title: Trauma memories on trial: is cross-examination a safeguard against distorted analogue traumatic memories?
abstract: Trauma memories can feel more disorganised than more mundane memories. That may be problematic in legal contexts. Here we examined: (a) whether that disorganised feeling makes people more susceptible to suggestive questioning during direct examination; and (b) whether cross-examination is the safeguard it is purported to be: that is, we examined whether cross-examination can uncover and correct distorted trauma memories. We showed participants a film depicting a graphic car accident. For some participants, the film unfolded in a temporally disorganised way. We then interviewed participants immediately after the film regarding what they had seen: this 'direct examination' included free recall, cued recall and yes/no questions, some of which were misleading. Then, 48 hours later, a second interviewer cross-examined participants. Contrary to our predictions, neither manipulation of the film's temporal organisation, nor participants' self-reported feelings of event disorganisation significantly affected their accuracy of the film during direct or cross-examination nor their recognition memory of the film. Instead, we found that regardless of whether participants' memories were distorted by the direct examination, the suggestive nature of the cross-examination introduced sufficient doubt that participants were willing to change their answers. We conclude that traumatic memories are vulnerable to suggestive questioning and, unfortunately, cross-examination is not the legal system's fail-safe corrective influence.
authors.affiliation: a John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY , New York , NY , USA.
authors.forename: Daisy A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Segovia
authors.affiliation: a John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY , New York , NY , USA.
authors.forename: Deryn
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Strange
authors.affiliation: b School of Psychology , Flinders University , Adelaide , Australia.
authors.forename: Melanie K T
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Takarangi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003463:Cues; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012094:Repression, Psychology; D013404:Suggestion; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Trauma memory; cross-examination; recognition memory; suggestibility