Legal and Criminological Psychology最新文献

{"title":"Comment on Nachson: Alternative “truths” of repressed memories: Views of judges of the Israeli supreme court","authors":"Michela Marchetti, Jessica Talbot, Gianmarco Convertino, Danilo Mitaritonna, Mara Stockner, Giuliana Mazzoni","doi":"10.1111/lcrp.1_12275","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lcrp.1_12275","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Multiple “truths” in criminal trials represents the main idea proposed in this article. Typically, this rather arguable, albeit intriguing, concept refers to a relativistic approach on the concept of truth. But relativism is not what the author suggests; he claims that “truth” remains a correspondist construct, in which corroborating evidence is necessary.</p><p>The author refers to the debate on memory repression, presenting evidence for and against this concept, differences that stem from the difficulties to empirically measure repression. Experts can have very different and at times opposite opinions on the same legal case, and all are presented and received as “truths.” Multiple “truths.” More specifically, attention is focussed on the Israeli Supreme Court, and examples of allegations of child sexual abuse in children who have recovered memories of sexual abuse after years of no memory. In certain Israeli court cases, it is accepted that repressed traumatic memories are remembered after years, a stance mainly fuelled by professionals believing in repression.</p><p>Such issues are not unique to Israel. As the author documents well, they have been very common in other countries as well, for many years, not just countries often reported about (e.g., Battista et al., <span>2023</span>), and it is easy to draw parallels between Israel and the situation in Italy (Convertino et al., <span>2022</span>; Magnussen et al., <span>2013</span>), where many controversial examples on the topic of memory repression in childhood sexual abuse exist (Mazzoni et al., <span>2025</span>).</p><p>The law in Israel admits recovered memories as evidence of abuse. It is surprising to learn about such perspective of the Israeli Supreme Court, given that in Israel the knowledge of judges on these topics is rather well researched, and, as in other countries (Magnussen et al., <span>2008</span>; Magnussen et al., <span>2010</span>), judges are aware of this controversy and the problems deriving from memory recovery techniques. Israeli courts then can fall easily victim to “multiple truths”, i.e. differences between paradigms defined by clinical viewpoints.</p><p>Interestingly, the author also highlights another problem all legal systems have in common, the fact that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”, an intriguing topic on how evidence is dealt with in court. This is a highly debated issue by philosophers of the law, addressed usually by proposing standards of proof to weigh presence vs. absence of evidence (e.g. Ferrer Beltran, <span>2021</span>). In criminal cases, the <i>standard of proof</i> represents the degree to which a party (prosecutor/defence) must prove its case to succeed. It is linked with the <i>burden of proof</i>, i.e. the requirements to satisfy that standard. In many legal systems, including nowadays the Italian system, the standard of proof, for the prosecutor's arguments, is to prove the case against the defendant “beyond any reasonab","PeriodicalId":18022,"journal":{"name":"Legal and Criminological Psychology","volume":"30 S1","pages":"84-86"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lcrp.1_12275","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143836429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on Otgaar et al.: The neuroscience of dissociative amnesia and repressed memory: Premature conclusions and unanswered questions","authors":"Gianmarco Convertino, Danilo Mitaritonna, Mara Stockner, Michela Marchetti, Jessica Talbot, Giuliana Mazzoni","doi":"10.1111/lcrp.2_12272","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lcrp.2_12272","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Otgaar and colleagues admirably highlight the strengths and weaknesses of past research, while proposing strategies for studying ‘psychogenic amnesia’ and its related concepts, along with their neural correlates. They argue convincingly for redefining psychogenic amnesia as ‘amnesia of uncertain etiology’, considering various potential causes, like unclear origins or feigned memory loss (Mazzoni, <span>2019</span>; Vannucci et al., <span>2015</span>). The prevalence of feigned dissociative disorders as a form of malingering and symptom exaggeration, as noted by Mittenberg et al. (<span>2002</span>), underscores the importance of investigating such factors in research contexts.</p><p>A central point of Otgaar's contribution, which we extend in this commentary, is the statistical concept of correlation. As already stated elsewhere (e.g. Convertino et al., <span>2022</span>), the concept of correlation is quite different from the concept of causation, just as the concept of statistical correlation is remote from the concept of statistical causation. Despite many advances in data sciences for the development of robust causal inferential strategies (Peters et al., <span>2017</span>), not all neuroscientific studies in the literature adopt these options, amplifying biases especially at the data interpretation stage, which in turn distort results and lead to erroneous conclusions.</p><p>Moreover, sometimes readers may inadvertently misunderstand, interpreting honestly reported data of associations as evidence of causation. In the clinical setting, also due to problematic overlapping of concepts and debates (e.g. definition and characteristics of ‘repressed memory’ vs. ‘criteria/diagnosis of dissociative amnesia’; see Battista et al., <span>2023</span>; Mangiulli et al., <span>2022</span>), professionals fall for the easy conceptual fallacy (Fukuzako et al., <span>1999</span>) of inferring a cause, for example ‘traumatic experiences’, from the observation in a patient of DSM-5 symptoms that merely correlate with trauma.</p><p>In cognitive neuroscience, scientists are aware of these limitations: in fact, the presence of a relationship between the <i>observed</i> variable (e.g. reporting having suffered a trauma) and the measured outcome (e.g. dissociative amnesia) is not sufficient in determining the causal relationship between two phenomena. Only counterfactual data derived from direct manipulation can suggest causation. In this sense, major advances have been obtained through the implementation of invasive and non-invasive brain stimulation techniques capable of experimentally <i>manipulating</i> brain functioning and measuring the consequent behavioural outcomes. As rightly pointed out by Otgaar and colleagues, functional and/or structural brain imaging studies investigating amnesia of uncertain aetiology are unable to reach conclusions with causal value, lacking counterfactual evidence.</p><p>Despite these challenges, the neuroscientific literature","PeriodicalId":18022,"journal":{"name":"Legal and Criminological Psychology","volume":"30 S1","pages":"49-50"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lcrp.2_12272","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143836420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dissociative amnesia – A valid construct for repressed memories","authors":"Hans J. Markowitsch,&nbsp;Angelica Staniloiu","doi":"10.1111/lcrp.12276","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lcrp.12276","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Dissociative amnesia or psychogenic amnesia are established diseases in psychiatry, but their existence and aetiology are sometimes questioned by researchers working primarily in experimental fields of psychology. The validity of the diagnoses is defended by (a) pointing to the for centuries existing tradition of the disease conditions, (b) their likely aetiology in the context of (repeated) situations of learned helplessness, stress, and trauma, and (c) and a downregulation of emotional reactivity. Dissociative amnesia is defined as a memory blockade, usually induced by an adverse environment for which appropriate coping strategies are lacking. The influence of a lack of psychic wellbeing on the brain is worked out by pointing to results from structural and functional brain imaging and by using the examples of Takotsubo-cardiomyopathy and transient global amnesia. Concomitant psychiatric disease conditions and specific personality traits of patients with dissociative amnesia are discussed. It is concluded that dissociative amnesia is a valid concept with distinct neural correlates that withstands the criticisms of a few experimental psychologists.</p>","PeriodicalId":18022,"journal":{"name":"Legal and Criminological Psychology","volume":"30 S1","pages":"5-21"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143836391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Repressed Memory and Dissociative Amnesia: The Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon of Memory Loss","authors":"Henry Otgaar,&nbsp;Mark L. Howe,&nbsp;Lawrence Patihis,&nbsp;Ivan Mangiulli,&nbsp;Olivier Dodier,&nbsp;Rafaële Huntjens,&nbsp;Elisa Krackow,&nbsp;Marko Jelicic,&nbsp;Steven Jay Lynn","doi":"10.1111/lcrp.1_12276","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lcrp.1_12276","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;Renewed interest in UFOs, now called Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), gained traction in 2017 when The New York Times published three videos captured by pilots purportedly demonstrating UAPs showing manoeuvres exceeding human technology.1 The Pentagon investigated these UAPs and, recently, reports and hearings have begun to unravel the origin of these strange sightings. These investigations have shown that only a small percentage of these UAPS does not “resolve into readily explainable sources” such as weather balloons or planes.2 Moreover, these investigations have not revealed any convincing proof for an extraterrestrial origin. In this commentary, we will show that this story bears a striking resemblance with the controversial discourse of repressed memory and dissociative amnesia.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;An important first task that the Pentagon undertook was to decipher whether UAPs could be explained by plausible alternative accounts. In the same vein, in the field of (alleged) memory loss, before a convincing case can be made that memory loss has a traumatic cause, other science-based explanations should be sought first (Otgaar et al., &lt;span&gt;2019&lt;/span&gt;). For example, research has revealed that reported memory loss of autobiographical experiences can be produced by organic causes (e.g., head injury, Jelicic, &lt;span&gt;2023&lt;/span&gt;) or malingering (Zago et al., &lt;span&gt;2023&lt;/span&gt;). This issue is important as Markowitsch and Staniloiu (&lt;span&gt;2025&lt;/span&gt;, p. 6) provided examples of triggers leading to dissociative amnesia such as “a head concussion” and “banged with his head against a metal door.” These are perfect examples that the memory loss might not be dissociative in nature but has a plausible cause: an organic one.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The examples described in Markowitsch and Staniloiu (&lt;span&gt;2025&lt;/span&gt;) are reminiscent of a recent review by Mangiulli et al. (&lt;span&gt;2022&lt;/span&gt;). In this review, the authors critically examined 128 case studies of dissociative amnesia. An important finding was that in about a third of case studies, an organic antecedent was present thereby leading to the possibility that the reported memory loss might have nothing to with a dissociative origin. Therefore, the authors proposed that because it is oftentimes challenging to rule out other mechanisms (e.g., organic causes, malingering), a neutral label would be the best route to describe the memory loss such as &lt;i&gt;amnesia of uncertain aetiology&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To conclude, we argue that just like UAPs, repressed memory and dissociative amnesia should be first tested against plausible explanations such as organic amnesia or malingering memory loss. Moreover, even when these explanations cannot account for traumatic memory loss, concepts such as repressed memory and dissociative amnesia are, by default, difficult to reconcile with philosophical and evolutionary points of view (De Brigard, &lt;span&gt;2023&lt;/span&gt;; Patihis, &lt;span&gt;2023&lt;/span&gt;). Of course, we remain open to new data to document whether","PeriodicalId":18022,"journal":{"name":"Legal and Criminological Psychology","volume":"30 S1","pages":"22-23"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lcrp.1_12276","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143836379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reply to Nachson","authors":"Hans J. Markowitsch,&nbsp;Angelica Staniloiu","doi":"10.1111/lcrp.4_12276","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lcrp.4_12276","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18022,"journal":{"name":"Legal and Criminological Psychology","volume":"30 S1","pages":"27-28"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143836393","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reply to Otgaar et al.","authors":"Hans J. Markowitsch,&nbsp;Angelica Staniloiu","doi":"10.1111/lcrp.3_12276","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lcrp.3_12276","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18022,"journal":{"name":"Legal and Criminological Psychology","volume":"30 S1","pages":"25-26"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143836394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A comment on‚ Dissociative Amnesia: A Valid Construct for Repressed Memories by Hans J. Markowitsch and Angelica Staniloiu","authors":"Israel Nachson,&nbsp;Angelica Staniloiu","doi":"10.1111/lcrp.2_12276","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lcrp.2_12276","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18022,"journal":{"name":"Legal and Criminological Psychology","volume":"30 S1","pages":"24-25"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143836392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring common ground in the repressed versus false memories debate","authors":"Hartmut Blank,&nbsp;Aileen Oeberst","doi":"10.1111/lcrp.12307","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lcrp.12307","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Despite some hope in the early 2000s and 2010s, the ‘memory wars’ are not over yet, while science and the public still need reliable answers regarding the emergence, veracity and consequences of delayed memories of sexual abuse. This special issue (inspired by a British Psychological Society working group on the same topic) is therefore another attempt at making some progress along these lines, by creating a kind of round table debate between five (groups of) ‘panellists’, resulting in five ‘mini debates’ consisting of original contributions, comments and replies. We think this adds new facets to this important debate.</p>","PeriodicalId":18022,"journal":{"name":"Legal and Criminological Psychology","volume":"30 S1","pages":"1-4"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143836390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Damned if you don't: Public perceptions of polygraph testing and suspect willingness to be tested","authors":"Bryan Barnes,&nbsp;Bryan Myers,&nbsp;Rachel Klainer,&nbsp;Kori Meyer","doi":"10.1111/lcrp.12310","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lcrp.12310","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Purpose</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Information about whether an individual volunteered to take or refused to take a polygraph test may become public knowledge, and in some instances, becomes known to jurors. While numerous studies have investigated how the public regards polygraph test accuracy, little is known about public perceptions surrounding refusal or willingness to take a polygraph test in cases where an individual's veracity is questioned.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Methods</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>An online survey of 302 individuals assessed beliefs about the accuracy of polygraph tests and trust in denials of guilt in hypothetical cases where a polygraph test was: (1) refused, (2) voluntarily taken with no results, (3) voluntarily taken and passed and (4) voluntarily taken and failed.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Results</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Overall, the average rating of polygraph accuracy in detecting deception was 71%, and 67% for detecting truthfulness. The findings also indicate that suspect willingness to take a polygraph test significantly increases trust in their denial of guilt, while refusal to take the test is perceived similarly to a failed test. Despite scepticism about the accuracy of polygraph tests, willingness or refusal to take the test impacts whether the suspect is trusted by others.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Conclusions</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <p>For courts in which polygraph test evidence is inadmissible, jurors should not be informed about whether the defendant or any witness offered or refused a polygraph test because they are likely to judge truthfulness based on this information.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":18022,"journal":{"name":"Legal and Criminological Psychology","volume":"30 2","pages":"316-325"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lcrp.12310","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144832964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Urgent issues and prospects in guilty plea research and practice","authors":"Allison D. Redlich,&nbsp;Lydia Becker,&nbsp;Lucian E. Dervan,&nbsp;Michael P. Donnelly,&nbsp;Annabelle Frazier,&nbsp;Meredith Gallen,&nbsp;Oren Gazal-Ayal,&nbsp;Rebecca K. Helm,&nbsp;Brian D. Johnson,&nbsp;Emi MacLean,&nbsp;Norman L. Reimer,&nbsp;Miko M. Wilford,&nbsp;Tina M. Zottoli","doi":"10.1111/lcrp.12306","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lcrp.12306","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Criminal legal systems around the world rely heavily on defendants foregoing their right to trial and pleading guilty. However, legal scholars, social scientists, and practitioners have identified and empirically examined numerous problems with pleas, such as the high potential for coercion, innocent defendants falsely pleading guilty, and undue incentives in exchange for accepting plea offer. In this article, leading guilty plea experts (practitioners and researchers) were asked to identify what they considered to be the most urgent questions surrounding pleas. Across nine commentaries, three primary themes emerged. First were calls for increased transparency in pleas, specific to rules of discovery and access to exculpatory information, and in uncovering the hidden nature of the plea negotiation process. Second were concepts of fairness and voluntariness, such as uncounseled pleas, particularly for misdemeanour defendants, and the dubious assumptions made by courts regarding the presumption of voluntariness. Third was the theme of fair and just outcomes, particularly false guilty pleas. Four of the commentaries focused on innocence, describing and encouraging more research on the factors that increase false guilty pleas, including excessive plea discounts, specialized sentencing offers for juvenile defendants, and ‘time-served’ offers, either to induce initial guilty pleas (pre-trial phase) or to avoid official exonerations of those wrongly convicted (post-conviction phase). Across all commentaries, experts identified areas in need of future research, both in continuing to understand the problems known to plague systems of pleas and in developing improved methods to ensure the guilty plea process is transparent, voluntary, and just.</p>","PeriodicalId":18022,"journal":{"name":"Legal and Criminological Psychology","volume":"30 2","pages":"193-211"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lcrp.12306","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144832963","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}