Meredith Allison, an assistant professor of psychology, presented two papers that were co-authored with former students and colleagues at the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition international conference in New York. Both papers were included in a symposium on alibi research.
One paper was co-authored with former students Stephen Michael ’08 and Kyla Mathews ’09 and assistant professor of psychology Amy Overman. This project focused on the narrative qualities of people’s alibis and how this can affect the believability of those alibis. This research was supported by the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience.
The second paper was coauthored with Laura Sweeney ’11 and collaborators Sandy Jung (Grant MacEwan University) and Scott Culhane (University of Wyoming). This project also focused on the believability of alibis. More specifically, the authors studied how mock jurors perceive salacious alibis. It was found that defendants who claimed to have engaged in morally questionable and illegal activities at the time of the crime were viewed positively in comparison to defendants who claimed to have engaged in mundane activities.
This research was supported by the Honors Program.