Abstract
Research into juror perceptions regarding the impact of intoxication on eyewitness memory and credibility is scarce for substances other than alcohol. However, jurors are frequently told to draw on their personal beliefs and experience with intoxicating substances to infer their impact on the case. It is therefore important to investigate laypeople’s perceptions regarding witness and victim intoxication across a range of substances, and whether these perceptions are associated with substance familiarity. Participants (n = 470) completed a survey assessing familiarity and use of different substances, as well as perceptions regarding effects on the memory and credibility of intoxicated victims and witnesses. While participants most frequently reported believing that alcohol, hallucinogens, and polysubstance use of alcohol and cannabis have large negative effects on memory, they more frequently reported that they do not know the extent to which cannabis and cocaine affect memory. In addition, attitudes were found to vary based on substance familiarity. Differences with respect to the perceived impact on memory and credibility of various substances can have relevance to court proceedings, particularly in terms of voir dire procedures, jury instructions, and whether an expert witness is required to educate the court on the impacts of different forms of intoxication.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 820-840 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Psychology, Crime and Law |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| Early online date | 4 Aug 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 14 Sept 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors thank Dr Jacqueline Evans for kindly providing her survey to be adapted for this study. We also thank Matthew Singleton and Natali Dilevski for their help in editing the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Keywords
- eyewitness testimony
- memory
- credibility
- alcohol
- drugs
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Pathology and Forensic Medicine
- Psychology(all)
- Law
Access to Document
- MondsL2021Memory
This is an Accepted Manuscript version of the following article, accepted for publication in Psychology, Crime & Law. Lauren Ann Monds, Hayley Joanne Cullen, Lilian Kloft, Celine van Golde, Anthony William Harrison & Heather Flowe (2021) Memory and credibility perceptions of alcohol and other drug intoxicated witnesses and victims of crime, Psychology, Crime & Law, DOI: 10.1080/1068316X.2021.1962871. It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.