FutureLearn

Forensic Psychology: Witness Investigation (FutureLearn)

Offered by The Open University,
Forensic Psychology: Witness Investigation (FutureLearn)

How important are eyewitness testimonies in police investigations? Discover how forensic psychology prevents criminal injustice. Become a forensic psychologist and help solve crimes using eyewitness evidence. Have you ever questioned how reliable your own mind is? In this 8-week forensic psychology course, you’ll learn how the mind plays tricks on us and how this can impact criminal investigations. You’ll discover how cautious the police have to be during eyewitness investigation, and you’ll step into the shoes of a forensic psychologist.

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Explore eyewitness testimonies from a real criminal investigation
In this course, you’ll get the chance to watch real eyewitness testimonies from behind the scenes of a criminal investigation, and it’ll be your job to check how reliable they are.
You’ll start the investigation by learning about witness characteristics and taking witness statements with the police. Then you’ll learn about inattentional and change blindness and discover how to conduct a cognitive interview.

Discover the limits of facial recognition
Explore the psychology of how our minds recognise faces and challenge yourself on your own facial recognition abilities. Are you as good as you think you are?
In this section of the course, you’ll learn why it’s so hard to describe a face accurately and consider the best techniques to obtain an image of the criminal from the mind of the eyewitness.

Crack the case
By the end of the course, you’ll get the opportunity to solve the crime using everything you’ve learned about forensic psychology and eyewitness testimony.

What topics will you cover?

  • Eyewitness testimony
  • Witness memory
  • Inattentional blindness and observation of criminal incidents
  • Interviewing witnesses
  • Facial recognition
  • Visual identification

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

  • Investigate and understand the psychology of eyewitness testimony
  • Develop your own investigative skills
  • Explore human cognition and discover the mistakes your own brain can make
  • Discuss concepts of criminal investigation
  • Explore and consider the relationship between limitations of the human brain and miscarriages of justice
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