Dr. Vredeveldt’s research addresses an important question: how can we improve eyewitness memory? Specifically, she will investigate under what conditions witnesses can help, as opposed to harm, each other’s memory. Based on basic memory research, she predicts that witnesses can correct each other’s errors. Based on theoretical work from various disciplines (including cognitive psychology, sociology, philosophy and law), she predicts that under certain conditions witnesses can “cross-cue” each other’s memory. A “cue” refers to a prompt that triggers the retrieval of information from memory. By providing cues, witnesses may help each other to produce memories that no individual could recall alone. In other words, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Improving the quality and quantity of information obtained from witnesses would likely lead to more criminal cases being solved.
