Psychology Seminar Series - The role of memory in the strategic use of evidence in suspect interviews

The role of memory has received extensive attention in eyewitness research but remains underexamined in suspect interviewing. Current international interviewing standards, including the Méndez Principles, emphasise that the timing and manner of evidence disclosure are an important aspect when planning interviews. This emphasis is based on findings showing large differences in the extent to which guilty and innocent suspects’ statements align with available evidence – particularly when evidence is disclosed late – with guilty suspects’ statements being considerably less consistent. These differences are typically attributed to strategic information management, with innocent suspects expected and found to provide forthcoming and detailed accounts, even when this involves admitting potentially self-incriminating but ultimately innocuous activities. This, however, presupposes that they can retrieve sufficiently specific, event-relevant details at the time of the interview. Memory-related constraints on such forthcomingness and consistency have received little direct empirical attention. I present initial experimental findings examining how memory-related factors affect statement–evidence consistency in innocent suspects, examine how features of current experimental paradigms may contribute to the reported differences, and discuss implications for investigative interviewing practice.