Urgent issues and prospects at the intersection of culture, memory, and witness interviews: Exploring the challenges for research and practice

Abstract

The pursuit of justice increasingly relies on productive interactions between witnesses and investigators from diverse cultural backgrounds during investigative interviews. To date, the role of cultural context has largely been ignored by researchers in the field of investigative interviewing, despite repeated requests from practitioners and policymakers for evidence‐based guidance for the conduct of interviews with people from different cultures. Through examining cultural differences in human memory and communication and considering specific contextual challenges for investigative interviewing through the lens of culture, this review and associated commentaries highlight the scope for considering culture and human diversity in research on, and the practice of, investigative interviewing with victims, witnesses, and other sources. Across 11 commentaries, contributors highlight the importance of considering the role of culture in different investigative interviewing practices (e.g., rapport building, questioning techniques) and contexts (e.g., gender‐based violence, asylum seeking, child abuse), address common areas of cultural mismatch between interviewer–interviewee expectations, and identify critical future routes for research. We call for an increased focus in the investigative interviewing literature on the nature and needs of our global community and encourage constructive and collaborative discussion between researchers and practitioners from around the world to better identify specific challenges and work together towards evidence‐based solutions.

Seeing is believing? A systematic review of credibility perceptions of live and remote video‐mediated communication in legal settings

“…Experiences of Canadian immigration lawyers would corroborate this (Ellis, 2004) and highlight the need for further research in these areas of vulnerability and social-cultural difference (Hope et al, 2022).…”

“…Experiences of Canadian immigration lawyers would corroborate this (Ellis, 2004) and highlight the need for further research in these areas of vulnerability and social‐cultural difference (Hope et al, 2022). Specifically, they reported that the audio‐visual medium made it hard to gauge emotion and that cultural difference created more communication barriers for example lack of eye contact and language differences (Ellis, 2004).…”

“…Currently there is a dearth of research examining how individuals with particular vulnerabilities may be perceived on remote videoconferencing. The intersection of assumptions about trauma presentations, cultural and language differences have been identified as influential factors for in-person credibility assessments (Hope et al, 2022). EVT highlights a problematic aspect of assessing someone via video-link as social interactions may be interrupted (e.g.…”

“…Laypeople and experts (e.g., judges and police) alike rely on faulty stereotypes to assess credibility (Bond & DePaulo, 2006;Vriij & Fisher, 2020). For example, judges reporting averted gaze as a sign of deception, however it is not a reliable indicator and may also be misconstrued when cultural context is not accounted for (Hope et al, 2022;Ellis, 2004).…”

The Effect of Cross-Examination Style Questions on Adult Eyewitness Accuracy Depends on Question Type and Eyewitness Confidence

“…This linguistic account may, at least partly, explain why negative questions impaired the accuracy of witnesses' reports compared to simple questions. Relatedly, recent research on linguistic differences across cultures suggest that culture may influence how people respond to cross-examination style questions (Hope et al, 2022). This could be a fruitful topic for future research.…”