In trials, lay judges will hear a lot of legal terms and concepts that might not be in daily use. The existence of such terms and concepts, even if the explanation about them is added, might become too heavy a cognitive load for them and may adversely influence their understanding of the trial and their subsequent verdict. In this study, "Mihitsu no Koi (Reckless Misconduct)", which is an unfamiliar term to the general public, was examined to gauge whether the strengthening of the recognition of the term influenced lay judges' understanding of the trial video (containing the issue of reckless misconduct) and their final judgment of innocence or guilt. We furthermore noted the level the differences in level of understanding of the term Reckless Misconduct between legal apprentices, whom will have further opportunity to hear such terms in the course of their future work, and students of law in university. Results indicate that levels of understanding of the notion of the term rose among law students, but there remained an inaccurate grasp of this concept. Additionally, a drop in the understanding of the concept as it is used in trials and verdicts was found. With regard to legal apprentices, it was found that there were both occasions of high and low levels of awareness and understanding about the term Reckless Misconduct; however, this had no measurable effect on judgments. Final consideration is given as to why legal apprentices' and law students' levels of understanding of the term reckless misconduct differ; and to the extent this can affect judgments.

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This presentation will examine recent research about the extent of eyewitness errors using archival research and experiments by psychologists. The talk will provide an overview of notable recent experiments and meta-analytic studies on the sources of identification errors. The reported research focuses on aspects of the crime, the criminal, and the witness ; on events following the crime; on identification procedures used by the police and evaluations of witness accuracy by judges and juries. Particular attention will be given to the impact on witness accuracy of procedures such as mugshots, composites, show-ups, line-ups and the instructions given to witnesses. The presentation will conclude with a consideration of recommended changes in procedures advanced by American psychologists who seek to reduce convictions of innocent individuals and law enforcement reactions to these recommendations.

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The Cognitive Interview (CI) is a memory-enhancing technique derived from the experimental literature of cognitive psychology, which was originally developed by Fisher and Geiselman. Previous experimental studies, which compared the CI with the standard interview (SI), showed that CI elicited more correct information than did SI. Two experiments investigated whether interviewee's personality characteristics affected the effectiveness of the CI. All the participants, who were separated into high and low extraverts on the basis of a personality version test, viewed a short video clip of a bank robbery. In Experiment 1, they were interviewed with the CI or SI. In Experiment 2, all the participants, who would be interviewed with the CI, engaged in the pre-interview remembering using either a guided retrieval or a simply rote retrieval. The main results indicated that the effectiveness of the CI was dependent on interviewee's personality characteristics. These results are discussed in terms of the rapport-building stage of CI.

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Expert psychological opinion regarding a murder case was reported. The statements of the accused in this case often swung between admission and denial. First, the psychological traits of the accused were examined from data which included his statements, the testimonies of other persons, and the results of several psychological tests. It became clear that the accused was mildly mentally retarded and that while his speech ability was relatively high; it would still be difficult for him to logically reason about something. It was known that he sometimes told lies, which could easily be uncovered. Next, the accused's statements were analyzed on the assumption that either he really committed the murder or that he was innocent. As a result, under the assumption that he really committed the crime, parts of his statements were not understandable; these being ones in which he explained about how the murder was carried out. On the other hand, under the assumption that he was innocent, his statements were understandable on the basis of his psychological traits.

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