Description

This course provides a greater understanding of lies and how lies can lead to tunnel vision in an investigation. Eve Ash discusses why people tell lies with the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Professor Robert Feldman, a specialist in psychological and brain sciences. He has studied lying for many years and observes that (1) all people tell lies in different situations; (2) many are not truthful on their resumes and in job interviews; (3) sometimes people confabulate to fill memory gaps caused by stressful or traumatic conditions. In crime situations, he explains that false memories occur, and people’s eagerness to find a culprit sometimes leads to the wrong person being convicted. You can’t always tell a liar from their physical cues (eg. excessive blinking, looking away). This can cause deception bias and investigations clouded by tunnel vision. Dr Feldman and Eve Ash discuss the case of Sue Neill-Fraser, convicted and jailed for murder in Tasmania in 2010.