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Forensic psychology

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Explore how your own mind works, and discover how the limitations of the human brain can lead to major miscarriages of justice.

Despite advances in forensic science, eyewitness testimony remains a critical component of criminal investigations. Psychological research has revealed the dangers of relying on evidence gained from an eyewitness and also how careful the police need to be when questioning witnesses.

Using videos of real witnesses and from cameras that go behind the scenes of a police investigation, this course explores the psychology of eyewitness testimony. You will get the chance to test your own cognitive skills and to see whether your powers of investigation are as good as a crack squad of police officers, as you try to solve a crime using nothing but evidence from eyewitnesses.

This course is intended for those with an interest in psychology and/or criminal investigation, and does not require any previous experience of studying either subject.

If you found this course interesting and want to test yourself further, why not take a look at the Open University's BSc in Forensic psychology?

Enrolling on the course will give you the opportunity to earn an Open University digital badge. Badges are not accredited by The Open University but they're a great way to demonstrate your interest in the subject and commitment to your career, and to provide evidence of continuing professional development.

Once you are signed in, you can manage your digital badges online from My OpenLearn. In addition, you can download and print your OpenLearn statement of participation - which also displays your Open University badge.

The Open University would really appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us about yourself and your expectations for the course before you begin, in our optional start-of-course survey. Once you complete the course we would also value your feedback and suggestions for future improvement, in our optional end-of-course survey. Participation will be completely confidential and we will not pass on your details to others.

Learning outcomes

After completing this course you will be able to:

understand the psychology of eyewitness testimony
develop skills in investigation
explore human cognition and discover the mistakes brains can make
discuss concepts of criminal investigation
consider the relationship between limitations of the human brain and miscarriages of justice.

Earn this free Open University digital badge if you complete this course! The badge can be displayed, shared and downloaded as a marker of your achievement. The badge is awarded for completing the course and passing the quizzes.

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Course content

- Introduction and guidance
- Current section:
  Introduction and guidance
  Welcome to this free course, Forensic psychology.In this course you will explore how your own mind works, and discover how the limitations of the human brain can lead to major miscarriages of justice. You will use videos of real witnesses and go behind the scenes of a police investigation to explore the psychology of eyewitness testimony.The course lasts eight weeks, with approximately three hours of study each week. You can work through the course at your own pace, so if you have more time...
- What is a badged course?
- How to get a badge
- Acknowledgements
- week1Week 1: Introduction to eyewitness psychology
- Current section:
  Introduction
  Crime dramas have become incredibly popular and many of us are used to seeing our favourite detectives cracking the case and arresting the criminal. In real life, cases are rarely straightforward, and there is often considerable uncertainty as to whether the person accused of the crime actually did it.In this course, you will explore how psychological knowledge can be used to help prevent wrongful convictions and how it has helped obtain evidence from eyewitnesses. You will follow the invest...
- 1 Mistaken identification
  - 1.1 Knowing your own mind
  - 1.2 What you think you know about your memory
- 2 Introduction to eyewitness psychology
- 3 Introduction to the investigation
- 4 This week’s quiz
- 5 Summary of Week 1
- References
- Acknowledgements
- Week 1 practice quiz
- week2Week 2: Initial statements
- Current section:
  Introduction
  Welcome to Week 2. Watch the following video in which Catriona and Graham introduce the week.Before you hear the initial evidence provided by our two eyewitnesses, you will explore some psychological knowledge concerning how accurately eyewitnesses provide different types of information.Last week you saw that the outcome of an identity parade can be dependent upon the specific wording of the question that is asked of the witness. Simply asking ‘Who is it?’ can imply that the perp...
- 1 Remembering different aspects of a crime
- 2 DI Bullet takes witness statements
- 3 DS Sund takes witness statements
- 4 This week’s quiz
- 5 Summary of Week 2
- References
- Acknowledgements
- Week 2 practice quiz
- week3Week 3: Seeing and not seeing
- Current section:
  Introduction
  Start this week by watching the weekly video with Graham and Catriona.For a witness to remember something, they first need to see it and notice it. It goes without saying that you cannot remember something if you did not see it. But is it possible to see something, but not notice it?In producing their initial statements, both Lila and Seth had to make use of their memory for the crime. In Week 2, you considered the reliability of witness memory, particularly for certain types of information....
- 1 Testing your powers of observation
  - 1.1 Gorilla in the midst
  - 1.2 Eyetracking
- 2 Explanation of change blindness
- 3 Questioning witnesses
- 4 Week 3 quiz
- 5 Summary of Week 3
- References
- Further reading
- Acknowledgements
- Week 3 practice quiz
- week4Week 4: Interviewing witnesses
- Current section:
  Introduction
  Start this week by watching the weekly video with Graham and Catriona.In the previous weeks we looked at how memory works, the types of errors people make when recalling an event and also the effect that different types of questions can have on memory. This week you will get a chance to apply this knowledge when you listen to and evaluate the interviews that DI Bullet and DS Sund conducted with the two witnesses, Lila and Seth.You will also discover techniques that can help a witness recall...
- 1 DI Bullet: witness interviews
  - 1.1 Evaluating the evidence in the interviews
  - 1.2 DI Bullet’s evidence
- 2 Psychology of interviewing
- 3 DS Sund: witness interviews
  - 3.1 Evaluating the evidence in the interviews
  - 3.2 DS Sund’s evidence
- 4 Week 4 quiz
- 5 Summary of Week 4
- References
- Acknowledgements
- Week 4 compulsory badge quiz
- week5Week 5: Making and recognising faces
- Current section:
  Introduction
  Watch the following video in which Graham introduces this week.Our two detectives were careful to get a description of the perpetrators in the initial statements they took from the witnesses. But what can the police do with this description?Finding a potential suspect and then determining whether that suspect is the perpetrator by seeing whether they are identified by an eyewitness are incredibly important components of a police investigation.The clothing worn by the perpetrator and general...
- 1 Describing a face
- 2 Recognising a face
- 3 When face recognition fails
- 4 Week 5 quiz
- 5 Summary of Week 5
- References
- Acknowledgements
- Week 5 practice quiz
- week6Week 6: Visual identification
- Current section:
  Introduction
  Watch the following video where Catriona introduces the week.Once the police have a suspect, it is common practice to see if the witnesses identify that person as being the perpetrator they saw commit the crime.Although this may sound quite straightforward, you saw in Week 1 that even the question asked of the witness can lead them to identifying someone who is innocent. What other factors do the police need to take into account, and will the identification procedures conducted by DI Bullet...
- 1 Identification procedures
- 2 Identification skills test
- 3 DI Bullet’s investigation so far
- 4 DS Sund’s investigation so far
- 5 Week 6 quiz
- 6 Summary of Week 6
- References
- Acknowledgements
- Week 6 practice quiz
- week7Week 7: Whodunnit?
- Current section:
  Introduction
  First, watch the weekly video with Graham and Catriona.This week, you’ll evaluate the investigations conducted by DI Bullet and DS Sund and determine how sound their conclusions are. You will also get a chance to solve the crime yourself before seeing what actually happened, and seeing how well real police officers managed to solve it.You’ll be presented with the cases for the prosecution that have been built on the evidence collected by our two detectives, DI Jake Bullet and DS...
- 1 DI Bullet solves the crime
- 2 DS Sund solves the crime
- 3 What do you think happened?
  - 3.1 Watching the crime
  - 3.2 How well did the police do?
- 4 This week’s quiz
- 5 Summary of Week 7
- Acknowledgements
- Week 7 practice quiz
- week8Week 8: Conclusion
- Current section:
  Introduction
  Congratulations on reaching the end of the course! Watch the final weekly video with Catriona and Graham.You have learned about the psychology involved in obtaining evidence from eyewitnesses, and have followed two very different police investigations through to their conclusion. This week, you will look at some new psychological research on eyewitnesses and explore psychology more broadly.You’ll look at some of the latest research being conducted in the area, at the broader work of fo...
- 1 New research
- 2 Looking at psychology more broadly
  - 2.1 Work of forensic psychologists
  - 2.2 Psychology at The Open University
- 3 This week’s quiz
- 4 End-of-course round-up
- Tell us what you think
- Where next?
- Further reading
- Acknowledgements
- Week 8 compulsory badge quiz

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Forensic psychology

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