French psychologists and psychiatrists serving as court experts’ knowledge and beliefs about memory

Memory is a key concept for justice. Investigators and judges often have to rely on testimony to reconstruct the timeline of events, and to discover the truth. Yet numerous studies have emphasized the unreliability of human memory. This is why expert witnesses have to highlight any memory bias that might impact on judicial outcomes. We assessed the knowledge of expert witnesses (n = 120) about memory by comparing it with the knowledge of non-expert psychologists and psychiatrists (n = 101) and that of the general public (n = 402). We found that expert witnesses had less knowledge and more uncertainties than non-expert practitioners and than the general public, and similar beliefs were observed among the three groups. The practical consequences of these outcomes are discussed, and we give some recommendations for expert witnesses and judges.