Research

Confession, Interrogation and Eyewitness Memory Consultancy

Kate Houston

Experimental cognitive psychologist

research

Developing Best Practices

My research agenda is directed at exploring the ways in which interrogative strategies, social influence principles, rapport, and communication construct and affect investigative interviews/interrogations, as well as how emotional experiences effect the encoding and retrieval of witness memory. In essence, my research focuses on factors that enhance or impair memory evidence in two applied contexts: law enforcement, and national security. I conduct research which is strongly rooted in theory, but which has application within the legal system and national security contexts.

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Please feel free to contact me for a copy of my CV and representative publications.

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Interrogations and Confessions

My research on interrogations and confessions has focused on identifying interrogative techniques and styles which increase the likilhood of a truthful confession, while decreasing the likelihood of a false confession:

Representative Publications:

Houston, K. A., Meissner, C. A. & Evans, J. R. (2014) Psychological processes that distinguish true and false confessions. In R. H. Bull, (Ed.) Investigative Interviewing. (pp 19 – 35). USA: Springer.

Evans, J. R., Houston, K. A., Meissner, C. M., LaBianca, J. R., Ross, A. B., Woestehoff, S. A. & Kleinman, S. M. (2014). An empirical evaluation of intelligence-gathering interrogation techniques from the United States Army Field Manual. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 28(6): 867-875.

Interpreter-Mediated Communication

My research in this area focuses on better understanding interpreter-mediated interrogations and has explored topics such as language, memory, rapport, information loss and detecting deception.

Representative Publications:

Vrij, A., Leal, S., Fisher, R., Mann, S., Jo, E., Shaboltas, A., Khaleeva, M., Granskaya, J., & Houston, K. (2019). Eliciting information and cues to deceit through sketching in interpreter-based interviews. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 33(6), 1197 – 1211.

Houston, K. A., Russano, M. B, & Ricks, E. P. (2017). Any friend of yours is a friend of mine: Investigating the utilization of an interpreter in an investigative interview. Psychology, Crime and Law, 23(5), 413-426.

Eyewitness Memory

My research in this domain focuses primarily on the experience of emotions and how those emotions impact the accuracy and reliability of eyewitness memory evidence.

Representative Publications:

Lane, S., & Houston, K. A. (2021). Understanding Eyewitness Memory: Theory and Applications. New York University Press.

Lane, S., & Houston, K. (2019). Eyewitness Memory. In Brewer N., & Bradfield Douglass, A. (Eds). Psychological Science and the Law, (pp 104 – 129). UK: Guildford Press.

Houston, K. A., Hope, L., Memon, A. & Read, D. (2013). Expert testimony on eyewitness evidence: In search of commonsense. Behavioral Sciences and the Law Special Issue on Memory Formation and Suggestibility in the Legal Process, 31(5), 531-682.

Houston, K. A., Clifford, B. R., Phillips, L. H., & Memon, A., (2013). The emotional eyewitness: The effects of emotion on specific aspects of eyewitness recall and recognition performance. Emotion, 13(1), 118 – 128.

Kate Houston

Experimental cognitive psychologist

research

Developing Best Practices

Learn More

Select works

Interrogations and Confessions

Interpreter-Mediated Communication

Eyewitness Memory

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