Forensic Psychology Exam Guide #1

Determining whether scientific evidence is reliable enough to use in court

Gatekeeping

How courts evaluate expert evidence through testability, publication

Daubert criteria

Someone who educates the legal system about psychological science

Conduit-educator

Someone who use psychological knowledge to advocate for a particular position within the legal system

Philosopher-advocate

An expert who is willing to testify in favor of whoever pays them, compromising objectivity

Hired gun

A brief submitted by an uninvolved person with a case that shares details that may help courts come to a decision

Amicus curiae brief

Law is influenced by human behavior and social realities rather than a fixed set of rules

Legal realism

Memory, eyewitness, decision-making

Cognitive psychology purpose in law

Jury, conformity, persuasion, stereotypes

Social psychology purpose in law

Assess mental illness, competency, risk assessment

Clinical psychology purpose in law

Juvenile development

Developmental psychology purpose in law

Knowledge applied directly to legal questions

Forensic psychology purpose in law

Daubert Trilogy

Liar’s stereotype

Avoid eye contact

Fidgeting

Nervous

Stuttering

Method that compares one’s physiological responses to questions to detect deception

Control question technique (CQT)

What do polygraph’s measure?

Heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductance (heat)

Actions one may take to manipulate a polygraph test

Countermeasures

Study found people are only moderately good at lie detection (about 54% accuracy)

Bond & DePaulo (2006)

Type of test that asks questions only someone with specific knowledge would know

Guilty knowledge test (GKT)

Analyzes the content and structure of a person’s statement for characteristics associated with truthful accounts

Criteria-based content analysis (CBCA)

Process of distinguishing between information internally and information perceived from the external world

Reality monitoring

Research participants who are unusually good at detecting deception

Lie detection wizards

Breaks facial expressions into individual facial action units to study facial movements expressed with emotions

Facial action coding system (FACS)

Lying requires more mental effort so researchers may ask questions differently (ex: tell events in reverse order)

Cognitive load approach

Studied people’s ability to detect deception and found some are better at lie detection than others via behavioral cues

Ekman & O’Sullivan (1991)

Judging other people's bad behavior by their character while judging your own bad behavior by the situation

Fundamental attribution error

Prolonged interrogations affect people’s ability to control emotions and exhaust congitive resources

Interrogation-induced regulatory decline

Under stress/pressure, one may focus on immediate consequences rather than long-term ones

(ex: “if I confess, maybe they’ll let me go home”)

Short-sightedness

Visual perspective that allows viewers to see both suspect and interrogater

Equal focus camera perspective

Nine-step process of factual analysis to properly interrogate a suspect

Reid technique

A person falsely confesses to a crime they did not commit without external pressures

Instrumental-voluntary

A person believes they committed the crime with no interrogation tactics

Internalized-voluntary

A person confesses to a crime they did not commit as a way to end the interrogation process

Instrumental-coerced

Person begins to believe they have actually committed the crime often due to intense interrogation tactics or health-related

Internalized-coerced