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Guest editorial: Special issue exploring contemporary developments in the retrieval and evaluation of witness testimony

Document Cited in Related
Date19 February 2025
Pages129-132
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JCP-02-2025-137
Published date19 February 2025
AuthorDara Mojtahedi
Guest editorial: Special issue exploring
contemporary developments in the
retrieval and evaluation of
witness testimony
Dara Mojtahedi
Eyewitness testimony is a crucial element in many criminal investigations, often
providing pivotal information that can shape investigative strategies and legal
proceedings. The evaluation of witness memory has been a focal point of academic
inquiry for over 40years, with this growing body of evidence influencing legal practice
(Glomb, 2022). This timely special issue includes ten separate articles which highlight the
contemporary developments in research investigating the retrieval and evaluation of
witness testimony through a modern, forward looking lens. This combination of articles
thereby goes some way in helping to better informcriminal justice system’s and processors
understanding of the best practices available for retrieving and evaluating witness
evidence. However, what is made especially clear in Riesthuis and Otgaar (2025) paper,
empirical observations must be derived from research that is replicable, generalisable and
applicable to practical issues to reliably inform policy and practice an aspect not
consistently demonstrated within eyewitness literature thus far (Nosek et al.,2022;Otgaar
et al.,2022
), where experimental manipulations are prioritised over realism (Ryan et al.,
2018;Willmott and Sherretts, 2016).
Riesthuis and Otgaar contributed to this special issue by reviewing the replicability,
generalisability and practical relevance of eyewitness research previously published in the
Journal of Criminal Psychology since the journal’s inception (N¼158). Their critical
appraisal of past eyewitness research included the lack of pre-registration and minimal
interpretation of effect sizes, limiting the practical interpretation of findings. Furthermore,
although the reviewed literature contained diverse and generalisable samples, sample
sizes were rarely validatedthrough power calculations.
It should be noted that these methodological shortcomings extend beyond the scope of the
Journal of Criminal Psychology and indeed the field of eyewitness research (Laraway et al.,
2019). In fact, in an effort to showcase the widespread nature of these methodological
shortcomings within legal psychology literature, the Journal of Criminal Psychology
welcomed the opportunity for its back catalogue to be scrutinised in this way (with the
authors reporting other journals turned down such critical consideration). Nevertheless,
developments in the rigour of experimental methodologies (Glomb et al., 2024) and
research standards have created opportunities for contemporary research in eyewitness
memory to make reliable and practical contributions to knowledge. This special issue
presents contemporary researchdevelopments in the evaluation and retrieval of eyewitness
evidence, focusing on noveland robust methodologies that address real-world investigative
Dara Mojtahedi is based at
the Department of Social
and Psychological
Sciences, University of
Huddersfield,
Huddersfield, UK.
DOI 10.1108/JCP-02-2025-137 VOL. 15 NO. 2 2025, pp. 129-132, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 2009-3829 jJOURNAL OF CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY jPAGE 129

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