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Psyc2011 notes

Lecture 1 Munsterberg -

Eyewitness/false confessions Law has a problem, psychology has a solution

Wigmore -

Psychology is too new and cannot fix

Psychology roles in criminal justice system Social Academia -

Jury decision making Witness credibility Interrogations

Trial consulting Policy -

Biases and influences Confessions and interrogations

Development Academia -

Child testimony Decision making (juvenile offenders)

Consulting – children/adolescents Child cases (maltreatment/divorce)

Cognitive Academia -

Eyewitness testimony

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False memories Detecting deception Confessions/interrogations Cognitive bias Jury decision making

Policy/consulting/expert witnesses etc.

Clinical -

Prison, mental hospitals, court services Academia Psychopathy Risk assessment Court assessment Treatment/rehabilitation

Lecture 2 – interrogations & false confessions Laws on interrogation Miranda v. Arizona -

Right to remain silent Information you provide may be used against you in court Right to attorney present Right to government issued attorney if cannot afford one.

Invoking Miranda rights Interrogation MUST stop -

If they invoke the right to remain silent If they request attorney Confer and can have attorney present during interrogation

Waiving Miranda Studies show: -

80-85% of adults waive Innocent and juveniles especially likely (95-100% waive) Must be waived “voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently before interrogation can commence”

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Otherwise, confession is inadmissible

Issues -

Defendant must be able to read and understand Miranda (miranda warnings can be complex Understanding may be limited for: mentally ill, cognitive capacity, youth

False convictions -

eyewitness misidentification bad science/biases false confessions

interrogation tactics – Reid technique vs peace Reid technique (1962) – 9 steps STAGE 1

STAGE 2

STAGE 3 STAGE 4 STAGE 5 STAGE 6 STAGE 7

STAGE 8 STAGE 9

           

confront suspect with guilt repeat several times look for signs of deception minimise suspect’s guilt show sympathy gain trust interrupt all statements of denial overcome suspect’s objections do not lose suspects attention show sympathy urge suspect to tell truth offer two guilty alternatives - angry and couldn’t take it - accident and lost control  get suspect to provide details of crime  get written and signed confession - error insertion trick

Involves both: maximisation – scare tactics to motivate suspect to confess, and minimisation – allows suspect to save face

Maximisation in reid technique: -

interrupting denials overstating case false evidence ploys

minimisation in Reid technique: -

moral excuse legal excuse

potential for error (HUGE) -

misclassification error: misclassify innocent suspect as guilt coercion error: coerce person into confession contamination error: suggest details to suspect

coercion error: -

maximisation and minimisation false evidence food, water, sleep and bathroom deprivation threats of harm can become physical aim is to convince suspect to convince

contamination error: -

leading questions play on suspects memory show crime scene and/or photos rely on media facts error insertion trick

Kassin & Kiechel (1996) -

1 subject, 1 confederate Confederate says letters, subject types them in Subject told if they hit the ALT key it will nullify the experiment Fast paced or slow paces, either way computer crashes 60 seconds in Accusation: did you hit the alt key? – COMPLIANCE Waiting room: talk with second confederate who heard everything – INTERNALISATION Confabulation (tell us what happened): memory error, 100% believed they hit the key even though they didn’t

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Compliance pretty high, particularly in fast paced test and extremely high with a witness present Confabulation is not present with no witness, but present in both slow and fast paced when a witness was there Internalization present in both fast paced, and with a witness both slow and fast paced

Nash and Wade (2009) -

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Simulated money task- required them to be truthful when taking money from the “bank” Waited 2-3 hours after experiment Accusation – something along the lines of “you took money from the bank when you weren’t supposed to and now your results are null and you will not get compensation for time and money” Waiting room – speak with a confederate Confabulation – asked to describe how error occurred. People explain a situation that didn’t occur due to complete memory error Internalisation occurs at a high rate Compliance 100% for both shown (1st request) and told video (for 2nd request)

Individual (or person) factors -

Youth Mental illness Cognitive impairment Temporary impairment (sleep deprivation, intoxication Personality characteristics (suggestible and compliant)

Sleep and the cognitive reflection test -

Instructions/warning Task Sleep 8 hours OR stay awake overnight Accusation People who were deprived of sleep had a much higher chance to sign a false admission of confession (Frenda, Berkowitz, Loftus, Fenn) People with medium or high impulsive cognitive style more likely to be impacted by sleep deprivation

Situational factors: -

Presentation of false evidence Minimisation of guilt (9x more likely false confession) Length of interrogation – avg 2 hours/max 4 hrs Police brutality/force

Proving a confession is false -

DNA establishes innocence Confessed crime did not occur Physically impossible to commit crime True perpetrator confesses Avg. for 125 False confessions = 16.3 hours

Issues with false confessions -

Jury/police cannot tell true confession from false confession Confessions are convincing – who would confess if they didn’t do it?

Preventing FC’s -

Must have evidence to interrogate Trained on failure to detect deception Limit lengths of interrogations Ban certain types of deception Better techniques Do not feed suspect info (contamination) Record entire conversation

PEACE tactic -

Preparation and Planning Engage and Explain Account, Clarify and Challenge Closure Evaluation

Lecture 3: PSYCHOPATHY Psychopathy -

Grandiosity Arrogance Enduring lack of remorse and callousness

The Mask of Sanity (1941) -

Psychopath talks entertainingly, is brilliant and charming but deep down heaps dangerous. Superficial charm Average to above average intelligence Usually impress others as friendly, outgoing, likeable, alert Appear well educated and knowledgeable Verbally skilful Not seemed to be plagued with mental disorders Lack symptoms of excessive worry and anxiety Selfishness and inability to love or give affection to others Pathological liars Unreliable, irresponsible, unpredictable Highly impulsive Lack genuine humour and ability to lol at themselves

Antisocial personality Disorder -

Pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood (1994) Similar to psychopathy, but broader. Psychopathy has specific measurable cognitive, emotional, and neuropsychological difference.

Robert Hare – PCL-R (psychopathy check list – revised) -

20 items that characterise psychopathy Scores out of 40, with different countries defining psychopathy as different scores.

Cooke, Michie, Skeem (2007) Three factors of psychopathy -

Arrogant and deceitful interpersonal style Deficient affective experience Impulsive and irresponsible behavioural style

Patrick et al., (2009) Triarchic model of psychopathy -

Disinhibition Meanness Boldness

Types of tests we use -

PCL -R: Robert Hare Cooke et al’s 3 factor scale Triarchic psychopathy measure – Patrick et al Psychopathic personality inventory R

Callous & unemotional traits -

Lack of remorse and guilt Lack of empathy Shallow affect Manipulation of others for own gain Sense of being more important than others

Low callous-unemotional traits -

Often aggress when feel under threat Feel bad about hurting others Can have high levels of anxiety

High callous-unemotional traits -

Engage in proactive aggression Lack guilt Do not worry about hurting others Can have low levels of anxiety

Children and CU -

Children with high CU rates – context of their upbringing doesn’t really matter Children who have high CU readings are more likely to become psychopaths only a portion of kids who have behavioural problems scores highly on CU children with low CU traits – environment does matter a bit lack of recognitions for emotions for kids with high CU traits.

Amygdala -

processing emotions guiding attention to emotional cues less activity in people with psychopathy or CU traits

Right and wrong: trolley problem -

used to examine moral decision making case 1: impersonal decision making – more rational and reasonable case 2: personal dilemma – having to actually push someone is heaps tricky for some people psychopaths do not see a problem with problem 2, whereas people with normal cognitive functions do.

Psychopathy and criminal justice system -

used as risk predictor (used to reduce crime rates) treatment

Oakridge Study (1960s) -

“intervention for changing psychopathic personality Lived together (low staff interaction) “break down defences” Psychoactive drugs Treatment not voluntary

Harris et al (1994) on Oakridge study -

Treated non-psychopath (conviction for violence – 22%) Treated psychopath (conviction for violence 78%) Untreated, non psychopath (conviction -39%) Untreated psychopath (conviction – 55%)

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Thus this treatment works for non-psychopaths but not for psychopaths

Polaschek (2014-2015) -

Maybe treatment “damaged” them further Unethical treatments may cause harm conflicting what is not considered effective treatment in offender populations

evidence of change -

PCLR (high scores) made treatment progress and reduced reoffending CU traits may be malleable-parent training

Ted talk -

With high risk gene, mixed with precisely timed trauma, generations of kids with psychopathic tendencies can be observed.

Lie detection and alibis Detecting lies -

People generally have a 54% likelihood of being able to detect lies. Three factors: whether they think the person is honest or lying, their confidence in their assumption, and their basis for judgement

Meissner and Kassin (2002) -

Showed videos of people, 50% guilty and 50% innocent All people in videos saying they weren’t involved. Naïve students had a greater judgement accuracy than both trained students and police investigators, with a lower confidence.

Non-verbal cues Levine et al (2011) -

Several videos Demeanour matched – insincere liar/sincere truth teller Demeanour mismatched – insincere truth teller/sincere liar Judged accuracy was higher on all accounts for matched, but significantly lower for mismatched demeanour. For US government agents, more experience positively assisted judging matched demeanours, but reduced accuracy for demeanour mismatch, particularly for honest – insincere

DePaulo et al (2003) -

Only significant cue is word and phrase repetitions Found out that nonverbal cues are not great predictors

Polygraph -

Measures physiological arousal (blood pressure, skin conductance, heart rate, breathing) These are all things that can be associated with high pressure situations – such as interrogations

CQT – comparison question (known lie question) -

Asks comparison questions with the intention of the participant lying, to measure features of their individual physiological arousal Then asks related questions that are related to the crime, so that physiological arousal that matches that of the lie told in the comparison question can be recorded.

Issues: -

Individual differences Innocent response Trust in instrument – if low, less likely to work Subjective data Can be “beaten” 76% hits, 16% false alarms!!! - bad

GKT – guilty knowledge test -

Asks questions related to the crime, with a range of answers People who exhibit a physiological change when the correct answer is read out may be more likely to have committed the crime.

Reality monitoring – Johnson and Raye (1981) -

When people recall an event that happened to them – they can show contextual and semantic information Contextual information – spatial factors, ordering of events Semantic information – sensory details, colours present e.g.

Masip et al (2007) -

Accuracy isn’t all that high – better than 50% though Group based analysis

FMRI -

Different brain regions that can assist with lie detection

Langleben et al (2005) -

Lying takes more mental effort than telling the truth Gave incentive to lie well

Cognitive load Vrij et al (2010-2011) -

Looks into increasing pressure situations that reduce lying E.g. reverse stories – more cognitive load Look for “thinking hard”

Alibis -

Used for eliminating people from investigation Alibis proves as false should be used as incriminating evidence Ronald Cotton – told 2 contradicting alibis

Burke, Turtle, and Olson Types: -

True False (lying) False (misremembering)

Corroboration -

Physical (e.g. receipt, video footage) Person (may either by lying, or misremembering)

Accuracy assumption -

Police think that suspects will be able to remember events a week prior more than community members.

Dating errors? Event at time of crime To be recalled? Forgetting? Need backup for memory?

witnesses Not likely/NA Salient/threatening Know Yes, but.. no

Innocent suspect likely Mundane/not threatening Don’t know Yes yes

Inconsistent alibies Strange, Dysart & Loftus (2010)

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Told alibi time 3 weeks earlier Asked questions consistent with those that are asked to suspects when asked to write details Left, asked to find evidence to support alibi 1 week later Then brought back in and asked to do the original task again Usually less than 50% of the questions asked were consistent

Personal corroborating evidence – Olson and Wells (2004) -

Motivated other Non-motivated other

Narrative quality – Allison, Michael, Mathews & Overman (2011) “where were you for dinner 3 nights ago?” -

Tell immediately or tell after 3 minutes Looked at qualities of beliefs and other’s beliefs Higher proportion of positive qualifiers (more confident in speech) told after 3 minutes Higher likelihood of pausing if made to tell immediately People are believed more when given time to prepare

Perspective – Sommers & Douglass (2007) -

Subject given alibi to evaluate No explicit evaluation of alibi included in scenario Police investigation context: police report summary Criminal trial context: criminal trial summary Control: summary Assess strength and credibility of alibi, and likelihood of guilt Less likely to believe alibi from trial summary than police or control

Expectations – Olson and Wells (2010) -

Subjects evaluate an alibi Were asked to first either: generate own alibi, evaluate alibi, or read about difficult of generating alibis Subjects asked to evaluate alibi believed alibis less than those made to either generate, or those made to read about difficulty.

LECTURE 5 – EYEWITNESS MEMORY Goldstein et al (1989) -

3% of felony cases 20% of cases – main evidence 347 cases were eyewitness only evidence, 74% convicted

How convincing? Loftus (1974) Gave participants either: -

circumstantial evidence (money from robbery found on suspect, with chemical trace on them) circumstantial evidence + eyewitness testimony or circumstantial evidence + bad eyewitness testimony (eyewitness couldn’t really see)

circumstantial evidence – 18% conviction circumstantial evidence + eyewitness – 72% circumstantial evidence + bad eyewitness – 68%

DNA exonerations -

362 number of DNA exonerations

Human memory system -

Encoding  retention/storage  retrieval

Encoding -

Cross-race effects (much better at creating an eyewitness statement for members of their own race) Weapon (if some1 holds a gun up to another, more likely to focus on danger rather than aggressor) Exposure time (eyewitnesses may overestimate duration by 3-4 times the length of the event) Stress (best performance is in medium arousal, worst in low or high stress situations)

Write et al (2001) – own race bias -

Black and white confederates approached black and white shoppers Then asked to do a lineup Run in England – more contact with whites, and in south Africa – more contact with blacks In England, black members better able to identify black confederates, whereas white better able to identify white confederates Cross racial identification was better for black individuals South Africa had completely different results

Weapon: - Loftus et al (1987) -

Slideshow of interaction at restaurant At the end, person either offered a cheque or gun Shows eye tracked and photo montage People spent longer looking at the gun Correct ID was higher for cheque, rather than gun.

Weapon focus: why? – Pickel (1999) -

Manipulated whether people viewed a high or low threat video Setting was either normal or unusual Aimed at finding out how accurately people described attacker Description score was greater in normal environments, and lower in unusual for low threat scenarios Same results for high threat scenarios

London Dungeon study (stress performance) – Valentine and Mesout (2008) -

Tour Horror labyrinth and encounter “scary person” – 7 mins 45 minutes later, state anxiety and target-present photo lineup High state anxiety found worse results than low state anxiety

Survival training (stress) -

Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape (SERE) Mock prisoner of war (POW) camp Once captured: hooded, strapped together, stripped of identities

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Cortisol levels are huge at SERE, much greater than skydiving even Low stress conditions yield greater accuracy

Retention/Storage -

Time (memory accuracy reduces rapidly) PEI: post event information

Post even information – loftus and palmer (1974) -

People watched car accident Then asked how fast cars were going when the “hit”/” Smashed” each other Words used infiltrate how people replay the situation. Worse memory follows post event information MORI technique (Garry et al – 2008) Two individuals watching same screen, wearing different glasses Individuals saw different items – made to argue about what they saw Much more likely to say incorrect colour when it’s a partner, rather than a stranger. High Stress and EWID more likely provide incorrect in...