Episode Forty Eight | Just Alcohol and Witness Recall

Just Alcohol and Witness Recall

In episode seven of our Drugs Season, Just Science discusses with Dr. Nadja Schreiber Compo, an associate professor at Florida International University, her research on the effects of alcohol on witnesses’ and victims’ memory for events and faces. Victims and witnesses are discredited for being intoxicated, and may encounter obstacles as a result, but there is no science at this point that suggests that alcohol negatively affects witnesses memory for a face. Listen along as the discussion meanders along the research and perceptions surrounding the credibility of intoxicated victim and witness testimonies.

This episode of Just Science is funded by the National Institute of Justice’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence [Award 2016-MU-BX-K110].

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Dr. Nadja Schreiber Compo is an Associate Professor at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami and the Co-Director of the Legal Psychology PhD program. She earned her PhD at the University of Muenster, Germany, and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship by the German Academic Exchange Service to continue her research at FIU. Her research focuses on investigative interviewing and witness memory, especially of vulnerable witnesses such as children or the intoxicated. Dr. Schreiber Compo focuses on potentially detrimental and beneficial interviewing techniques and their underlying cognitive and social mechanisms to improve the quality and quantity of witness and victim recall. She examines real-world interviewers’ perceptions, experiences, behaviors, and confirmatory bias in a variety of settings including witness and victim interviewing and forensic expertise. Dr. Schreiber Compo has worked with several law enforcement agencies on research and investigative interviewing training and has consulted in various legal cases. She has been an invited speaker at the International Association of Forensic Toxicologists, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the International Forensic Research Institute at FIU, the Miami-Dade Police Department Forensic Services Bureau, the Miami-Dade County and Allegheny County Public Defender’s Office, the Texas Criminal Defense Attorneys Association, Research Unit for Criminal, Legal, and Investigative Psychology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, Wofford College, and Florida Atlantic University, among others. Dr. Schreiber Compo has published over 25 peer-reviewed articles and (co) authored over 70 presentations at national and international conferences. She is an Associate Editor for the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology and is on the editorial board of the APA journal Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law. Her research has been funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Swedish Research Council.

Additional Resources:

Dr. Schreiber Compo’s FIU Page

Dr. Schreiber Compo’s Publications