Professor Fiona Gabbert
Fiona is an expert in applied cognitive psychology, studying the reliability of human memory via understanding its strengths and weaknesses.
Staff details
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Position
Professor and Director of Goldsmiths' Forensic Psychology Unit
Department
f.gabbert (@gold.ac.uk)
Summary
Fiona is a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Forensic Psychology Unit at Goldsmiths. She also chairs the Scientific Committee of the International Investigative Interviewing Research Group (iIIRG), and acts as Associate Editor for the academic journal 'Memory'. Fiona has an international reputation for her research on the suggestibility of memory and investigative interviewing, that has had an international impact on police operational procedure and policy. She is currently working with the United Nations advising on the development of a Universal Protocol on investigative interviewing. Her work has been recognised by awards for Academic Excellence, Mid-Career Excellence, and Public Engagement.
Grants and Awards
Fiona has received external grant funding from a variety of organisations to support her work including: ESRC, CREST, Leverhulme Trust, British Academy, the Carnegie Trust, the College of Policing, and the BIAL Foundation.
Public Engagement and Knowledge Exchange
Fiona is committed to the public understanding of research, as evidenced by frequent ambitious Public Engagement activities undertaken by the Forensic Psychology Unit. These include award-winning educational immersive theatre events that have attracted 1000s of members of the public to Goldsmiths (see https://www.gold.ac.uk/forensic-psychology-unit/). Some other examples include:
• Organising seminars, panel discussions, and a range of research events designed to connect the wider public with relevant research conducted by members of the Forensic Psychology Unit and the Forensic and Clinical Science Group.
• Providing seminars and research consultancy to organisations to facilitate knowledge-exchange.
• Engaging in public-facing events including festivals, lectures, school events, and panel discussions.
• Engaging with the media, including television, radio, and press interviews.
Publications and research outputs
Article
- Enhancing investigative interview skills with brief educational videos
- Racial bias in risk allocation and resource utilisation: A contributing factor to ethnic minority overrepresentation in missing person investigations?
- An exploration into why there is an overrepresentation of BAME people in missing person cases
- Self-Generated Cues: The role of cue quality in facilitating eyewitness recall
- Evaluation of Forensic Interviews and Interrogations: A Thematic Analysis of Law-Enforcement Views
- Facilitators and barriers of bystander intervention: A focus group study with a university sample
- Eyewitness confidence in the interviewing context: Understanding the impact of question type and order
- Addressing Current Issues in Assessing Professional Rapport: A Systematic Review and Synthesis of Existing Measures
- Extracting Witness Evidence in “Cold Case” Investigations: What we Know and What we Need to Learn
- Developing a narrative theory of deception for the analysis of mock-Covert Human Intelligence Source (CHIS) accounts
- A systematic examination of actor and trainee interviewer behaviour during Joint Investigative Interviewing Training
- Mapping the lie: A smallest space analysis of truthful and deceptive mock-informant accounts
- A systematic review exploring variables related to bystander intervention in sexual violence contexts
- Rapport in a Non-WEIRD Multicultural Society: A Qualitative Analysis in Southeast Asia
- Behavioral Intentions of Bystanders to Image-Based Sexual Abuse: A Preliminary Focus Group Study with a University Student Sample
- Keeping our wits about us: introducing a bespoke informant interview model for covert human intelligence source (CHIS) interactions
- The use of self-disclosure to build rapport with mock covert human intelligence sources (CHIS)
- Forensic interviewing of mentally disordered suspects: The impact of interview style on investigation outcomes.
- Examining the efficacy of a digital version of the Self-Administered Interview
- Urgent Issues and Prospects at the Intersection of Culture, Memory, and Witness Interviews: Exploring the Challenges for Research and Practice
- Psychological contributions to cold case investigations: A systematic review
- Inside the Shadows: A survey of UK HUMINT practitioners examining their considerations when handling a Covert Human Intelligence Source (CHIS)
- Exploring the use of rapport in professional information‐gathering contexts by systematically mapping the evidence base
- A meta‐analytic review of the Self‐Administered Interview©: Quantity and accuracy of details reported on initial and subsequent retrieval attempts
- Facilitating recall and particularisation of repeated events in adults using a multi-method interviewing format
- “Tell me more about this…”: An examination of the efficacy of follow‐up open questions following an initial account
- Supporting older eyewitnesses’ episodic memory: the self-administered interview and sketch reinstatement of context
- Examining the efficacy of a self-administered report form in missing person investigations
- Vulnerable suspects in police interviews: exploring current practice in England and Wales
- The Analysis of Nonverbal Communication: The Dangers of Pseudoscience in Security and Justice Contexts
- The Self-Administered Witness Interview Tool (SAW-IT): Enhancing witness recall of workplace incidents
- Memory at the Sharp End: The Costs of Remembering With Others in Forensic Contexts
- Effective evaluation of forensic interviews: The Forensic Interview Trace (FIT)
- The ‘appropriate adult’: what they do and what they should do in police interviews with mentally disordered suspects
- Who said what and when? Development and testing of a timeline approach to eliciting information and intelligence about conversations, plots and plans
- An experimental examination of the effects of alcohol consumption and exposure to misleading post event information on remembering a hypothetical rape scenario
- Interviewing Witnesses: Eliciting Coarse-Grain Information
- The Benefits of a Self-Generated Cue Mnemonic for Timeline Interviewing.
- Using Self-Generated Cues to Facilitate Recall: A Review
- “I Think He Had A Tattoo On His Neck”: How Co-Witness Discussions About A Perpetrator’s Description Can Affect Eyewitness Identification Decisions.
- Police officers’ perceptions and experiences with mentally disordered suspects
- Memory and the Operational Witness: Police officer recall of firearms encounters as a function of active response role
- How effective is retrieval support for witnesses with different levels of working and source memory?
- Enhancing older adults’ eyewitness memory for present and future events with the Self-administered Interview.
- Registered replication report: Schooler & Engstler-Schooler (1990)
- Providing eyewitnesses with initial retrieval support: What works at immediate and subsequent recall?
- Protecting and enhancing eyewitness memory: The Impact of an Initial Recall Attempt on Performance in an Investigative Interview
- Face recognition and description abilities in people with mild Intellectual Disabilities.
- Explicit Mentalizing Mechanisms and Their Adaptive Role in Memory Conformity
- Who? What? When? Use of a novel timeline technique to facilitate recall of a complex event
- Exogenous social identity cues differentially affect the dynamic tracking of individual target faces
- Postincident conferring by law enforcement officers: Determining the impact of team discussions on statement content, accuracy, and officer beliefs.
- Holistic Versus Featural Facial Composite Systems for People with Mild Intellectual Disabilities
- Protecting Against Misleading Post-event Information with a Self-Administered Interview
- Delay and Age Effects on Identification Accuracy and Confidence: An Investigation Using a Video Identification Parade
- Memory conformity and the perceived accuracy of Self versus Other
- Witnesses in Action: The Effect of Physical Exertion on Recall and Recognition
- A field evaluation of the VIPER system: A new technique for eliciting eyewitness identification evidence
- Memory conformity: Can eyewitnesses influence each other's memories for an event?
- From laboratory to the street: Capturing witness memory using a Self-Administered Interview
- A comparison of video and static photo lineups with child and adolescent witnesses
- When Eyewitnesses Talk
- Abstract Obtaining evidence from child witnesses using video parades.
- Protecting Eyewitness Evidence: Examining the Efficacy of a Self-Administered Interview Tool
- Changing the Criterion for Memory Conformity in Free Recall.
- “With a little help from my friends…”: The role of co-witness relationship in susceptibility to misinformation.
- I still think it was a banana: Memorable lies and forgettable truths
- I saw it for longer than you: The relationship between perceived encoding duration and memory conformity
- Memory conformity: Disentangling the steps towards influence during a discussion.
- Say it to my face: Examining the effects of socially encountered misinformation
- Memory conformity: Can eyewitnesses influence each other's memories for an event?
- Improving the identification accuracy of senior witnesses: Do pre-lineup questions and sequential testing help?
- Unravelling the effects of sequential presentation in culprit present lineups
Book Section
- Training in Investigative Interviewing: observations and challenges
- Suggestibility in Legal Contexts: What do we know?
- Suggestibility and memory conformity
- Suggestibility and memory conformity
- Conformity in Eyewitness Reports
- The ageing eyewitness
Edited Book
- Suggestibility in Legal Contexts: Psychological Research and Forensic Implications
- Suggestibility in Legal Contexts: Psychological Research and Forensic Implications
Report
- Field Evaluation of the Self-Administered Interview
- The Impact of Conferring on Individual and Collaborative Recall in a Policing Context.
Conference or Workshop Item
Research Interests
Fiona's research has a strong focus on improving the usability, credibility, and reliability of evidence from witnesses. This has led to the introduction of new evidence-based investigative interview tools and training resources to the field, such as the Self-Administered Interview, the Structured Interview Protocol, and the Timeline Technique. Key areas of interest are listed below.
• Eyewitness memory
• Investigative interviewing
• Facilitating recall
• Building trust and rapport
• Metacognition
• Suggestibility of memory
• Social influences on memory
• Memory conformity