Perceptions of Credibility for a Memory Report of a Single Versus Repeated Event

Trust but verify: The biasing effects of witness opinions and background knowledge in workplace investigations

INTRODUCTION

A unique feature of workplace investigations is the familiarity that investigators and witnesses have with the factors involved in the adverse incident. Familiarity creates expectations that can shape investigators' and witnesses' assumptions and opinions. The current research examined the biasing effect of non-factual witness claims on investigators' judgments. These claims, which we call 'uncheckable,' included opinions about factors involved in the event and the future. We also examined how participants' a priori knowledge of an employee's history influenced their judgments.

METHOD

This experiment used a 2 (background information: control or unsafe) × 2 (uncheckable content: neutral or unsafe) between-subjects design. Participants were provided with background information about a worker (control or unsafe history) and a witness statement about a workplace event that contained uncheckable claims (neutral or worker as unsafe). We tested how our manipulations biased participants' judgments of: (i) the cause of the event, (ii) the witness's confidence and credibility, and (iii) the diagnosticity of the witness's account. We also tested if biasing background information affected how factual participants found the witness's statement.

RESULTS

Biasing uncheckable information (i.e., opinions) affected participants' judgments of event cause (ηp2 = 0.033) and increased their ratings of witness confidence (ηp2 = 0.074). Biasing background information about a worker affected participants' judgments of the cause of the event (ηp2 = 0.088), the diagnostic value of the witness statement (ηp2 = 0.054), and the number of factual claims in the witness statement, resulting in more uncheckable claims being misclassified as potential facts (ηp2 = 0.18).

CONCLUSION

This experiment demonstrated the significant effect that non-factual witness statements and irrelevant background information can have on the interpretation of evidence and judgments about the cause of events.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

Understanding how contextual information can bias investigative judgment helps workplace investigators manage its influence in their judgment practices.

Perceptions of Allegations of Repeated Victimization: The Roles of Event Frequency, Language Specificity, and Disclosure Delay

Although many forms of victimization are repeated (e.g., domestic violence), we know relatively little about the perceived credibility of adult claimants who allege repeated maltreatment. We examined the effects of Event Frequency (Single vs. Repeated), Language Specificity (Episodic vs. Generic), and Disclosure Delay (Immediate vs. Delayed) on laypersons' perceptions of claimant credibility. Participants (N = 649) read a mock interview transcript and provided subjective ratings (e.g., credibility, likelihood of suspect guilt, claimant responsibility). When the alleged abuse occurred a single time (vs. repeatedly), participants rated the interviewee as less blameworthy but no more (or less) credible. Exploratory findings indicated that female participants viewed the interviewee as more credible and less responsible than did male participants.

Measuring base-rate bias error in workplace safety investigators

INTRODUCTION

This study explored the magnitude of professional industrial investigators' bias to attribute cause to a person more readily than to situational factors (i.e., human error bias). Such biased opinions may relieve companies from responsibilities and liability, as well as compromise efficacy of suggested preventative measures.

METHOD

Professional investigators and undergraduate participants were given a summary of a workplace event and asked to allocate cause to the factors they found causal for the event. The summary was crafted to be objectively balanced in its implication of cause equally between two factors: a worker and a tire. Participants then rated their confidence and the objectivity of their judgment. We then conducted an effect size analysis, which supplemented the findings from our experiment with two previously published research studies that used the same event summary.

RESULTS

Professionals exhibited a human error bias, but nevertheless believed that they were objective and confident in their conclusions. The lay control group also showed this human error bias. These data, along with previous research data, revealed that, given the equivalent investigative circumstances, this bias was significantly larger with the professional investigators, with an effect size of d_unb = 0.97, than the control group with an effect size of only d_unb = 0.32.

CONCLUSIONS

The direction and strength of the human error bias can be quantified, and is shown to be larger in professional investigators compared to lay people.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Understanding the strength and direction of bias is a crucial step in mitigating the effects of the bias. The results of the current research demonstrate that mitigation strategies such as proper investigator training, a strong investigation culture, and standardized techniques, are potentially promising interventions to mitigate human error bias.

Laypeople's perceptions of the effects of event repetition, reporting delay, and emotion on children's and adults' memory

For crimes such as child abuse and family violence, jurors' assessments of memory reports from key witnesses are vital to case outcomes in court. Since jurors are not experts on memory, the present research measured laypeople's (i.e., non-experts') beliefs about how three key factors affect witnesses' memory reports for an experienced event: how frequently an event was experienced (repeated, single), the delay between experiencing and reporting the event, and the emotional valence of the event. Across two studies, lay participants completed an online survey that measured their beliefs about each factor. In Study 1, 51 participants completed a survey about how the three factors affect children's memory. In Study 2, another 51 participants completed a survey about how the three factors affect adult's memory. Across both studies, delays were believed to worsen memory, and emotion was believed to improve memory. Beliefs about single and repeated events showed different patterns across the studies. In Study 1, participants' beliefs about children's memory for repeated experience were variable. In Study 2, participants believed that adults' memory was worse for repeated events than single events. Overall, laypeople demonstrated many accurate beliefs about memory, but showed some confusion about children's memory for repeated events.

The perceived credibility of repeated-event witnesses depends upon their veracity

For repeated crimes like domestic violence and workplace bullying, the primary evidence is often the alleged victim's testimony. Consequently, the perceived credibility of repeated event speakers can be pivotal to legal proceedings. In order to investigate perceptions of truthful and deceptive repeated-event speakers, undergraduate students observed interviews of speakers describing a single occurrence of an event that was either experienced or fabricated either once or multiple times. Some participants additionally read an expert statement on repeated-event memory. The effect of repetition on perceived credibility depended on the speaker's veracity, enhancing the credibility of fabricators but diminishing the credibility of truth-tellers. The expert testimony was found to raise the perceived honesty and cognitive competence of the repeated-event speakers and thus could be a promising mechanism for enhancing perceived credibility in legal proceedings.

Factors influencing the perceived credibility of children alleging physical abuse

Adults' assessments of the credibility of children's reports are affected by factors including the frequency of abuse, reporting delays and the child's age. The present study examined whether similar factors affect the perceived credibility of children reporting physical abuse, which is more common than sexual abuse. Two hundred and eight mock jurors read a simulated transcript of a child reporting physical abuse to police and made credibility ratings. Within each transcript, abuse frequency (once, repeated), reporting timing (recent, delayed), police question type (open, closed) and child age (6 or 10 years) were manipulated. The child was considered more credible when the abuse was only experienced once and reported shortly after it occurred, and when prompted with open questions. The child's age did not affect credibility judgments. Current findings support recommendations to prioritise open questions with children and provide evidence for extension of the benefits of open questions to children's credibility.

Facilitating recall and particularisation of repeated events in adults using a multi-method interviewing format

Reports about repeated experiences tend to include more schematic information than information about specific instances. However, investigators in both forensic and intelligence settings typically seek specific over general information. We tested a multi-method interviewing format (MMIF) to facilitate recall and particularisation of repeated events through the use of the self-generated cues mnemonic, the timeline technique, and follow-up questions. Over separate sessions, 150 adult participants watched four scripted films depicting a series of meetings in which a terrorist group planned attacks and planted explosive devices. For half of our sample, the third witnessed event included two deviations (one new detail and one changed detail). A week later, participants provided their account using the MMIF, the timeline technique with self-generated cues, or a free recall format followed by open-ended questions. As expected, more information was reported overall in the MMIF condition compared to the other format conditions, for two types of details, correct details, and correct gist details. The reporting of internal intrusions was comparable across format conditions. Contrary to hypotheses, the presence of deviations did not benefit recall or source monitoring. Our findings have implications for information elicitation in applied settings and for future research on adults' retrieval of repeated events.

Schema and deviation effects in remembering repeated unfamiliar stories

In today's globalized world, we frequently encounter unfamiliar events that we may have difficulty comprehending - and in turn remembering - due to a lack of appropriate schemata. This research investigated schema effects in a situation where participants established a complex new schema for an unfamiliar type of story through exposure to four variations. We found that immediate recall increased across subsequent stories and that distortions occurred less frequently - participants built on the emerging schema and gradually established representations of parts of the story that were initially transformed. In recall with delays increasing up to 1 month, quantitative measures indicated forgetting while distortions increased. The second focus of this research was on content and order deviation effects on recall. The content deviation, in contrast with previous repeated-event research, was not remembered well and was associated with lower recall; the order deviation had a similar (but expected) effect. We discuss discrepancies between results of this study and previous literature, which had focused on schemata for familiar events, in relation to stages of schema development: it seems that in unfamiliar repeated events, a complex new schema is in the early stages of formation, where the lack of attentional resources limits active processing of deviations.

Cultural Influences on the Development of Children's Memory and Cognition

Memory is socially constructed. The types of information that children pay attention to and remember, as well as how children organize and recall their memories can differ as a function of sociocultural background. This chapter presents an overview of cultural variations on children's memory and cognition. We draw attention to the necessity of conducting controlled experiments to examine cultural differences in the specific processes involved in episodic memory (e.g., encoding, retention, discrimination skills). We highlight potential challenges (e.g., language, measurement equivalence) that researchers need to overcome to conduct valid cross-cultural research. In light of cultural transformations in recent decades, we outline promising avenues for future research as well as the applications of this research to important issues for forensics and immigrants and asylum-seekers.