There are lots of exciting events happening within the Law School. Plus there are many other University and external events which may be of interest. We have therefore collated them all into one central calendar to help you choose which you would like to attend.


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Dr Heather Flowe, University of Leicester

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Our next lunch seminar will be presented by Dr Heather Flowe from the School of Psychology at the University of Leicester. Dr Flowe conducts research on applied cognition and her recent studies include testing procedures for conducting lineups and photospreads, examining why some faces seem more criminal looking than others, and investigating the effects of alcohol on memory for traumatic events.

Can people who were under the influence of alcohol during the event provide accurate testimony? (Kasia Zelek, Heather Flowe, Joyce Humphries, Melanie Takarangi, and Deborah Wright)

To date, more than 300 men convicted of sex offences have had their convictions overturned. Post-conviction DNA analyses indicated the defendant’s DNA did not match the biological evidence collected at the crime scene. In the vast majority of these cases, a victim or an eyewitness erroneously identified the defendant. We examined the influence of alcohol on remembering an interactive hypothetical sexual assault scenario in the laboratory using a balanced placebo design. Women’s memory for the assault was 24 hours, 1 week, and 4 months later. Participants reported less information (i.e., responded ‘don’t know’ more often to questions) if they were under the influence of alcohol during scenario encoding. The accuracy of the information they reported, however, did not differ in comparison with sober participants, suggesting intoxicated participants can effectively monitor the accuracy of their memory at test, as least at the dosage levels we investigated (BAC 0.04 to 0.08%). The implications that these findings have for investigative interviews will be considered.

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