Psych and Law Final Exam: Profiling, Forensic Evidence and False Memories

Final Exam Topics on Profiling, Forensic Evidence and False Memories

What is clinical profiling?

It is unstructured and incorporates aspects of the profilers' intuitions, knowledge, experience and training in social sciences to generate predictions.

What is statistical profiling?

It is based upon descriptive and inferential statistical models and involves creating algorithms and computer programs to determine probability elements on the criminal profile.

What is inductive profiling?

Using logical reasoning and starting with historical cases and used to inform the likely profile of the current criminal you’re searching for (like the statistical method of profiling)

What is deductive profiling?

This focuses on the crime scene and what you can theoretically say based on what was at or not at the crime scene (similar to the clinical method)

What is trait theory?

Trait theory consists of dispositional factors (underlying mental illness) and situational factors (victims actions).

Trait theory has long been debunked in the psychology community because a person’s situation plays just as much of a role in behavior determination.

What is the definition of criminal profiling?

It is a technique for predicting the behavioral and personality characteristics of a perpetrator based upon an analysis of the crimes they committed.

What is the prevalence (globally) for criminal profiling?

It started in the 1960s and 1970s. However, data since the mid 1990s is currently unavailable and harder to come across.

UK- there have been about 250 instances of profiling advice.

Canada- there is an active website pertaining to profiling.

Finland, Germany, Netherlands and Sweden- also use profiling but there’s no data to see how frequently it’s used

What is the process and qualification for criminal profiling?

What+Why=Who

What elements you find at the crime scene and why the culprit did it will give you who (aka the profile).

There is no agreed upon skill or ability that is required in order to be a profiler and there is a lack of census globally in terms of how one becomes a profiler.

What are the theoretical foundations for criminal profiling? (homology, behavioral consistency & differentiation)

Homology assumptions is when offenders who commit similar crimes will possess similar background characteristics.

Behavioral consistency is when repeat offenders will commit their crimes in a similar manner.

Behavioral differentiation is when the behaviors of offenders will differ from one another.

What are the empirical foundations for criminal profiling?

The empirical foundations are that the process is an art and not a science.

What is profiling as a pseudoscience? (baloney detection kit)

The baloney detection kit is a series of features that help people identify fraudulent claims.

What is the float (hydrostatic) lung test?

Woman gave birth to a stillborn baby and the state opened an investigation.

They concluded that the baby had died due to some sort of foul play.

“If the lungs float, there was oxygen in the lungs, therefore the neonate was breathing at some point”.

Which was the “logical” reasoning behind the Hydrostatic Lung Test.

What is OSAC?

OSAC is tasked with improving the standardization of forensic science and the world in forensic institutions around the country.

These guidelines influence the biology, chemistry, physics, scene examination, medicine and digital aspect of forensic science.

What is biasability?

The forensic experts and their judgments are biasable, meaning they are influenced by psychological factors.

What is confirmation bias?

Someone's prior beliefs can produce behavioral consequences.

Those who believe that a suspect is guilty are more likely to return a positive result. 

What is tunnel vision?

A rigid focus on one suspect that leads investigators to seek out and favor inculpatory evidence and discounting any exculpatory evidence that may exist

What is evidence elasticity?

When evidence can be interpreted and manipulated in different ways depending on the context and methods used.

What is NIFS?

The National Institute of Forensic Sciences

What are the NIFS Report Recommendations (standardized terminology and reporting)?

There needs to be standard terminology that will be used in reporting on and testifying about the results of forensic science investigations.

It should also specify the minimum information that should be included.

What are the NIFS Report Recommendations (more & better research)?

NIFS should competitively fund peer-reviewed research in many areas. By giving them more money they are able to produce better research.

What are the NIFS Report Recommendations (best practices & standards)?

1. In order to avoid scandals they should remove all public forensic laboratories and facilities from administrative control of law enforcement and prosecutors’ offices.

2. NIFS should also encourage research programs on human observer bias and human error in forensic examinations.

3. There should be a scientific working group that helps advance measurements by developing tools, validation, reliability, information sharing and proficiency testing in forensic science to establish protocols (OSAC)

What are the NIFS Report Recommendations (code of ethics)?

There should be a national code of ethics for all forensic science disciplines and encourage individual societies to incorporate this national code as part of their professional code of ethics.

What are the NIFS Report Recommendations (insufficient education & training)?

They need to develop  and build up graduate education programs in order to attract students to pursue graduate studies in multidisciplinary fields critical to forensic science practice.

What is forensic confirmation bias and its impact?

An individual's preexisting beliefs, expectations, notices and situational context influence the collection, perception and interpretation of evidence during the course of a criminal case.

This can often lead to tunnel vision and result in a narrower investigation of that single suspect.

What is corroboration inflation?

When the examiners hear from law enforcement that they believe the suspect is guilty, they believe it and then say it’s a positive match.

What is an investigative echo chamber?

Everyone is agreeing with each other

What is coherence-based reasoning?

Saying it is obvious that it’s this person and that the story makes sense because of all the pieces of evidence

What is the filler-control method and its limitations & advantages?

Asks if any of the samples match the sample found at the crime scene. They are given the crime scene sample in a lineup of 5 or so fingerprints. This makes sure the examiner doesn’t know the answer.

Advantages include, it can be applied to a number of forensic science techniques, it addresses contextual bias and it reveals error rates for forensic techniques, labs and analysts.

Limitation is that some methods won’t work because the filler-control method is a match test and the other methods aren’t.

What is imagination inflation?

If you imagine something to have happened, it has the effect that makes it seem plausible

What are impossible memories?

They are recollections of events, experiences or details that a person “remembers” but could have not actually occurred in reality.

What is the discrepancy detection principle?

People are more likely to detect and correct errors or inconsistencies in information when they actively compare it to what they already know or expect

What is the retention interval?

The time when you witnessed the initial event, then there’s time between the post event questions, then more time between then

What are “memory wars”?

It refers to the debates and controversies in psychology and legal contexts during the late 20th century. It questions the reliability and nature of memory, and focuses on repressed and false memories.

What is dissociative amnesia?

The inability to recall important autobiographical information, usually traumatic or stressful events, and it is inconsistent with ordinary forgetting

What is the formation of false memories and source confusion?

The formation of false memories are the recollections of events or details that a person believes to be true but didn’t actually occur, or occurred in a different way. They can be formed by many ways like suggestive questioning, misinformation effect, imagination inflation and many others.

Source confusion occurs when a person remembers the information or event but misattributes its origin or the context behind it.

What is the misinformation effect?

When a person’s memory of an event is altered or distorted after being exposed to misleading information about that event

What is the impact of warnings for the misinformation effect?

When people are warned before or after being exposed to misleading information, they may become more cautious and less likely to incorporate false details into their memories.

What are individual differences for the misinformation effect?

1. Children are more vulnerable

2. Older individuals are more vulnerable

3. Those with dissociative personalities are more vulnerable

What are positive false memories? (behavioral consequences & boundaries)

They are incorrect but happy or beneficial memories.

Some consequences include, boosting your confidence, risking overconfidence and increasing motivation.

Some boundaries include, they must be believable, feedback matters and they aren’t always helpfu

What is the false memory implantation method?

This is typically done when they were in college and they implanted these memories for when they were five year olds (seen as the “magical number”).

Typically used the lost in the mall, UFO abduction or punch bowl spill example.

What is ecological validity?

The extent to which the environment experienced by the subjects in a scientific investigation has the properties it is supposed or assumed to have by the investigators

What is betrayal trauma theory (knowledge isolation)?

A child who’s a victim of sexual abuse have these two opposing motivations colliding, they are aware of and want to react appropriately to betrayal but they also maintain a close relationship with the abuser. Children segment memories of abuse and can isolate the abuse incident from the rest of your memories.

What is contextualization (encoding inconsistency)?

Refers to the process of placing an event or piece of information within a specific context to help encode it more meaningfully into memory.

Encoding inconsistency occurs when there’s a mismatch between how an event was initially encoded and the context in which it’s later received.

What is unconscious vs. conscious repression?

Unconscious repression is a defense mechanism where the mind automatically pushes the distressing thought, memories or feelings out of conscious awareness without the individual being aware of it.

Conscious repression refers to deliberately avoiding or suppressing certain thoughts or memories.