-details, regardless of veracity. Using a model statement did not influence the discriminability of the verifiability approach.

A common belief in police officers is that guilty suspects' statements are less consistent than innocent suspects'. This could leave guilty suspects more vulnerable to missing inconsistencies externally induced into their alibis. Source monitoring and cognitive load approaches suggest that untruthfulness rather than guilt should predict proneness to such deception. Manipulating both guilt and truthfulness, we tested these opposing hypotheses. One hundred twenty‐six participants were accused of stealing gift vouchers after wandering about a building. When interviewed several days later, participants rarely detected alterations in their alibi (23–29%). Unexpectedly, for one of three detection measures, untruthful participants detected more manipulations than did truthful participants. Guilt did not moderate detection rates. Manipulations were equally harmful for guilty and innocent suspects, and blindness to the alibi manipulations was not useful for discriminating innocent from guilty suspects. Because blindness effects are easy to elicit in the legal context, techniques that externally induce inconsistencies should be avoided.

Purpose The quality of information obtained from investigative interviews largely relies on the quality of communication between the interviewee and interviewer. One aspect of the communication process that has yet to be well examined is the environment in which the interviews take place. The present study examined the influence of physical spaciousness, manipulated as room size and interpersonal sitting distance between interviewer and interviewee on the disclosure of crime-related information, as well as perceptions of rapport and overall interview experience. Methods Participants engaged in a virtual reality scenario depicting a crime and were interviewed as suspects in either a larger or smaller room, at a closer or larger distance. Results Results showed no links between room size and sitting distance on disclosure rates. However, an exploratory analysis did reveal that participants interviewed in the larger room reported more positive interview experience in terms of spaciousness, and consequently higher perceptions of rapport, compared to those interviewed in the small room. Conclusions We found evidence against an influence of room size and interpersonal distance on disclosure. Still, our study does provide initial evidence that manipulating room size in an interview context could positively impact rapport-building.

Since its introduction into the field of deception detection, the verbal channel has become a rapidly growing area of research. The basic assumption is that liars differ from truth tellers in their verbal behaviour, making it possible to classify them by inspecting their verbal accounts. However, as noted in conferences and in private communication between researchers, the field of verbal lie detection faces several challenges that merit focused attention. The first author therefore proposed a workshop with the mission of promoting solutions for urgent issues in the field. Nine researchers and three practitioners with experience in credibility assessments gathered for 3 days of discussion at Bar-Ilan University (Israel) in the first international verbal lie detection workshop. The primary session of the workshop took place the morning of the first day. In this session, each of the participants had up to 10 min to deliver a brief message, using just one slide. Researchers were asked to answer the question: ‘In your view, what is the most urgent, unsolved question/issue in verbal lie detection?’ Similarly, practitioners were asked: ‘As a practitioner, what question/issue do you wish verbal lie detection research would address?’ The issues raised served as the basis for the discussions that were held throughout the workshop. The current paper first presents the urgent, unsolved issues raised by the workshop group members in the main session, followed by a message to researchers in the field, designed to deliver the insights, decisions, and conclusions resulting from the discussions.

This study compared the Stepwise Interview, Cognitive Interview, and Reality Interview in detecting deception with inmates. The dependent measures were the amount of unique details provided during the free narrative and mnemonics and the number of words provided during the free narrative and mnemonics of each interview. The Stepwise Interview generated 58.3% accuracy, the Cognitive Interview generated 70.0% accuracy, and the Reality Interview generated 93.3% accuracy. The different tasks of these interviews increased the differences between honest and deceptive statements and therefore, increased the accuracy in detection of deception. Differential recall enhancement is used to explain the findings.

The goal of the current study was to investigate individual-level factors associated with job burnout among probation officers (POs) and, specifically, to examine if attitudes toward probationers were linked with job burnout in the context of the recently established probation system in Turkey. Participants (N = 115) were recruited from a probation office in Istanbul. Job burnout was assessed via three components: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and professional accomplishment. Results of structural equation modeling indicated that more favorable attitudes toward probationers were related to a lower sense of depersonalization and higher experience of professional accomplishment. However, POs' attitudes toward probationers were not associated with emotional exhaustion. Our findings are discussed in light of the present empirical literature on the contextual factors influential in job burnout. Practical implications for burnout prevention point to the potential effectiveness of working on attitudes among POs toward the people they supervise., Koç University Seed Grant; Koç University College of Social Sciences and Humanities

© 2018 The British Psychological Society Purpose: Children sometimes receive misinformation after being formally interviewed about their experiences in cases of suspected abuse. Following decades of research, many guidelines have been produced for interviewers so they can obtain reliable statements in children, like, for example, the NICHD protocol. One might expect that completing an early interview following research-based guidelines might guard against the incorporation of misinformation encountered later. The goal of the current experiments was to examine whether following research-based guidelines such as the NICHD protocol might protect child witnesses against follow-up ‘misinformation’ or make them more vulnerable to misinformation. This increased vulnerability to misinformation has been referred to as retrieval-enhanced suggestibility. Methods: In two experiments, children viewed a video and half of them were interviewed using the NICHD protocol, while the other half were not interviewed. The children received misinformation and a final memory test either immediately after being interviewed (Experiment 1) or 1 week later (Experiment 2). Results: Retrieval-enhanced suggestibility was observed when misinformation was presented immediately but not when it was provided after 1 week. Conclusions: The current experiments indicate that a well-established interview protocol can, under some circumstances, amplify levels of suggestibility in children. ispartof: Legal and Criminological Psychology vol:24 issue:1 pages:24-40 status: published

Hand preference may be crucial in the forensic domain, notably in cases where the assailant is known to be left-handed and the defendant claims to be right-handed (or vice versa). In such cases, forensic psychologists or physicians may be asked to test the hand preference of the defendant. However, hand preference may be faked. The case described here illustrates this problem and addresses potential solutions. We also present preliminary data showing that a standard instrument for measuring handedness is sensitive to feigning. We conclude that when hand preference is determined, multiple sources of information should be assessed in order to identify possible feigning.

In this case report, a legal case revolving around the reliability of statements given by a 6-year-old girl is described. She claimed to have witnessed her mother being murdered by her father. Two psychological experts provided diametrically opposed opinions about the reliability of her statements. One expert, a clinician, opined that the girl's statements were based on autosuggestion whereas the other expert, a memory researcher, stated that autosuggestion was unlikely to have played a role. This case and the analysis of the experts' opinions illustrate what may happen when experts in court are unaware of the recent literature on (false) memory. That is, recent studies show that autosuggestion is less likely to occur in young children than in older children and adults. The current case stresses the importance and implications of relying on memory experts in cases concerning the reliability of eyewitness statements.

This chapter compiles the state of the empirical evidence for the effectiveness of treatments for dissociative symptoms in adulthood, and argues for caution when treating dissociative symptoms, as workers in the field have expressed concern that some of these symptoms may arise as a function of the very techniques used to treat them. It reviews in terms of dissociative disorders, as that is the context in which dissociative symptoms are described in the treatment literature. The chapter also examines the admittedly limited evidence for mechanisms of change proposed or implied in the treatments reviewed and evaluates the strength of this evidence. It begins with a review of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) dissociative disorders. The treatment of dissociative disorders has received scant attention, arguably less than any other major diagnostic class in the DSM-5.

Purpose. Current knowledge suggests that the psychopathy construct is multifaceted in nature, and reflects different underlying pathological mechanisms, including neurobiological dysfunction and maladaptive cognitions. Although many contemporary studies focus on neurobiological aspects of psychopathy, few have addressed the maladaptive cognitions.Method. In this study, we examined facets of Hare's psychopathy construct in terms of their associations with maladaptive cognitions, as defined by Young's cognitive theory of Early Maladaptive Schemas (EMS). Personality disordered offenders (N = 124) were assessed with the PCL-R and the Young Schema Questionnaire.Results. The PCL-R Lifestyle and Antisocial Facets were significantly related to EMS Mistrust/Abuse and Insufficient Self-Control, consistent with our hypotheses, and were significantly, but negatively, related to EMS Subjugation. Also as hypothesized, EMS showed no associations with the PCL-R Affective and Interpersonal facets. Contrary to our expectation, EMS did not predict institutional violence.Conclusion. Our findings suggest that schemas relating to mistrust, inadequate self-control/low frustration tolerance, and autonomy/dominance, play a role in the impulsive lifestyle and antisocial behaviour features of psychopathy. Treatments that focus on ameliorating these schemas may lead to better outcomes in psychopathic offenders.

Purpose. The concealed information test (CIT) is a polygraph test that assesses recognition of critical (e.g., crime) information. Laboratory studies showing stronger heart rate deceleration to concealed compared to control information indicate that the orienting response (OR) accounts for responding in the CIT. An important restriction to these findings is that laboratory circumstances impose little or no stress on the examinees, and that under real-life stress defensive responding may occur.Method. To examine the validity of the CIT under realistic stress, we analysed the data from 65 card tests conducted during real-life police polygraph interrogations.Results. Baseline heart rate was higher than that observed in the laboratory, confirming that the situation was stress inducing. As in the laboratory, the concealed cards elicited greater heart rate deceleration compared to the control cards.Conclusions. The data support the OR theory of the CIT under real-life stress.

Undergraduate students were administered the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) and the Structured Inventory of the Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS) and asked to respond honestly, or instructed to feign cognitive dysfunction due to head injury. Before both instruments were administered, symptom-coached feigners were provided with some information about brain injury, while feigners who received a mix of symptom-coaching and test-coaching were given the same information plus advice on how to defeat symptom validity tests. Results show that, although the accuracy of both instruments appears to be somewhat reduced by a mix of symptom coaching and test coaching, the TOMM and SIMS are relatively resistant to different kinds of coaching. ispartof: Journal of Clinical Psychology vol:67 issue:9 pages:850-855 ispartof: location:United States status: published

SUMMARY Relying on a community sample (N ¼80), the present study examined whether memory distrust is related to an increased tendency to accept misinformation and whether it interacts with passage of time. Participants were shown video footage of an armed robbery. Approximately 30minutes later, theywere asked to describe as accurately as possiblewhat theyhad seen. Either 1 day or 2 weeks later they were presented with their own statements, to which five misinformation items had been added. The results showed that people suffering from memory distrust accepted more misinformation than those with optimistic beliefs about their memory. In addition, both age and free recall seemed to modulate this relationship. However, memory evaluation did not interact with time interval. Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Purpose. The current study explored how misleading information affects children's omissions and commissions over time.Method. Fifty-nine younger (Mage 4: 16) and fifty-nine older (Mage 9: 44) children were instructed to remove three pieces of clothing from a puppet. Half of them were provided with false evidence that they had removed only two items, while the other half were provided with false evidence that they had removed a fourth piece of clothing. In three neutral interviews separated by 1-week intervals, children had to report which pieces of clothing they had removed.Results. Overall, omission and commission errors significantly decreased over time, although this pattern was more pronounced for omission errors. Younger and older children were equally likely to make omission errors, whereas commission errors were more typical for younger than for older children. Also, we found that commission errors more readily occur than omission errors.Conclusion. Even when children's memory reports pertain to an event in which they actively participated, misleading information may elicit omission and commission errors, with especially the latter category being very persistent over time.

Purpose. In community-based forensic psychiatry, patients' social ties are considered as protective factor in a risk management strategy. However, it is unknown whether these ties actually assist patients to refrain from re-offending. We hypothesised a protective role for social ties in re-offending behaviour.Methods. In a sample of forensic outpatients with a personality disorder (N = 55), the relationship between social ties (social contacts and participation in social institutions) and short-term self-reported re-offences was studied within a prospective study design with a 6-month follow-up period.Results. Our results provide evidence for a protective function of club participation. For violent re-offences, social institutions were protective and this protective function remained, even when a patient had network members with a criminal background. Except for work-related contacts, social contacts did not provide protection.Conclusions. The protective effect of social ties, especially club participation, on desistance from re-offending in forensic psychiatric patients merits further attention from researchers and clinicians.

Purpose. When people suffer from memory distrust, they evaluate their memory in negative terms. Memory distrust plays an important role in police interrogations because it may underlie false confessions. The Squire Subjective Memory Questionnaire (SSMQ) intends to be a simple measure of trait memory distrust. To our knowledge, no data have been published about the psychometric properties of the SSMQ.Methods. Relying on five samples (Ns = 70-819) of healthy individuals and patients, we studied the psychometric characteristics of the SSMQ. Participants were recruited at the university, a neuropsychological unit or through advertisements in newspapers. They were asked to complete the SSMQ and several other tests. In this way, reliability and validity parameters could be assessed.Results. Principle component analysis showed that the SSMQ has a one-dimensional structure referring to subjective memory evaluation. The SSMQ was found to have adequate reliability and good construct validity. Furthermore, it appears to correlate in a theoretically meaningful way with age and cognitive failures.Conclusions. All together, the SSMQ is a psychometrically sound screening tool that can be helpful in assessing subjective memory evaluations in the legal domain. In this way, vulnerable suspects can be identified in an early stage.

Purpose. The Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS; Gudjonsson, 1984, 1997) is a well-established forensic tool for measuring interrogative suggestibility. However, one restriction of this tool is that it requires an extensive testing procedure. The present study examined whether shorter versions of the GSS yield similar results as the original GSS procedure. Methods. One group (N = 20) was given a shortened version of the GSS that consisted of an immediate recall test and the specific questions. GSS scores in this group were compared with those in a group (N = 20) that had the standard procedure which includes a retention interval and immediate and delayed recall tests. A third group (N = 20) was administered a shortened procedure in which the 20 GSS questions immediately followed the GSS story. In the fourth group (N = 20), participants were given the retention interval, but no recall tests were administered. Results. ANOVA showed no differences in GSS scores amongst the four groups. Post hoc power analyses indicated that these non-significant findings were not the result of a power problem and that larger sample sizes are expected to yield comparable results. Further analyses showed that neither the retention delay nor the recall tests affected suggestibility scores. Conclusions. These results suggest that shortened procedures for administering the GSS may be employed in situations where time is a key factor.

This study examined whether prevalence information promotes children's false memories for an implausible event. Forty-four 7-8 and forty-seven 11-12 year old children heard a true narrative about their first school day and a false narrative about either an implausible event (abducted by a UFO) or a plausible event (almost choking on a candy). Moreover, half of the children in each condition received prevalence information in the form of a false newspaper article while listening to the narratives. Across two interviews, children were asked to report everything they remembered about the events. In both age groups, plausible and implausible events were equally likely to give rise to false memories. Prevalence information increased the number of false memories in 7-8 year olds, but not in 11-12 year olds at Interview 1. Our findings demonstrate that young children can easily develop false memories of a highly implausible event. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Recent research on recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse has shown that there are at least two types of recovered memory experiences: those that are gradually recovered within the context of suggestive therapy and those that are spontaneously recovered, without extensive prompting or explicit attempts to reconstruct the past. By focusing on well-known imperfections of human memory, we were able to find differing origins for these recovered memory experiences, with people recovering memories through suggestive therapy being more prone to forming false memories, and with people reporting spontaneously recovered memories being more prone to forgetting prior incidences of remembering. Moreover, the two types of recovered memory reports are associated with differences in corroborative evidence, suggesting that memories recovered spontaneously, outside of suggestive therapy, are more likely to correspond to genuine abuse events. In this paper, we summarize recent research on recovered memories and we argue that these scientific findings should be applied in the justice system, but also in clinical practice.

The current research addresses the psychometric and diagnostic qualities of the Supernormality Scale-Revised (SS-R), a self-report measurement. Supernormality is defined as the tendency to systematically deny the presence of common symptoms (e.g., intrusive thoughts). In study 1, the SS-R was administered to forensic patients (n = 63), psychiatric patients (n = 26), honestly responding students (n = 26), and students instructed to fake supernormality (n = 20). Findings indicated good test-retest stability, and adequate internal consistency. Furthermore, the SS-R showed overall good predictive and convergent validity. Moreover, the diagnostic accuracy was excellent (sensitivity and specificity being 0.80 and 0.92, respectively). In study 2, 115 (healthy) controls and 32 forensic patients completed the SS-R and the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) (J Pers Assess 1996;66:488), an instrument measuring psychopathy. Results showed again that the SS-R is a reliable and valid instrument. However, supernormality was not related to psychopathy as measured by the PPI.

An advantage of the concealed information polygraph test (CIT) is that its false positive rate is determined on statistical grounds, and can be set a priori at arbitrary low levels (i.e., few innocents declared guilty). This criterion, however, inevitably leads to a loss of sensitivity (i.e., more guilty suspects declared innocent). We explored whether the sensitivity of a CIT procedure could be increased by adding an independent measure that is based on an entirely different psychological mechanism. In two experiments, we explored whether the accuracy of a CIT procedure could be increased by adding Symptom Validity Testing (SVT), a relatively simple, forced-choice, self-report procedure that has previously been used to detect malingering in various contexts. Results of a feigned amnesia experiment but not from a mock crime experiment showed that a combination measure of both tests yielded better detection than either test alone.

This study explored the memory conformity effect in children. Younger (6–7 years; n = 60) and older (11–12 years; n = 62) children watched a video individually (individual witness condition) or in dyads (co-witness condition). The dyads believed that they were viewing the same video as the other member of the pair while in fact the saw different versions. Next, children in the individual witness condition answered questions, whereas children in the co-witness condition discussed the event on the video with each other. Finally, all children completed an individual free and cued recall task. In the co-witness condition, more than 60% of the children recalled at least one detail from the alternative video, whereas over 23% of the children in the individual witness condition reported such a detail. Moreover, in free recall—but not in cued recall—the memory conformity effect was stronger for older than for younger children. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The present prospective study examined the predictive validity of the Dutch version of the Psychopathy Check List: Youth Version for disruptive behavior in male adolescents during treatment. The study comprised two samples admitted to different secure treatment institutions in The Netherlands, Jongerenhuis Harreveld (n = 81) and Rentray (n = 66). Overall, the results demonstrate that psychopathy is a significant predictor of institutional disruptive behavior, and physical violence in particular. Furthermore, Hare's traditional Factor 2 was more strongly related to disruptive incidents than Factor 1. By using the recently proposed three- and four-factor models of psychopathy, insight into the pattern of associations between psychopathy dimensions and different types of disruptive behavior was obtained. The antisocial dimension of psychopathy appeared to be more strongly related to severe incidents than the lifestyle dimension. Regression analyses identified significant contributions of the antisocial and lifestyle dimensions to the prediction of incidents. The relatively small degree of variance explained underlines the importance of other risk factors to identify adolescents at risk of disruptive behavior during institutional treatment.

In three studies, we examined memories for previous recall. In Studies 1 and 2, undergraduates were asked whether they had vivid memories about various childhood events. After a one-hour (Study 1) or 2-week (Study 2) interval, they completed a second questionnaire containing new, but also previously presented childhood items. Participants estimated how recently they had thought about old and new items. A non-trivial proportion of recent recalls of vivid childhood memories was dated incorrectly. In Study 3, women with recovered and continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) completed the childhood events questionnaires used in studies 1 and 2. After a one-hour interval, they indicated how recently they had thought about new, but also previously presented childhood items. Compared to women with continuous CSA memories, women with recovered memories underestimated their prior remembering. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A middle-aged man presented with Ganser symptoms. He had been involved in a car crash and was seeking disability insurance benefits. Extensive testing with malinger instruments revealed that he performed below chance on simple memory tests and endorsed a variety of nonexistent symptoms. With this in mind, the authors collected collateral information which showed that the patient was involved in high level sports activities that were difficult to reconcile with the severe cognitive dysfunctions that he claimed to suffer from. The case demonstrates that Ganser-like symptoms deserve close scrutiny, preferably with malinger tests.

What differentiates those who are able to adapt well to adverse life events (i.e., persons who are resilient) from those who are not (e.g., persons who develop post-traumatic stress symptoms)? Previous work suggests that enhanced autobiographical integration of trauma memories is associated with more severe post-traumatic stress symptoms. Extending this line of work, the present study looked at whether the integration of trauma memories, repressive coping and cognitive reactivity are related to post-traumatic stress symptomatology following negative life events among otherwise healthy young adults (N = 213). Results show that while enhanced integration of trauma memories and high levels of dissociation are related to elevated levels of post-traumatic stress, people who generally engage in repressive coping report fewer post-traumatic stress symptoms.

For about 18 months, Ferdinand, 27, and Jane, 22, had had a very problematic relationship. Then, during the first weeks of 2003, Jane decided to put an end to it. Ferdinand said he felt angry and depressed about their relationship breakdown. He phoned and e-mailed Jane, who stayed at her parents, but she didn’t want to talk to him. On 20 February 2003, Ferdinand went to the house where Jane and her parents lived. Later, Ferdinand would say to the police that he went there to return a kitchen knife that Jane once gave him as a birthday present. Ferdinand rang at the door and Jane’s father answered it. He refused to let Ferdinand in. They started an argument, during which Jane’s father allegedly laughed in an arrogant manner. At least that is what Ferdinand said when he was interrogated by the police. Ferdinand got angry–angrier than he had ever been before. He stabbed the father across his neck and body. The father died from the stab wounds. Ferdinand fled the scene and after two days of wandering around he turned himself in to the police. During the interrogations, Ferdinand told the police that he was unable to remember what had happened precisely. He said that he