Master Doc_ Forensic Psych 1-6

Forensic psychology

Forensic psychology

A field of psychology dealing with human behavior as it relates to the law or legal system.

Clinical forensic psychologists

Psychologists focused on mental health issues in the context of the law.

Forensic psychiatry

Medical field addressing human behavior concerning the law.

Expert witness

Provides the court with information or opinions to aid in understanding a case.

General acceptance test

Standard for admitting expert testimony based on acceptance in the scientific community.

Police selection procedures

Methods used to screen/select police candidates.

Predictive validity

How well test scores predict other measures.

Selection interview

Determines applicant suitability for policing.

Cognitive ability tests

Assess verbal, mathematical, memory, and reasoning abilities.

Police discretion

Officers' freedom to decide actions in situations.

Resiliency training

Helps officers adapt to stress effectively.

Police interrogation

Process of interviewing suspects for evidence.

Reid model

Nine-step interrogation model for confessions.

Criminal profiling

Technique to identify characteristics based on crimes.

Polygraph

Records autonomic responses for detection.

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs)

Measure brain activity related to stimuli.

Malingering

Faking symptoms for external gain.

Recall memory

Reporting details of a witnessed event.

Lineup

Presentation of individuals to identify perpetrators.

Memory conformity

When one witness's report influences another witness's report.

Misinformation effect/Post-event information effect

Incorporating inaccurate information presented after an event into subsequent recall.

Memory impairment hypothesis

Original memory is replaced with new, incorrect information.

Enhanced cognitive interview

Interview method incorporating social dynamics along with memory retrieval principles.

Suspect

Person suspected by the police of committing a crime.

Perpetrator

The guilty individual who committed the crime.

Foils/Distractors

Lineup members known to be innocent of the crime.

Fair lineup

Lineup where the suspect doesn't stand out from other members.

Target-present lineup

Lineup containing the perpetrator.

Target-absent lineup

Lineup without the perpetrator, featuring an innocent suspect.

Simultaneous lineup

All lineup members presented at once to the witness.

Relative judgment

Witness compares lineup members to identify the one resembling the perpetrator.

Sequential lineup

Lineup members presented one by one to the witness for identification.

Absolute judgment

Witness compares each lineup member to their memory of the perpetrator.

Showup

Procedure showing one person (the suspect) to the witness.

Walk-by

Identification procedure in a natural setting where the witness sees the suspect.

Biased lineup

Lineup suggesting who the police suspect, influencing witness identification.

Cross-race effect/Other-race effect/Own-race bias

Witness memory accuracy higher for own-race faces.

Weapon focus

Witness focuses on the perpetrator's weapon rather than the perpetrator.

Cue-utilization hypothesis

Witness focuses on the weapon due to decreased attentional capacity with increased emotional arousal.

Semi-structured interview

An interview with a preset list of questions asked to every applicant to assess their knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Cognitive tests

Tests that measure verbal, reasoning, and memory skills, such as the digit span test.

MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)

A personality test with 338 questions used by 70% of US agencies to identify psychological issues like depression and schizophrenia.

IPI (Inwald Personality Inventory)

A personality test developed specifically for policing with 310 true-false questions to measure personality and behavioral patterns.

Assessment centres

Facilities where situational tests, like simulations of real-world policing tasks, are conducted to assess candidates' abilities.

Police discretion

The freedom officers have to make choices when performing their duties, often involving complex situations where no clear rules apply.

COAST Pilot project

The "Community Outreach And Support Team" project involving various agencies to pair officers with healthcare workers to respond to mental health calls effectively.

Police Use of Force (UoF)

The allowance for officers to use reasonable and necessary force in situations, with frameworks and policies in place to guide its use.

Resiliency training

Training for officers to effectively adapt to stress and adversity, focusing on mental preparedness and coping mechanisms.

Psychological debriefings

Interventions following traumatic events like hostage negotiations to provide support, coping mechanisms, and emotional venting for officers.

Opportunity

The circumstances that allow someone to commit a certain act, such as taking money.

Accusatorial Interview

A method of interrogation aimed at securing a confession through various strategies.

Reid's Model

A model influencing interrogation strategies, including loss of control, isolation, certainty of guilt, and exculpatory scenarios.

PEACE Model

An investigative approach focusing on acquiring information rather than securing a confession, using open-ended questions.

Mr Big Technique

An undercover method to elicit admissions from suspects by creating a fictitious criminal organization.

False Confession

A confession that is either intentionally fabricated or not based on actual knowledge of the facts, which can be retracted or disputed.

False Confessions

Confessions to a crime that are not based on actual guilt but may be due to various reasons such as coercion, mental exhaustion, or promises of leniency.

Coerced-Compliant False Confessions

When a suspect confesses to a crime they did not commit after facing coercive interrogation tactics, aiming to escape further investigation or gain promised benefits.

Coerced-Internalized False Confessions

False confessions where the suspect genuinely believes they committed the crime due to vulnerability factors like mental state or inability to distinguish information.

Voluntary False Confessions

Confessions made by suspects without police elicitation, often driven by reasons like seeking notoriety, feelings of guilt, or protecting others.

Organized/Disorganized Model

A criminal profiling model developed by the FBI in the 1980s to classify crime scenes and offenders as either organized or disorganized, though lacking empirical support.

Jurors' Perceptions

The beliefs and attitudes of jurors towards confessions and interrogations, influenced by factors like the fundamental attribution error and deception detection abilities.

Constructing False Memories

The process of creating false memories of a crime through suggestive questioning or misinformation, leading individuals to believe they were involved in events that never occurred.

Classic Trait Theory

A profiling context that assumes offenders possess consistent personality characteristics that manifest in their behaviors across different crimes they commit.

Consistency Assumption

The belief that offenders exhibit similar behaviors across the crimes they commit.

Homology Assumption

The assumption that two offenders who exhibit similar crime scene behaviors should possess similar personality characteristics.

Profiling Task

Conducted primarily by Richard Kocsis and colleagues, involving providing details of a crime, creating a profile, and comparing it to a known offender.

Accuracy of Profilers

Profilers seem to have slightly better accuracy in predicting physical characteristics of offenders, but overall accuracy is generally poor, often less than 50%.

Crime Linkage Analysis

Utilizing behavioral evidence when physical evidence is not available to link serial offenses, aiming to solve crimes more effectively and secure harsher sentences.

Geographic Profiling

Predicting the most likely area for a serial offender to reside based on case information, primarily used for suspect prioritization and developed by Kim Rossmo.

Distance Decay Theory

Offenders tend to commit crimes near their home, with the probability of committing a crime decreasing as the distance from their home increases.

Circle Hypothesis

Offenders' choice of crime scenes relates to a base from which they operate, with the majority of offenders' homes located within a circle defined by the two crimes furthest apart.

Deception detection

The process of identifying when someone is being deceptive or dishonest.

Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis

The theory that human intelligence evolved as a result of the need for individuals to be deceptive and manipulative.

Truth-bias

The tendency to believe that most messages are truthful rather than deceptive.

Ground truth

Cases or interrogations that have physical evidence to prove guilt or innocence.

Cognitive load explanation

The idea that liars may exhibit certain behaviors, like blinking less frequently, due to the mental effort of deceiving.

Meta-analysis

A research method that combines the results of multiple studies to draw more comprehensive conclusions.

Guilty knowledge test

A type of polygraph test that assesses whether a suspect possesses specific information only the culprit would know.

Consequentiality

The importance of the outcome of a polygraph test in determining its accuracy.

Laboratory studies

Research studies conducted in controlled environments to study the accuracy of polygraph tests.

Field studies

Research studies conducted in real-world settings to assess the effectiveness of polygraph tests.

Consequentiality

The significance or importance of an action or decision.

Ground truth

The absolute truth or reality of a situation or phenomenon.

Guilty knowledge test

A type of polygraph test that focuses on specific details known only to the guilty individual.

Comparison question test

A type of polygraph test that compares physiological responses to relevant and control questions.

Eyewitness testimony

An account given by a person of an event they have witnessed.

Encoding

The process of converting information into a form that can be stored in memory.

Storage

The retention of encoded information over time.

Retrieval

The process of accessing stored information in memory.

Episodic memory

Memory of autobiographical events experienced at a particular time and place.

Semantic memory

Memory for general knowledge and facts.

Procedural memory

Memory for how to do things, including motor skills and habits.

Misinformation effect

Incorporation of misleading information into one's memory of an event.

Cognitive interview

A method of interviewing eyewitnesses using psychological principles to enhance recall accuracy.

Estimator variables

Factors affecting eyewitness accuracy that are not under the control of the legal system.

System variables

Factors affecting eyewitness accuracy that are under the control of the legal system.

System variable

Factors that influence the use of photographic lineups by the police, such as time, portability, right to counsel, witness anxiety, and suspect behavior.

Target-Present

Refers to a lineup where the person who committed the crime is actually included, leading to correct identification, false identification, or incorrect rejection.

Target-Absent

Refers to a lineup where the person who committed the crime is not included, leading to correct rejection or false identification.

Simultaneous Lineups

Lineups where 6-12 photos are shown at once, prompting relative judgment to identify the suspect.