NCJ Number
190905
Editor(s)
Mitchell L. Eisen,
Jodi A. Quas,
Gail S. Goodman
Date Published
2002
Length
495 pages
Annotation
These 18 papers review current research and thinking on the eyewitness capabilities, memory, and suggestibility of children and adults; the social, cognitive, developmental, and legal factors that affect the accuracy and quality of information obtained in forensic interviews; and the practical and theoretical implications of this knowledge.
Abstract
The authors include clinicians and behavioral scientists in the areas of psychology, psychiatry, social work, criminology, law, and other areas. The book’s first part focuses on general principles and basic processes to consider when assessing memory and suggestibility. Individual chapters focus on factors that affect encoding, storage, and retrieval of information; memory development, particularly how children’s memory can be altered during the encoding, storage, and retrieval phases of memory; principles associated with memory distortion; suggestibility; and face identification. The book’s second section addresses stress, trauma, and individual differences. Chapters examine the influence on memory of the stress associated with events and the characteristics associated with individuals, the role of stress and trauma in affecting memory, and individual differences in memory and suggestibility. The next section focuses on adults in the forensic interview. Individual chapters examine the power of the interview context in affecting memory accuracy, the cognitive interview, limitations of the use of hypnosis, and the presence in some therapeutic contexts of many processes believed to underlie suggestibility. The final chapters focus on children in the forensic interview context and discuss the impact of repeated questions, children’s suggestibility, the use of props and anatomical dolls, the use of a structured-interview protocol, and the role of interviewer demeanor in affecting children’s memory and suggestibility. Figures, tables, chapter reference lists, subject index, and author index