Julia Korkman’s lecture for the Supreme Court in Sweden

Julia Korkman presented on Memories, Testimony, and Psychology in the Courtroom, focusingon how human memory works and what this means for how testimony is assessed in court. She focused the talk around research conducted with colleagues at Åbo Akademi University and HEUNI as well as that done by numerous international colleagues.

She talked about legal psychology research on the changeable nature of memory, suggestibility, vulnerability factors, remembering and disclosing possibly traumatic experiences, the risk for false memories, , and cultural factors. She also discussed research on how bias and expectations among interrogators and judges can affect the evaluation of evidence, and why drawing conclusions from a witness’s behaviour in the courtroom is risky. The presentation draws on her book Minnets makt – Berättelser från rättssalen (Memory dependent: Tales from the Courtroom).

“I have given more book talks than I can count since Minnets makt was published, but this may have been the most impressive setting yet: the Supreme Court of Sweden. I am humbly grateful for the invitation — I felt honoured and welcome. And evidence evaluation is just so fascinating!”
Julia Korkman