For more than a century, verbal content cues to deception have been investigated to assess the credibility of statements in judicial contexts. Among the many cues investigated, Criteria-based Content ...Analysis (CBCA) and criteria based on the reality monitoring (RM) approach have been most prominent. However, research with these cues used as 'tools' has not fully exploited their potential. We critically discuss statistical approaches used in past research and recommend a series of 12 principles or guidelines researchers should follow to design, analyze and report future studies on detecting deception with verbal content cues. To illustrate some of these points, we present analyses from two separate studies: A quasi-experiment in a field setting conducted with adults with intellectual disabilities who truthfully or deceptively described a negative autobiographical event to an interviewer, and a large-scale simulation study where adults wrote an account of either an experienced or an invented significant life event. Accounts in both studies were rated with CBCA and RM criteria, as well as by 'naive' raters. The guidelines should help to increase the quality and transparency of research in this area.
Children and people with intellectual disability (ID) are considered to be highly vulnerable and in need of special protection against sexual abuse (SA). The objective of this work was to analyze the ...characteristics of cases of SA in children with typical development and in people with ID in Spain. To do so, 25 cases of each type that had been investigated by specialized groups of the Judicial Police of the Spanish Civil Guard and that had been classified as proven and confirmed by police and forensic-medical evidence were analyzed. The results allowed the establishment of the typical minor victim profile as Spanish female (76%), with an average age of 8.64 years. Typical victim with ID was characterized as being of Spanish, aged 20.28 years on average, without prior sexual experience, and similar percentages of males (40%) and females (60%). In both cases, the aggressor usually acted alone, was known to the victim, had an average age of 42 years, and without a history of sexual offenses. The most common child sexual crime was SA with penetration, practiced repeatedly, using strategies such as the use of force, authority, rewards, or secrecy. Victims with ID suffered sexual abuse with penetration, using force, authority, threats or blackmail. Finally, 36% of minors not disclose the events by only 8% of victims with ID. Spontaneity was found in the 40% first disclosure in both victims, with greater police evidence and greater recognition of guilt on behalf of the aggressors against victims without disabilities. Minors took an average of 26.26 days to report the facts, and victims with ID of 64.94. It is necessary to know more about these types of offenses to design appropriate prevention and detection programs.
The present article studies war-related trauma and its effects on children living in the Gaza Strip, 6 months after the attack launched by the Israeli army on July 8, 2014, which lasted for 51 days. ...The objective was twofold: (a) to identify the prevalence of exposure to traumatic events and (b) to examine the symptoms of traumatic stress in children as described by their parents or tutors using the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ). Data from 1,850 male and female children aged between 6 and 15 years living in the Gaza Strip were collected throughout the months of February and April 2015, that is 6 months after the attack. Results showed that the majority of the children were exposed to bombardments and residential area destruction (83.51%), were confined at home unable to go outside (72.92%), were witness to the profanation of mosques (70.38%), were exposed to combat situations (66.65%), and saw corpses (59.95%). A sample of 275 males (28.3%) and 232 females (26.5%) showed diagnoses of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Gender and age were independent of PTSD. The presence of this pathology was positively related to the number of trauma events experienced. The type of traumatic experience was hardly related to age and gender. A greater protection on behalf of the families against exposure to traumatic events could explain these differences.
Purpose
: Interviews to obtain statements in judicial procedures need to be adapted to the witnesses’ abilities to testify. Moreover, knowing the cognitive abilities involved in testifying provides ...relevant criteria to assess statement credibility. As age or intelligence quotient is not enough to estimate these capabilities, an instrument to evaluate witnesses’ specific abilities to testify is needed. The present paper validates CAPALIST, a procedure that considers relevant capabilities when assessing the testimony given by children.
Methods
: This study analyzed, by means of an invariant measurement approach (Rasch model), four scales included in CAPALIST: language, memory, contextual information, and social thinking. In addition, gender and age differences were analyzed in 83 children 45 males and 38 females;
M
age
= 4.3 years,
SD
= 0.74, range (3.06–5.11) from three courses in early childhood education.
Results
: The four scales do not severely violate the requirements of the model. The principal component analysis of the residuals indicates that the four scales are one dimensional and that the assumption of local independence was not violated. Differential item functioning of the scales associated with gender was not detected. A significant effect of the school year was obtained, with an increase in ability in successive courses. The percentage of children who presented severe misfit responses with the model was low. In addition, the number of items with a severe misfit was also low.
Conclusion
: An acceptable performance of CAPALIST is demonstrated for most of the scales, although items with a severe misfit must be replaced, and more difficult items have to be included in some scales of the revised version of the instrument. CAPALIST is a promising procedure to assess the abilities of children to testify in order to adapt interviews and to evaluate their statements correctly.
The reality of dissociative amnesia has been debated at length. From a clinical perspective, there is support for the existence of this phenomenon, with attempts to extrapolate it to legal contexts. ...However, there is little evidence to confirm it and, moreover, dissociative amnesias or repressed memories would go against evidences about the functioning of memory. The confusion between clinical psychology and forensic psychology, an inadequate definition of amnesia, the lack of a complete knowledge regarding the mechanisms of memory, and the problems inherent to the research of traumatic memories could explain the lack of agreement.
There is a deterioration in the quality of life (QoL) of survivor victims of warlike conflicts. Because there is a need to guarantee the effectiveness of assessment tools for these populations, we ...studied the adequacy of the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQoL-BREF) to assess the QoL of 1,136 surviving victims of the armed conflict in Colombia. Although this questionnaire has yielded promising results, questions remain about its psychometric suitability for specific populations. We used model modification at the item level, comparisons of models with different factor structures, and dimensionality analysis to address the psychometric problems encountered. Dimensionality analysis using a bifactor model suggests that WHOQoL-BREF total scores might be a more appropriate way of reporting results when model fit adequacy is not reached. Conclusions are offered on the psychometric properties of the WHOQoL-BREF, the evaluation of special populations, and possible strategies to address future questionnaire modifications.
Abstract
The present article reviews the credibility analysis procedure proposed by the UNHCR through which asylum applications are resolved, especially for unaccompanied minors. The particularities ...of these refugee minors and the general character of the credibility analysis procedure are described. Credibility indicators are analyzed together with the psychological barriers related to them. This manuscript provides evidence of the presence of trauma and resilience in the studied minors and how both influence their memories during the asylum interviews. As credibility assessment has a special focus on the evaluation of narratives through memory, memory is considered as a criterion responsible for the accuracy and credibility of underage applicants' testimony. Finally, this paper contributes with scientific psychological evidence towards the existence of multiple testimonies in asylum seekers.
Facial identification based on a comparison with a photo-ID is the most standard way to prove identity at security controls. Two experiments are performed controlling for the presence or absence of ...within-contour facial periphery (masking) and its substitution for an average periphery image (averaging), measuring matching accuracy, reaction time and signal-detection measures
d’
an
C
. Experiment 1 compared face matching for the original periphery in the pair, its masking and its averaging using a sample of frontal image pairs. Experiment 2 compared matches in the average condition with and without an apparent gap around internal features. Results show that masking of facial periphery had a detrimental effect on unfamiliar face matching accuracy accompanied by an increased tendency to positive responses, while averaging composites yielded no difference as compared to the original pair. No differences were found for matching in conditions with or without an apparent gap. The results suggest that face periphery contributes to unfamiliar face matching accuracy through a holistic process which is disrupted when focusing exclusively on the innermost features; the effect is dependent on the global structure of the face image and not related to low-level details. These results should be considered in the context of improving unfamiliar face matching.
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