Jacqueline Wheatcroft

Facilitating Memory with Hypnosis, Focused Meditation, and Eye Closure

Three experiments examined some features of hypnotic induction that might be useful in the development of brief memory-facilitation procedures. The first involved a hypnosis procedure designed to facilitate face identification; the second employed a brief, focused-meditation (FM) procedure, with and without eye closure, designed to facilitate memory for an emotional event. The third experiment was a check for simple motivation and expectancy effects. Limited facilitation effects were found for hypnosis, but these were accompanied by increased confidence in incorrect responses. However, eye closure and FM were effective in facilitating free recall of an event without an increase in errors. FM reduced phonemic fluency, suggesting that the effectiveness of FM was not due to simple changes in expectancy or motivation.

Tolerance of uncertainty, extroversion, neuroticism and attitudes to randomized controlled trials among surgeons and physicians

Surgeons have a reputation for decisiveness and self‐confidence, which suggests that they may tolerate uncertainty poorly and therefore be less capable than other doctors of experiencing clinical equipoise. Their ‘typical’ behaviour is characteristic of the stable extrovert personality and so they may prefer spontaneous clinical judgement over randomized trials. The aim of this study was to compare personality dimensions and tolerance of uncertainty among surgeons and hospital physicians, to determine whether differences in either property might help to explain the apparently poor performance of surgeons in conducting randomized controlled trials.

The influence of courtroom questioning style on actual and perceived eyewitness confidence and accuracy

Purpose. Little research has been conducted on the effects of courtroom examination/questioning styles on witness confidence and accuracy. Two studies were therefore conducted, one investigating the effects of examination style on witness confidence and accuracy, the other investigating observers/jurors perceptions of witness confidence and accuracy. Method. In Study 1, after observing a video event, 60 witnesses were individually interviewed about the event according to one of three conditions: (1) simple questioning style, (2) lawyerese questioning style (containing leading and suppositional phrases), and (3) lawyerese with negative feedback style. In study 2, 60 observers/ jurors observed a good and a poor witness under examination by one of the three questioning styles. Measures of the perceived fairness of the examination were also taken in study 2. Results. In the main, significant results were found only for question items classed as difficult to remember. The lawyerese style appeared to have an adverse affect on confidence-accuracy relationships. Adding subtle negative feedback reduced the problem, but at the price of reduced overall accuracy. Observers (jurors) also seemed to be most affected by observing the negative feedback style; judging the witness overall to be less accurate. An unexpected result was that, regardless of questioning style, presenting the testimony of the least confident witness first appeared to spuriously boost confidence and thereby perceived accuracy, in that witnesss testimony. No significant effects were found for perceived fairness. Conclusions. In general, these results lend some support to those who have asserted that the lawyerese style of questioning may be unwise.

Some cognitive and neuropsychological aspects of social inhibition and facilitation

Tasks that, in the working memory and neuropsychological literature, have been related to executive and frontal processing, and nonexecutive and more posterior brain processing, bear distinct similarities with the kinds of tasks that, in the social psychological literature, have been associated with social inhibition and facilitation, respectively. Accordingly, a cognitive-neuropsychological model of social inhibition and facilitation is proposed whereby the presence of others engages the executive and frontal systems, and facilitates the function of systems active in more automatic, nonexecutive processing. In two experiments, the tasks most associated with executive and frontal processing (phonemic switches and answers to complex questions) showed evidence of social inhibition, whereas those more associated with nonexecutive and more posterior temporal processing (phonemic clusters and confidence–accuracy correlations), showed some evidence of social facilitation. Implications are discussed.

High-stakes lies: Verbal and nonverbal cues to deception in public appeals for help with missing or murdered relatives

Low ecological validity is a common limitation in deception studies. The present study investigated the real-life, high-stakes context of public appeals for help with missing or murdered relatives. Behaviours that discriminated between honest and deceptive appeals included some previously identified in research on high-stakes lies (deceptive appeals contained more equivocal language, gaze aversion, head shaking and speech errors), and a number of previously unidentified behaviours (honest appeals contained more references to norms of emotion/behaviour, more verbal expressions of hope of finding the missing relative alive, more verbal expressions of positive emotion towards the relative, more verbal expressions of concern/pain and an avoidance of brutal language). Case-by-case analyses yielded 78% correct classifications. Implications are discussed with reference to the importance of using ecologically valid data in deception studies, the context specific nature of some deceptive behaviours, and social interactionist, and individual behavioural profile, accounts of cues to deception.

Enhancing Witness Memory With Techniques Derived From Hypnotic Investigative Interviewing: Focused Meditation, Eye-Closure, and Context Reinstatement

Abstract Due to several well-documented problems, hypnosis as a forensic interviewing tool has been largely replaced by the cognitive interview; however, the latter is problematic in time and complexity. This article builds on previous research showing that some procedures used in traditional hypnotic forensic interviewing might still be useful in developing alternative procedures for use in investigative interviewing. Two experiments are described that include a focused meditation with eye-closure technique with similarities to conventional hypnotic induction but without the label of hypnosis. In the first, focused meditation was comparable to a context reinstatement, or revivification, technique in facilitating memory in children aged 6 to 7 without increasing errors or inflating confidence. In the second, when used in combination with context reinstatement, focused meditation was resistant to the effects of misleading information in adults. Implications are discussed.

Revictimizing the Victim? How Rape Victims Experience the UK Legal System

Abstract The conviction rate for rape has dropped in the UK from one in three in 1977 to one in thirteen in 1999 and statistics show that only one in five cases ever reach trial (Home Office, 2002a). This study explored experiences of rape with respect to the UK legal system through semistructured interviews with victims, police officers, and experts in the provision of victim support. Interviews were thematically analyzed; emergent themes suggest that the legal system and society continue to revictimize victims of rape through mythology and faulty social perceptions that surround rape. Findings discuss improvement by way of specialist police teams, prosecutors, and greater support to improve postexperiences of rape victims.

High stakes lies: police and non-police accuracy in detecting deception

To date, the majority of investigations into accuracy in detecting deception has used low-stakes lies as stimulus materials, and findings from these studies suggest that people are generally poor at detecting deception. The research presented here utilised real-life, high-stakes lies as stimulus materials, to investigate the accuracy of police and non-police observers in detecting deception. It was hypothesised that both police and non-police observers would achieve above chance levels of accuracy in detecting deception, that police officers would be more accurate at detecting deception than non-police observers, that confidence in veracity judgements would be positively related to accuracy and that consensus judgements would predict veracity. One hundred and seven observers (70 police officers and 37 non-police participants) watched 36 videos of people lying or telling the truth in an extremely high-stakes, real-life situation. Police observers achieved mean accuracy in detecting deception of 72%, non-police observers achieved 68% mean accuracy, and confidence in veracity judgements was positively related to accuracy. Consensus judgements correctly predicted veracity in 92% of cases.

Evidence in court: witness preparation and cross-examination style effects on adult witness accuracy.

Witnesses play a clear and pivotal role in the criminal justice system and there is an obvious public interest in identifying procedures that both undermine and maximize the quality of evidence received by the criminal courts. This paper reports an investigation into the effects of witness familiarization and cross-examination type on adult witness accuracy that situates outcomes in both legal and psychological context. 60 mock witnesses observed a crime event and each witness was then cross-examined by a practising barrister in a moot courtroom according to two conditions - either via a scripted complex version of cross-examination or by a simpler but equivalent scripted examination. Mock witnesses were also allocated to two further conditions - half the participants received a guidance booklet on cross-examination and the other half received no familiarization to the process. Study outcomes showed that familiarization of witnesses to cross-examination processes increased accurate responses and reduced errors. The guidance seemingly allowed accessibility to cognitive information that enabled witnesses to process information more effectively. On this basis, advance written information about the nature of the cross-examination and potentially misleading tactics used by advocates could help to immunize against negative lawyerly influence.

The Influence of Trust on Senior Investigating Officers’ Decision Making in High-Profile Critical Incidents

This article examines the interpersonal relationships between lead commanders and senior investigating officers in high-profile critical incidents and focuses on the influence trust and mistrust have on investigative decision making of senior officers. Semistructured interviews were conducted with officers who have recent experience within lead command groups as senior officer, lead commander, and head of criminal investigation department or advisor in a number of high-profile critical incidents across the United Kingdom. Thematic analysis identified trust as the key emergent theme. Factors that either facilitate and/or inhibit the development of trust, such as previous experiences, perceptions of skills competence, ability, and theoretical contributions relative to trust building in organizational settings are reflected upon. Broadly speaking, the article indicates that previous knowledge and experience do influence the development of trust in organizational relationships. Trust development within critical incident management roles is thereby crucial to decision making in high-profile critical incidents. Policy implications are noted.