The past two decades has seen a plethora of papers and academic research conducted on investigative interviews with victims, witnesses and suspected offenders, with a particular focus on questioning techniques and typologies. However, despite this research, there still remain significant discrepancies amongst academic researchers and practitioners over how best to describe types of questions. This article considers the available literature relating to interviews with children and adults from both a psychological and linguistic perspective. In particular, we examine how different types of questions are described, and explore the discrepancies between competing definitions. © 2010, equinox publishing.

The question of question types in police interviews: A review of the literature from a psychological and linguistic perspective

Can purely psychological trauma lead to a complete blockage of autobiographical memories? This long-standing question about the existence of repressed memories has been at the heart of one of the most heated debates in modern psychology. These so-called memory wars originated in the 1990s, and many scholars have assumed that they are over. We demonstrate that this assumption is incorrect and that the controversial issue of repressed memories is alive and well and may even be on the rise. We review converging research and data from legal cases indicating that the topic of repressed memories remains active in clinical, legal, and academic settings. We show that the belief in repressed memories occurs on a nontrivial scale (58%) and appears to have increased among clinical psychologists since the 1990s. We also demonstrate that the scientifically controversial concept of dissociative amnesia, which we argue is a substitute term for memory repression, has gained in popularity. Finally, we review work on the adverse side effects of certain psychotherapeutic techniques, some of which may be linked to the recovery of repressed memories. The memory wars have not vanished. They have continued to endure and contribute to potentially damaging consequences in clinical, legal, and academic contexts.

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The Return of the Repressed: The Persistent and Problematic Claims of Long-Forgotten Trauma:

Introduction and Aim: Due to the negative psychological impact of criminal victimization, an appropriate treatment of crime victims by professionals in the legal system is crucial for victims’ well-being and long-term recovery. A prerequisite for appropriate treatment is that professionals are equipped with accurate beliefs about crime victims. The present study sought to assess the existing beliefs. Method: A survey addressing beliefs about the behaviors and reactions of victims of violent crimes was conducted via web-based and mail questionnaires. In total, 211 police officers and 190 prosecutors in Sweden responded to the survey. Results: There were considerable differences in the expected behavioral display of different types of crime victims, with rape and domestic assault victims seen as particularly prone to expressive self-presentation and self-blame. Despite empirical evidence showing otherwise, most respondents thought that crime victims’ nonverbal and emotional expression is related to the truthfulness of their accounts. However, educational efforts appeared to have a corrective influence on such beliefs. The perceived prevalence of false reports differed across crime types, with rape and mugging receiving particularly high estimates. Police officers believed false reports to be more common than did prosecutors. Time constraints were seen, especially by prosecutors, as an impediment to appropriate treatment of crime victims. Conclusions: Although some reported beliefs were at odds with established research, respondents rightly acknowledged the fact that different types of crime victims may behave differently. Furthermore, educational efforts appear to be effective in tackling inaccurate beliefs. Potential explanations for occupational differences and limitations associated with the survey methodology are discussed.

A survey of police officers’ and prosecutors’ beliefs about crime victim behaviors

What does science tell us about memory phenomena such as false and repressed memories? This issue is highly pressing as incorrect knowledge about these memory phenomena might contribute to egregious effects in the courtroom such as false accusations of abuse. In the current article, we provide a succinct review of the scientific nature of false and repressed memories. We demonstrate that research has shown that about 30% of tested subjects formed false memories of autobiographical experiences. Furthermore, this empirical work has also revealed that such false memories can even be implanted for negative events and events that allegedly occurred repeatedly. Concerning the controversial topic of repressed memories, we show that plausible alternative explanations exist for why people claim to have forgotten traumatic experiences; explanations that do not require special memory mechanisms such as the unconscious blockage of traumatic memories. Finally, we demonstrate that people continue to believe that unconscious repression of traumatic incidents can exist. Disseminating scientifically articulated knowledge on the functioning of memory to contexts such as the courtroom is necessary as to prevent the occurrence of false accusations and miscarriages of justice.

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What science tells us about false and repressed memories

Recovered memories of abuse in therapy are especially controversial if the clients were not aware they were abused before therapy. In the past, such memory recovery has led to legal action, as well...

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Reports of recovered memories of childhood abuse in therapy in France.

One of the most debated issues in relation to child sexual abuse (CSA) is whether there should be a limitation period for prosecutions. In 2017 a French ministerial report was released proposing extension of the limitation period in part because of the sometimes long delay between the alleged events and the disclosure of the abuse. For this, the report relied on dissociative amnesia. It also advocated for the development of child victim interview protocols by victim associations. We show that dissociative amnesia is not consensual within the scientific community. Instead, we recommend scientifically reliable cognitive principles to explain the lack of memory. Moreover, interviewing techniques for children have already been designed by memory researchers to enhance recall and report of CSA, from which any uncontrolled deviation might put the child's testimony at risk. We conclude by advocating for the use of evidence-based psychology, and for co-operation between practitioners, judges and researchers.

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When psychological science fails to be heard: the lack of evidence-based arguments in a ministerial report on child sexual abuse.

Baselining Affects the Production of Deceptive Narratives.

Controlled studies have demonstrated that guilt-presumptive questions usually accompany interviewer guilt bias and accusatory behaviours towards a suspect. When evaluating police-suspect interviews, however, conventional methods primarily focus on the appropriateness of questions, and guilt-presumption is not featured as a questioning strategy. Instead, guilt-presumptive utterances are aggregated with other types of inappropriate opinion statements. There is often more happening within an interview than is immediately identifiable by simply focusing on question types. Examining the interactivity and behaviours that lead to accusations can reveal subtleties that have a profound influence on the flow and outcome of the interview. To demonstrate this, we analysed six interviews from a single Dutch murder investigation for guilt-presumptive language (accusations and insinuations of guilt) and question appropriateness. We then analysed the police-suspect interactions within the interview that occurred prior to, and immediately after the guilt-presumptive language was used. The findings demonstrated that accusations prompted suspect denials, facilitated a drastic decline in suspect cooperation, and impeded the ability for interviewers to gain investigation relevant information (IRI). We argue that more applied research on guilt-presumptive language is needed in the investigative interviewing literature, particularly in the context of biased decision-making regarding questioning strategies.

Detecting Guilt Presumption in a Police-Suspect Interview: An Evaluation of the Questions in a Dutch Murder Case

Keyboard dynamics discrepancies between baseline and deceptive eyewitness narratives

We examined the knowledge of law enforcement officers regarding memory by conducting two levels of analysis. First, we compared memory-related knowledge and erroneous beliefs of officers (n = 200) and lay people (n = 403) and found similar low scores of knowledge across both groups as well as a greater number of erroneous beliefs among law enforcement officers. Second, we compared knowledge and erroneous beliefs of officers who had undergone training in investigative interviewing (n = 41) with those of their untrained counterparts (n = 159). Similar low scores in knowledge and false beliefs were found. However, when comparing officers who reported conducting five or more interviews per month (n = 82) to officers who reported conducting zero interviews per month (n = 43), we found that the first group expressed more erroneous beliefs. The results are discussed in line with previous research, in particular, studies on investigative interview practices.

http://proust.ui.ac.id/index.php/journal/article/download/49/Dodier%20et%20al.%20%282019%29%20-%20Professional%20Experience%20in%20Investigative%20Interviewing

Frédéric Tomas

Papers

When psychological science fails to be heard: the lack of evidence-based arguments in a ministerial report on child sexual abuse.

Baselining Affects the Production of Deceptive Narratives.

Detecting Guilt Presumption in a Police-Suspect Interview: An Evaluation of the Questions in a Dutch Murder Case

Keyboard dynamics discrepancies between baseline and deceptive eyewitness narratives

Professional Experience in Investigative Interviewing Does Not Guarantee Strong Knowledge about Memory