The perceived credibility of repeated-event witnesses depends upon their veracity

Abstract

For repeated crimes like domestic violence and workplace bullying, the primary evidence is often the alleged victim's testimony. Consequently, the perceived credibility of repeated event speakers can be pivotal to legal proceedings. In order to investigate perceptions of truthful and deceptive repeated-event speakers, undergraduate students observed interviews of speakers describing a single occurrence of an event that was either experienced or fabricated either once or multiple times. Some participants additionally read an expert statement on repeated-event memory. The effect of repetition on perceived credibility depended on the speaker's veracity, enhancing the credibility of fabricators but diminishing the credibility of truth-tellers. The expert testimony was found to raise the perceived honesty and cognitive competence of the repeated-event speakers and thus could be a promising mechanism for enhancing perceived credibility in legal proceedings.

Keywords: credibility; credibility assessment; deception detection; decision making; eyewitness testimony; memory; repeated events.

Figure 1.

Mean perceived overall credibility according to speaker veracity and event frequency.

Figure 2.

Mean perceived honesty of speakers according to event frequency and expert testimony.