Eyewitness testimony: tracing the beliefs of Swedish legal professionals

This paper examines beliefs held by Swedish legal professionals about eyewitness testimony. In a survey including questions about 13 key issues of eyewitness testimony, three groups were investigated: police officers (n = 104), prosecutors (n = 158), and judges (n = 251). The response rate was 74%. Examples of findings are that the beliefs were in line with scientific findings concerning the weapon focus effect, but were not in line for simultaneous vs. sequential lineups. Between-group differences were found for seven items. Judges were much more sceptical than police officers about the reliability and completeness of children's testimonies. The groups seldom agreed about one answer alternative, and they reported not being up to date about scientific research on eyewitness testimony. The results suggest that some important research findings have reached those working on the field. However, they hold many wrongful beliefs about eyewitness testimony, beliefs that might compromise the accuracy of legal decisions.     

Observing repetitive finger movements modulates response times of auditorily cued finger movements

Our motor and perceptual representations of actions seem to be intimately linked and the human mirror neuron system (MNS) has been proposed as the mediator. In two experiments, we presented biological or non-biological movement stimuli that were either congruent or incongruent to a required response prompted by a tone. When the tone occurred with the onset of the last movement in a series, i.e., it was perceived during the movement presentation, congruent biological stimuli resulted in faster reaction times than congruent non-biological stimuli. The opposite was observed for incongruent stimuli. When the tone was presented after visual movement stimulation, however, no such interaction was present. This implies that biological movement stimuli only affect motor behaviour during visual processing but not thereafter. These data suggest that the MNS is an "online" system; longstanding repetitive visual stimulation (Experiment 1) has no benefit in comparison to only one or two repetitions (Experiment 2).     

Countermeasures Against the Strategic Use of Evidence Technique: Effects on Suspects' Strategies

As the Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) technique becomes more widely taught to practitioners, it is important to investigate possible countermeasures to the technique. It is possible that guilty suspects who are aware of the SUE technique will employ forthcoming verbal strategies to make themselves appear innocent. Mock suspects committed a richly detailed simulated transgression (or a benign analogue) and were interviewed about their activities. Prior to questioning, some suspects received information about SUE tactics the interviewer was likely to use. Guilty suspects who were informed about the SUE technique employed more verbally forthcoming strategies than their uninformed counterparts. Guilty suspects who were given SUE information also reported planning for the interview in different ways. However, guilty‐informed suspects did not become as forthcoming as innocent suspects overall. In sum, it appears that information about the SUE technique induces guilty suspects to alter their strategies, but only to a relatively small degree.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The contribution of judgment scale to the unskilled-and-unaware phenomenon: How evaluating others can exaggerate over- (and under-) confidence

The unskilled-and-unaware phenomenon occurs when low performers tend to overestimate their performance on a task, whereas high performers judge their performance more accurately (and sometimes underestimate it). In previous research, this phenomenon has been observed for a variety of cognitive tasks and judgment scales. However, the role of judgment scale in producing the unskilled-and-unaware phenomenon has not been systematically investigated. Thus, we present four studies in which all participants judged their performance on both a relative scale (percentile rank) and an absolute scale (number correct). The studies included a variety of performance tasks (general knowledge questions, math problems, introductory psychology questions, and logic questions) and test formats (multiple-choice, recall). Across all tasks and formats, the percentile-rank judgments were less accurate than the absolute judgments, particularly for low and high performers. Furthermore, in Studies 1–3, the absolute judgments were highly accurate, even when the percentile-rank judgments were not. Thus, differences in the accuracy of percentile-rank judgments across skill levels do not always represent differences in self-awareness, but rather they may arise from difficulties that performers have at evaluating how well others are performing. Most importantly, the unskilled-and-unaware phenomenon on a relative scale does not guarantee inaccurate self-evaluations of absolute performance.     

A test of the micro‐expressions training tool: Does it improve lie detection?

The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness of the micro‐expressions training tool (METT) in identifying and using micro‐expressions to improve lie detection. Participants (n = 90) were randomly assigned to receive training in micro‐expressions recognition, a bogus control training, or no training. All participants made veracity judgements of five randomly selected videos of targets providing deceptive or truthful statements. With the use of the Bayesian analyses, we found that the METT group did not outperform those in the bogus training and no training groups. Further, overall accuracy was slightly below chance. Implications of these results are discussed.     

Effects of a Psychologically Based Management System on Work Motivation and Productivity

Introducing group work as a principle of work organisation to increase productivity in organisations operating in a globalising economy requires new methods of measuring performance in groups. This study describes the introduction of a measurement instrument as part of a participative productivity management (PPM) system in a medium sized factory producing rubber compounds. Using a simple quasi-experimental design, the PPM intervention was found to produce an increase in productivity and was also related to goal clarity, but not to higher group cohesion. It is concluded that PPM helps to increase productivity mainly by increasing task and goal clarity, and that increases in productivity can only be reached reliably when no competing system of performance appraisal exists besides PPM.