Interview ASAP!

[alyssarox14]

I need to interview an expert in the field of behavioral science, preferably a police worker. It is due on December 11. My question is: what effect does closeness and gender have on the recall of facts from a stimulated scene. I am staging a scene randomly in a fifth grade classroom. Then, I am giving the students a written quiz on what they saw. The person I have to interview has to either be employed in a field related to my topic, a person with 1 or more years of experience related to my topic, or anyone with 1 or more years in college related to my topic.

These are the questions I need answered:
1. What is your name and title?
2. Do you think this topic is interesting, important, or useful? If so why?
3. When did you first start learning about memory, the brain, the eyes, and/or the impact of a scene?
4. What are some important things you have learned about this topic?
5. How can knowledge about this be applied to everyday life?
6. During your experience/studies in this field, have you noticed a relationship between gender and memory?
7. (If you are a police worker-if not, notify me) What questions do you ask witnesses of a (crime) scene? Are you required to ask any specific questions? If so, please list some, if not all.
8. What do you usually have to do during a typical day at work?

Hopefully you can help. Thanks!
♥alyssarox14

[MelissaB]

Hi,

I am worried that we don't have many (if any) human behavioral scientists on the forum. Now, that may have changed since last year, and I hope it has! But if not, you may want to contact the police in your town or someone else locally who can help.

That said--I do study animal behavior and know a little about human behavior. So I will answer your questions just in case, but know that these are really not 'expert' opinions.

1. Melissa Bowlin, Ph.D., Post-doctoral Fellow
2. Absolutely. People are convicted every day in the US based almost solely on the testimony of eyewitnesses. Plus, when a crime has been committed and police need to locate a suspect, they have to rely on what people around the crime scene saw.
3. I first started learning about it in high school, but a lot of what I know I learned later in college. I also saw the documentary 'One Sunday Morning' (or something like that), which is about eyewitness testimony and how a man almost got sent to prison for something he didn't do based on eyewitness testimony.
4. I've learned how unreliable the average person can be when recounting details about a scene, abut the power of suggestion, and about false memories. It's easy to trick yourself into remembering something you didn't actually see!
5. See my answer to #2.
6. There are certainly cognitive differences between males and females that could affect memory; there are also social aspects to observation (for example, I might expect on average women to notice more often than men whether or not someone was wearing a wedding ring). However, I have no personal experience with this since this is not what I study.
7. Sorry, I'm a scientist, not a police officer .
8. These days, I usually have to juggle data analysis, writing papers, creating presentations, conference organization, coming up with ideas for new experiments, and of course, moderating the Science Buddies' forum .

[alyssarox14]

Thank you very much for your help. Thanks to your warning, I have actually found a retired policewoman to interview. Your information was also very helpful, and I can probably use it.