Alfred Binet, founder of the science of testimony and psycho-legal science

By Serge Nicolas, Yannick Gounden, Rasyid Bo Sanitioso
English

Abstract

In his book “on suggestibility” (1900), Alfred Binet (1857-1911) established formally a scientific foundation for a “Science of testimony”. In this context, he conducted some interesting experiments on eyewitness behavior. But Binet’s book on suggestibility was largely ignored in France despite the important implications it held for the study of eyewitness testimony. Four years later, Binet (1905) wrote a paper where he regretted that no research was undertaken in this direction in France. However, his work was developed by the German Wilhelm Stern (1871-1938) who was able to generate interests in the academic and legal communities by adapting some of Binet’s research methods. Binet (1905) read Stern’s works with the greatest interest, and also with a little melancholy, but found that the expression “Science of testimony” a little narrow. Testimony is the psychology of the witness, but there is also the psychology of the judge. Finally, Binet proposed to create an applied science of great utility, named Psycho-legal science. We provide in an appendix an English translation of this paper that today exists only in his native French.

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