| 1. |
- Hagsand, Angelica, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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Alcohol, crime and memory. Intoxicated eyewitnesses delayed recall of a kidnapping.
- 2012
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Ingår i: Svenska föreningen för Alkohol- och Drogforskning, konferens 8-9 November, Norrköping.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Alcohol is involved in 50-70% of violent crimes in Sweden. Eyewitness memory is a valuable source in investigations and it is common that the police interview alcohol intoxicated eyewitnesses. There are few studies on how alcohol affects witness memory. This study investigated how different doses of alcohol affected eyewitness recall one week after witnessing a crime and potential sex differences. The participants (N = 126) were healthy adults and were randomly assigned to either a control group, 0.0 g/kg ethanol (N = 42), a lower alcohol dose group, 0.4 g/kg ethanol (N = 40), or a higher alcohol dose group, 0.7 g/kg ethanol (N = 44). After 15 minutes consumption in a laboratory, participants witnessed a film showing a kidnapping of a woman by two men. The witnesses were interviewed about the crime one week later in a sober state. Witnesses in the higher alcohol dose group recalled fewer details compared to witnesses in the lower alcohol dose group. The amount of alcohol consumed did not have an impact on accuracy. Women and men reached the same blood alcohol concentration and no sex differences were found in recall. Interestingly, although the witnesses in the high alcohol dose group reported less information, their testimony was as correct as the testimony given by witnesses in the control group and the lower alcohol dose group. Despite the interesting results, more studies are needed before recommendations to the legal system can be made.
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| 2. |
- Hagsand, Angelica, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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Alcohol intoxicated eyewitnesses´ delayed recall of a kidnapping.
- 2013
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Ingår i: Poster presented at the European Association of Psychology and Law, 5th of September 2013, Coventry, UK..
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study investigated how different doses of alcohol affected eyewitness recall. Participants (N = 126) were randomly assigned to three groups with different blood alcohol concentration (BAC), either a control group (mean BAC 0.00%, N = 42), a lower alcohol dose group (mean BAC 0.04%, N = 40), or a higher alcohol dose group (mean BAC 0.06%, N = 44). After consumption in a laboratory, participants witnessed a film of a mock crime where a woman was kidnapped by two men. One week after, the witnesses were interviewed in a sober state, by interviewers who were blind to which beverage the witnesses had consumed the week before. The main results showed that witnesses with the higher intoxication level recalled fewer details compared to witnesses with the lower intoxication level. The amount of alcohol consumed did not have an impact on the accuracy rate. No sex differences were found. We conclude that more studies are needed before recommendations can be made to an applied setting, but this study showed that alcohol may have a negative impact on eyewitness recall.
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| 3. |
- Hagsand, Angelica, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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Effect of the degree of alcohol intoxication on eyewitness memory for a violent crime: Identification accuracy in lineup
- 2011
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Ingår i: Oral presentation at The Nordic Network for Psychology and Law (NNPL), September 16-17 2011, Oslo, Norway.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Introduction and Aim. In Sweden, 50-70% of all violent crimes are alcohol related (BRÅ, 2007, 2009). Eyewitnesses are valuable to the Police since they have seen the event and many crimes lack technical evidence like DNA. Due to the limited studies in the area, this ongoing experimental study might give valuable knowledge to the legal system concerning the assessment of alcohol intoxicated eyewitnesses and the credibility of their testimonies. Methods. The participants (N = 120 when finished) consists of healthy adult students. The study uses a 3 x 2 between- participants design with random assignment to alcohol beverage (none vs. moderate vs. high dose,) and lineup presentation (target present vs. target absent). Consumption time is 15 minutes in a laboratory with living room design. A movie depicting a staged kidnapping is shown to the participants and after 30 minutes of distracting filler tasks the participants are interviewed. One week later, the participants are presented the simultaneous lineup in order to identify the culprit from the movie and are also interviewed in more detail about the crime scene. Results and Conclusions. The data collection is ongoing during the spring of 2011. To this date, data from half of the participants has been collected. Results concerning identification accuracy will be presented and discussed at the NNPL conference in Oslo in September 2011.
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| 4. |
- Hagsand, Angelica, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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Immediate or delayed recall: When is the best time to interview alcohol intoxicated eyewitnesses?
- 2013
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Ingår i: Oral presentation at The Nordic Network for Psychology and Law (NNPL), October 25-26 2013, Aarhus, Denmark.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Introduction. Many violent crimes involve alcohol intoxicated eyewitnesses, but there are only a few studies on how alcohol affects eyewitness memory. Aim. The overall aim was to examine whether eyewitnesses, intoxicated as well as sober, recall more (and more accurate) information when interviewed immediately after witnessing a crime, compared to a delayed interview. Methods. The participants (N = 99) were randomly assigned to a 2 (Beverage: control vs. alcohol) x 2 (Recall trial: immediate and delayed vs. delayed only) mixed design. After a 15 minutes consumption time, a staged kidnapping on film was shown. Half of the participants (N = 48) were interviewed immediately and all (N = 100) had a one week delayed recall. Results. There was no difference between sober and intoxicated eyewitnesses in terms of amount of details, but intoxicated witnesses were less accurate. Eyewitnesses who had an immediate recall remembered significantly more and were more accurate at the delayed recall, than eyewitnesses who did not have an immediate recall. This regardless whether the eyewitnesses had consumed alcohol or not the week before. Conclusions. This study shows the importance of conducting an immediate interview, even when the witnesses are intoxicated with a low to moderate blood alcohol concentration.
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| 5. |
- Hagsand, Angelica, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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Bar study: Interview and show-up performance of alcohol-intoxicated eyewitnesses in the field.
- 2023
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Ingår i: Oral presentation at the Fifth Zoom Psychology and Law Symposium: Substance Use in Legal Arena.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Background: Many witnesses are intoxicated at the time of the crime, but few studies have examined how higher doses of alcohol affect memory. This quasi-experimental study on alcohol-intoxicated witnesses’ event memory included mock witness participants recruited from bars that allowed for higher intoxication levels than lab-based studies. The present study also addressed another gap in the literature by examining the effects of alcohol on mock witnesses’ show-up identifications. Although the majority of studies on alcohol’s effect on eyewitness identification performance have examined lineup identification performance, a considerable number of real-world identifications remain show-ups (e.g., Hagsand et al., 2022). Method: Volunteer bar patrons (N = 68) first viewed a mock-crime video, were interviewed about the crime before being asked to identify the perpetrator either in a target-present or target-absent show-up. Breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) was measured with a portable breathalyzer and ranged from 0.00-0.15%. For data analysis, level of intoxication was collapsed into low (BrAC 0.00 - 0.04%), moderate (BrAC = 0.05 - 0.10%) and high intoxication (BrAC = 0.11 - 0.15%). Result: Analyses revealed that BrAC had a significant effect on accuracy of recalled details (p = .02). Specifically, the high intoxication group was significantly less accurate when reporting (M = 87%, SD = 0.07) than the low intoxication group (M = 92%, SD = 0.05) and the moderate intoxication group (M = 93%, SD = 0.06). No effect of intoxication level was found on the quantity of information witnesses reported. Show-up data were analyzed using a logistic regression with BrAC and show-up condition (target-present vs. target-absent) as predictors and identification accuracy as outcome variables. Neither BrAC level (p = .90) nor the interaction (p = .67) between predictors had a significant influence on identification accuracy. Conclusions: In line with several prior studies, our study suggests that face recognition appears to be unaffected by alcohol-intoxication, even at high intoxication levels in a single person show-up which is more suggestive than a traditional lineup. Our findings that alcohol intoxication affects witness accuracy but not witness quantity are only partially aligned with prior research and will be discussed in light of effect size and stimulus material developed for this study.
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| 6. |
- Hagsand, Angelica, 1985
(författare)
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Alcohol-intoxicated eyewitnesses´ memory
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Eyewitnesses are an important source of information in many criminal investigations. However, the memory of an eyewitness is not always accurate, and errors may occur that have serious consequences. Alcohol-related crimes are common and therefore, intoxicated witnesses are common. However, only a handful of published studies have described how alcohol affects eyewitnesses’ memory. The overall aim of the research described in this thesis was to examine how alcohol affects eyewitnesses’ memory. The thesis comprises three studies, which followed similar general procedures. The participants in the studies consumed an alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage during a 15-minute period and then witnessed a film that depicting a staged kidnapping. The retention interval and recall format varied between the studies. The aim of Study I was to examine the influence of alcohol on eyewitnesses’ performances in a line-up setting. The participants (N = 123) were randomly assigned to a 3 (Beverage: control [0.0 g/kg] versus lower alcohol dosage [0.4 g/kg] group versus higher alcohol dosage [0.7 g/kg] group) × 2 (Line-up: target-present versus target-absent) between-subject design. One week after alcohol intoxication and the critical event, the participants were exposed to the line-up. The results showed no significant difference between the groups in terms of performance in the line-up, under either the target-present or the target-absent condition. In general, the participants performed better than chance at identifying the culprit. However, all witnesses performed quite poorly. Study II (N = 126) examined the effects of alcohol (Beverage: control [0.0 g/kg] versus lower alcohol dosage [0.4 g/kg] group versus higher alcohol dosage [0.7 g/kg] group) on the amount of information reported (completeness) and accuracy rate. There was no difference in the completeness between the control group and the higher alcohol dosage group or between the control group and the lower alcohol dosage group. When comparing the two alcohol groups, participants in the higher alcohol dosage group remembered fewer details than those in the lower alcohol dosage group. No differences were found between the beverage groups in recall accuracy. The aim of Study III (N = 99) was to elucidate the best time to interview intoxicated witnesses. Participants were randomly assigned to a 2 (Beverage: control [0.0 g/kg] versus alcohol dosage [0.7 g/kg] group) × 2 (Recall: repeatedly, i.e., immediate plus delayed interviews versus single, i.e., delayed interview only) mixed design. Overall, alcohol-intoxicated eyewitnesses produced less accurate testimonies than the sober witnesses. Although the difference was significant, the intoxicated witnesses were only slightly less accurate in their recollections. Both the sober and the intoxicated witnesses recalled details with a relatively high accuracy. There was no difference with regards to the amount of information reported between the intoxicated and the sober witnesses. An immediate interview was more beneficial than a delayed interview. However, the best recall was by witnesses who were interviewed twice, and this was true for both the sober and the intoxicated witnesses. New details provided at the second interview, by either group, were often correct. In summary, this thesis shows that alcohol consumption does not have a negative effect on either witness’s line-up performance (recognition) or on the amount of information reported during investigative interviews (recall). However, the accuracy of their recall was slightly impaired by consumption of alcohol (Study III). This thesis shows that representatives of the legal system may expect that witnesses with low to moderate intoxication (blood alcohol concentration <0.10%) will perform at approximately the same level as sober witnesses. It is however reasonable to assume that more profound memory impairments can be expected for witnesses with higher intoxication levels.
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| 7. |
- Hagsand, Angelica, 1985
(författare)
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Alcohol-intoxicated eyewitnesses’ memory
- 2014
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Ingår i: Invited presenter at research seminar, Department of Psychology, Florida International University (FIU), Miami, Florida, USA..
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Alcohol-related crimes are common, and therefore, intoxicated witnesses are common. However, only a handful of published studies have described how alcohol affects eyewitnesses’ memory. The overall aim of the doctoral thesis was to examine how alcohol affects eyewitnesses’ memory. The thesis comprises three studies, which followed similar general procedures. The participants in the studies consumed an alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage during a 15-minute period and then witnessed a film that depicting a staged kidnapping. The retention interval and recall format varied between the studies. Study 1 examined witnesses’ lineup performance, Study 2 examined the witnesses’ one week delayed recall and Study 3 investigated the effect of repeated recall on the witnesses’ memory. In summary, this doctoral thesis shows that overall, alcohol consumption does not have a negative effect on either witness’s line-up performance (recognition) or on the amount of information reported during investigative interviews (recall). This thesis shows that representatives of the legal system may expect that witnesses with low to moderate intoxication (blood alcohol concentration <0.10%) will perform at approximately the same level as sober witnesses.
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| 8. |
- Hagsand, Angelica, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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Alcohol-intoxicated witnesses: A review of the current literature and new steps forward.
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nordic Network for Psychology and Law (NNPL), 7-8 November 2014, Oslo, Norway.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Eyewitnesses often provide central investigative leads in many criminal cases, and are often the sole source of evidence. Many witnesses are under the influence of alcohol during the crime, and/or during the investigative interview and line-up. There is evidence that jurors and expert witnesses perceive intoxicated witnesses as more cognitively impaired and less credible than sober ones. The few studies that have examined the effects of alcohol on witness memory for events cast doubt on whether expert witnesses’ and jurors’ inferences are warranted. That is, in experimental studies, intoxicated witnesses rarely differ from sober or placebo witnesses in terms of accuracy and quantity of information recalled or in their ability to recognize a perpetrator in a lineup. At the few occasions when a detrimental effect of alcohol on witness memory has been found it resulted in small differences between alcohol and sober or placebo participants, barely of any practical significance for law enforcement personnel. The present literature review indicates that intoxicated witnesses might be better than their reputation, and that witnesses who have a low to moderate intoxication level (BAC <0.10%) can be rather reliable sources of information in criminal investigations. However, limitations in the previous studies are highlighted and new steps of further research is discussed.
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| 9. |
- Hagsand, Angelica, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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Bottled memories: On how alcohol affects eyewitness recall
- 2013
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Ingår i: Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. - : Wiley. - 0036-5564 .- 1467-9450. ; 54:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study investigated how different doses of alcohol affected eyewitness recall. Participants (N = 126) were randomly assigned to three groups with different blood alcohol concentration (BAC), either a control group (mean BAC 0.00%, N = 42), a lower alcohol dose group (mean BAC 0.04%, N = 40), or a higher alcohol dose group (mean BAC 0.06%, N = 44). After consumption, participants witnessed a movie of a mock crime and were interviewed one week later. The main results showed that witnesses with the higher intoxication level recalled fewer details compared to witnesses with the lower intoxication level. The amount of alcohol consumed did not have an impact on the accuracy rate. No sex differences were found. The results are discussed in the light of past research. We conclude that more studies are needed before recommendations can be made to an applied setting. Key words: Alcohol, eyewitness memory, recall, delayed interview, intoxicated witnesses.
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| 10. |
- Hagsand, Angelica, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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Stumbling down memory lane: When to interview alcohol-intoxicated eyewitnesses?
- 2014
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Ingår i: Conference of European Association of Psychology and Law (EAPL), 25th of June 2014, St. Petersburg, Russia.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Introduction. Many violent crimes are observed by alcohol intoxicated eyewitnesses, but there are only a few studies on how alcohol affects witness memory. Aim. The aim was to examine to what extent alcohol, time of interview (immediate vs. delayed) and recall trial (single vs. repeated) affect the completeness and accuracy of testimonies. Methods. Participants (N = 99) were randomly assigned to a 2 (Beverage: control vs. alcohol) x 2 (Recall: immediate and delayed vs. delayed only) mixed design. After a 15 minutes consumption time, a staged kidnapping on film was shown. Half of the participants (N = 48) were interviewed immediately and all (N = 99) had a one week delayed recall. Results. Overall, alcohol reduced the accuracy of the reports, but had no effect on the completeness of the testimonies. Regardless of intoxication level, the best recall performances were found when witnesses were interviewed immediately. Conclusions. The findings from this study indicates that intoxicated witnesses might report the same amount of details to the police, but be slightly less accurate compared to sober witnesses. More studies are needed to be conducted before recommendation to the legal system can be made.
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