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Psychiatric reports for legal purposes in England and Wales
Published in John C. Gunn, Pamela J. Taylor, Forensic Psychiatry, 2014
John Gunn, John Gunn, Anne Ridley, Keith Rix, David Carson, Nigel Eastman, Adrian Grounds, Gisli Gudjonsson, John Gunn
The effect of anxiety on memory and suggestibility is a concern because of the stress caused by being a witness, victim or suspect in court. Studies by Gudjonsson using the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI, Spielberger et al., 1983) have shown that state anxiety is more reliably related to suggestibility than trait anxiety, as would be expected given that state anxiety is situation bound whereas trait anxiety is relatively stable (Gudjonsson, 1988a). However in experimental studies in which misleading information was incidentally introduced and suggestibility was later measured during a memory test, state anxiety was associated with lower suggestibility whether state anxiety was manipulated or measured using the STAI. This was observed in both adults and children (Ridley et al., 2002; Ridley and Clifford, 2004, 2006). It therefore appears that using anxiety measures to assess likely witness performance should be undertaken with caution given these inconsistent findings. Associations between anxiety and eyewitness memory generally are variable and no firm conclusions can be drawn. Although, in a meta-analysis of 27 studies which investigated the effect of stress on eyewitness identification and a further 36 studies looking at memory for details of a crime, Deffenbacher et al. (2004) concluded that stress has a negative impact on memory for both kinds of detail. (Although see Christianson (1992) and Heuer and Reisberg (2007) for alternative perspectives.) The studies cited in this paragraph were not carried out among people with mental health problems or intellectual disabilities, but there is no reason to assume that the effects would be any less in these groups than in healthy populations.
An Examination of the Synergy of Age and PTSD on Narrative Coherence in Child Sexual Abuse Testimony
Published in Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 2022
Sarah Miragoli, Elena Camisasca
Our approach could help to provide a more detailed picture of the protective role of children’s age in child sexual abuse testimony, that could completely buffer the negative effects of PTSD only in older children (in adolescence). This area of study is crucial not only for theoretical reasons but also for resolving legal controversies about children’s eyewitness memory. In a criminal proceeding, a witness is considered as reliable if he/she is able to recall in narrative form the events, chronologically ordered, with salient contextual (place and time) details and essential evaluations for the definition of meanings (Di Blasio et al., 2012). Our findings confirmed these narrative competences mature with age but could be strongly influenced by the traumatic impact of the experienced events. In evaluating the child testimony, it is fundamental to consider the traumatic effects of the abusive event in reference to the age of the witness. The joint effects of age and PTSD on narrative coherence assume a relevant predictive value. Age could effectively buffer the negative effects of trauma only in older children, while in younger children (preschool and school age) the negative effects of the traumatic experience exert a significant impact on the ability to organize coherent narratives, above all contextually anchored.