Deck Sarah L, Paterson Helen M
The School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
Psychiatr Psychol Law. 2021 Sep 29;29(4):577-592. doi: 10.1080/13218719.2021.1956382. eCollection 2022.
For repeated crimes like domestic violence and workplace bullying, the primary evidence is often the alleged victim's testimony. Consequently, the perceived credibility of repeated event speakers can be pivotal to legal proceedings. In order to investigate perceptions of truthful and deceptive repeated-event speakers, undergraduate students observed interviews of speakers describing a single occurrence of an event that was either experienced or fabricated either once or multiple times. Some participants additionally read an expert statement on repeated-event memory. The effect of repetition on perceived credibility depended on the speaker's veracity, enhancing the credibility of fabricators but diminishing the credibility of truth-tellers. The expert testimony was found to raise the perceived honesty and cognitive competence of the repeated-event speakers and thus could be a promising mechanism for enhancing perceived credibility in legal proceedings.
对于家庭暴力和职场霸凌等重复犯罪行为,主要证据往往是所谓受害者的证词。因此,重复事件讲述者的可信度对于法律程序可能至关重要。为了调查对真实和欺骗性重复事件讲述者的看法,本科生观看了讲述者描述单次事件的访谈,这些事件要么是经历过的,要么是编造的,且编造的次数为一次或多次。一些参与者还阅读了一份关于重复事件记忆的专家声明。重复对可信度认知的影响取决于讲述者的真实性,提高了编造者的可信度,但降低了说实话者的可信度。研究发现,专家证词能提高重复事件讲述者的诚实度和认知能力,因此可能是在法律程序中提高可信度认知的一种有前景的机制。