Are memories ever accurate? If not, does this mean that our legal system can never rely upon eye witness testimony? This is a very important question as many convictions and even capital punishments have been meted out based upon such.

All sensory observations are filtered through our brain maps, which develop rapidly during the first year and a half and the first six years of life and steadily for the rest of life. As only 20% of our sight actually an ocular function, what we see is basically a matter of past experiences. This means that each and everyone of us is actually living in some type of "parallel universe". Okay. So this means that two eye witnesses will actually "see" two different accounts of the same event. Furthermore, if what we believe that we "see" is contrary to habituated memories then our experience may have absolutely nothing to do with reality. Magicians call this an illusion. THEREFORE, I pray that I never have to take my chances in a court of law.

Tim Brunson DCH is the founder and Executive Director of The International Hypnosis Research Institute and a clinician and professional speaker. For more information visit: Training.TransformationSolutions.com

Participants were administered a standard tape-recorded version of the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A (HGSHS:A) and then a modified version of the HGSHS:A response booklet that asked each participant to report which suggested behaviors they performed during the procedures. These response booklets were altered to include 3 additional suggestions not offered during the hypnotic procedures. Half the participants were administered the questions in the response booklet in the standard format ("I performed the suggested behavior" versus "I did not perform the suggested behavior"). The remaining participants were offered a third alternative to each question ("I do not remember this occurring"). As predicted, participants offered the 3rd alternative were significantly less likely to report performing actions that were never suggested during the procedures. Further, these participants reported performing fewer suggested behaviors (i.e., reported passing fewer of the true Harvard items) than participants in the standard 2-alternative condition.

Int J Clin Exp Hypn. 2008 Apr;56(2):198-213. Eisen ML, Oustinovskaya M, Kistorian R, Morgan DY, Mickes L. California State University, Los Angeles, California, USA.

by Tim Brunson DCH

Eyewitness testimony is far from being full-proof. Despite the assumption that witnesses under oath are honest, sincere, and credible and that they claim that their memories are clear and accurate, there may be sufficient discrepancies. Witnesses may remember accurately, but misremember what they originally perceived.

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Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) present with a particular profile of memory deficits, executive dysfunction and impaired social interaction that may raise concerns about their recall and reliability in forensic and legal contexts. Extant studies of memory shed limited light on this issue as they involved either laboratory-based tasks or protocols that varied between participants. METHOD: The current study used a live classroom event to investigate eye-witness recall and suggestibility in children with Asperger syndrome (AS group; N = 24) and typically developing children (TD group; N = 27). All participants were aged between 11 and 14 years and were interviewed using a structured protocol. Two measures of executive functioning were also administered. RESULTS: The AS group were found to be no more suggestible and no less accurate than their peers. However, free recall elicited less information, including gist, in the AS group. TD, but not AS, participants tended to focus on the socially salient aspects of the scene in their free recall. Both general and specific questioning elicited similar numbers of new details in both groups. Significant correlations were found between memory recall and executive functioning performance in the AS group only. CONCLUSIONS: The present study indicates that children with AS can act as reliable witnesses but they may be more reliant on questioning to facilitate recall. Our findings also provide evidence for poor gist memory. It is speculated that such differences stem from weak central coherence and lead to a reliance on generic cognitive processes, such as executive functions, during recall. Future studies are required to investigate possible differences in compliance, rates of forgetting and false memory.

J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2007 May;48(5):482-9. McCrory E, Henry LA, Happé F. The Anna Freud Centre, UCL, London, UK. e.mccrory@ucl.ac.uk

Much experimental research on interrogative pressure has concentrated on the effects of leading questions, and the role of feedback in influencing responses in the absence of leading questions has been neglected by comparison. This study assessed the effect of negative feedback and the presence of a second interviewer on interviewee responding in simulated forensic interviews. Participants viewed a videotape of a crime, answered questions about the clip and were requestioned after receiving feedback. Compared with neutral feedback, negative feedback resulted in more response changes, higher reported state anxiety and higher ratings of interview difficulty. These results are consistent with Gudjonsson and Clark's (1986) model of interrogative suggestibility. The presence and involvement of a second interviewer did not significantly affect interviewee responding, although trait anxiety scores were elevated when a second interviewer was present. The theoretical and applied implications of these findings are considered.

Br J Psychol. 2007 Aug;98(Pt 3):455-65. McGroarty A, Baxter JS. Department of Psychology, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. a.mcgroarty@strath.ac.uk

Although research has documented that perceptual elaboration (e.g., imagery) can increase false memory, prior research has not ascertained whether such effects are due to the act of generation or simply from exposure to perceptual details. Two experiments explored this question using the eyewitness suggestibility paradigm. Experiment 1 compared the effect of generating descriptions of suggested items with the effects of reading elaborated versions of the items or the suggested items alone. Experiment 2 compared participants who generated descriptions to participants who read the same descriptions. Generating a description increased false memory and increased accurate memory for the items' actual source, relative to comparable control conditions. Generation also increased claims of having a (false) vivid recollection of the items in the event. Overall, the results suggest that conditions that require people to describe the appearance of objects that they do not remember are even more pernicious than conditions that involve exposure to such details.

Mem Cognit. 2007 Sep;35(6):1255-66. Lane SM, Zaragoza MS. Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA. slane@lsu.edu

Numerous innocent people have been sent to jail based directly or indirectly on normal, but flawed, human perception, memory and decision making. Current cognitive-science research addresses the issues that are directly relevant to the connection between normal cognitive functioning and such judicial errors, and suggests means by which the false-conviction rate could be reduced. Here, we illustrate how this can be achieved by reviewing recent work in two related areas: eyewitness testimony and fingerprint analysis. We articulate problems in these areas with reference to specific legal cases and demonstrate how recent findings can be used to address them. We also discuss how researchers can translate their conclusions into language and ideas that can influence and improve the legal system.

Trends Cogn Sci. 2007 Mar;11(3):111-7. Busey TA, Loftus GR. Department of Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA. busey@indiana.edu

Comments on the article by J. Owen-Kostelnik, N. D. Reppucci, and J. R. Meyer which reviewed the issues surrounding the police interrogation of minors. This commentary expands on the review by addressing the mental health status of youths who come into contact with police. It stems from two immutable facts: (a) The prevalence of mental illness among justice-involved youths is alarmingly high, and (b) mental illness by itself is a risk factor for false confession. These two facts place suspected youths in double jeopardy in the interrogation room.

Am Psychol. 2007 Sep;62(6):609-11. Redlich AD. Policy Research Associates, Delmar, NY 12054, USA. aredlich@prainc.com

Five experiments tested the idea that instructing a witness to close their eyes during retrieval might increase retrieval success. In Experiment 1 participants watched a video, before a cued-recall test for which they were either instructed to close their eyes, or received no-instructions. Eye-closure led to an increase in correct cued-recall, with no increase in incorrect responses. Experiments 2-5 sought to test the generality of this effect over variations in study material (video or live interaction), test format (cued- or free-recall) and information modality (visual or auditory details recalled). Overall, eye-closure increased recall of both visual detail and auditory details, with no accompanying increase in recall of false details. Collectively, these data convincingly demonstrate the benefits of eye-closure as an aid to retrieval, and offer insight into why hypnosis, which usually involves eye-closure, may facilitate eyewitness recall.

Law Hum Behav. 2007 Sep 25 Perfect TJ, Wagstaff GF, Moore D, Andrews B, Cleveland V, Newcombe S, Brisbane KA, Brown L. School of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK, tperfect@plymouth.ac.uk.

by Jerome Beacham, Ph.D.

• What is Forensic Hypnosis? Forensic Hypnosis means to investigate with Hypnosis as the main tool. Hypnosis may be defined as: a state of increased receptivity to suggestion characterized by an altered state of consciousness. The degree varies from very light to very deep and usually will include relaxation and increased awareness.

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"Hypnosis" denotes either specific phenomena (altered volition, perception, cognition, and recall) or interpersonal transactions that often elicit them. Basic research leads to paradox: hypnosis is validated, and shown to be dissociative in essence, at the same time that neither its phenomena nor transactions can be separated from those of everyday living without logical absurdity. This paradox can be resolved by assuming that consciousness and volition are complex, occurring simultaneously at many levels in the same waking individual.

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Seventy-two undergraduates viewed a videotape of a bank robbery that culminated in the shooting of a young boy. Several days later, participants were interviewed about their recollection of events in the film through baseline oral and written narrative accounts followed by random assignment to a hypnosis (HYP) condition, the cognitive interview (CI), or a motivated, repeated recall (MRR) control interview.

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Participants (6- and 7-year-olds, N=130) participated in classroom activities four times. Children were interviewed about the final occurrence (target event) either 1 week or 4 weeks later, during which half of the event items were described inaccurately. Half of these suggestions were consistent with the theme of the detail across the occurrences (e.g., always sat on a kind of floor mat) or were inconsistent (e.g., sat on a chair). When memory for the target event was tested 1 day later, children falsely recognized fewer inconsistent suggestions than consistent suggestions, especially compared with a control group of children who experienced the event just one time. Furthermore, the longer delay reduced accuracy only for consistent suggestions. Source-monitoring ability was strongly and positively related to resistance to suggestions, and encouraging children to identify the source of false suggestions allowed them to retract a significant proportion of their reports of inconsistent suggestions but not of consistent suggestions. The results suggest that the gist consistency of suggestions determines whether event repetition increases or decreases suggestibility.

Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ont., Canada N2L 3C5. kroberts@wlu.ca