Ana

There is so much research on how trauma/highly emotional experiences affect the way we encode memories. How do forensic psychologists work with such situations to find truths and assess people? Any info/article links are much appreciated!

It's been widely shown that children are particularly malleable as witnessed and are easily swayed to provide inaccurate narratives of events (while encoding false memories) through the power of suggestion. There are established guidelines in place to minimize these risks, for example with question structure, interviewer tone/language, showing disapproval etc. In their study, Brubacher & colleagues expanded this to see if there was an effect of familiarity with the interviewer. They found that the children recounted more details in their testimony when they were familiar with the interviewer. This could lead to a better understanding of the best ways to work with children in forensic settings for all involved. Citation: https://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/spotlight/issue-159