Psychology and Law: Truthfulness, Accuracy and Credibility, Edition 2

Amina A Memon · Aldert Vrij · Ray Bull

Oct 2003 · Sold by John Wiley & Sons

About this ebook

Psychology and Law shows how psychological research and theory can be used in a legal context. Written with advanced undergraduate students in mind, it focuses upon the pre-trial or investigative phase of the legal process. Obtaining and assessing witness evidence is a key part of any criminal investigation. Topics include witness accuracy and credibility, covering issues such as assessment of witness credibility, interviewing suspects and witnesses, eyewitness testimony, false beliefs and memory, the role of experts and juries.

This second edition has been revised and updated to reflect the large amount of new research in the area, making it the essential guide for all courses with a legal component.

Comment on the first edition:

"This is an excellent appraisal of the psychology of evidence...it provides thorough, substantial and up-to-date accounts of modern developments."
—Denniss Howitt, Loughborough University, UK

• Written by well known and respected authors
• Suitable as an introductory, undergraduate text

About the author

Dr. Amina Memon is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Aberdeen. She has a first-class degree in psychology (1982) and a Ph.D. in psychology (1985). Her main areas of expertise are social and cognitive psychology. Dr. Memon has published widely on topics such as the investigative interviewing of child witnesses, police interviews, face recognition, eyewitness identification, the performance of elderly witnesses, false memories and jury decision making. Between 1991 and 1997. Dr. Memon conducted extensive psychological research on procedures for interviewing child witnesses for the purpose of obtaining complete and accurate witness reports.

Professor Aldert Vrij is Professor of Applied Social Psychology at the University of Portsmouth. His main area of expertise is deception, mainly the nonverbal and verbal characteristics of deception, and he has published widely on these issues. For conducting this research, he has received grants from the ESRC, the Leverhulme Trust, the Dutch Organisation of Scientific Research (the Dutch equivalent of the ESRC) and the Dutch Ministry of Justice. He gives workshops on deception to police officers in several countries on a regular basis.

Professor Ray Bull is Professor of Forensic Psychology at the University of Portsmouth. His main areas of expertise are police interviewing and the relationship between physical appearance and criminality, topics on which he has published extensively. He is regularly invited to present seminars and lectures to police audiences in many countries. His most recent externally funded research project was from the Innovative Research Challenge Fund of the Home Office for work on improving children’s face recognition performance.