A nod in the wrong direction : Does nonverbal feedback affect eyewitness confidence in interviews?

Eyewitnesses can be influenced by an interviewer's behaviour and report information with inflated confidence as a result. Previous research has shown that positive feedback administered verbally can affect the confidence attributed to testimony, but the effect of non-verbal influence in interviews has been given little attention. This study investigated whether positive or negative non-verbal feedback could affect the confidence witnesses attribute to their responses. Participants witnessed staged CCTV footage of a crime scene and answered 20 questions in a structured interview, during which they were given either positive feedback (a head nod), negative feedback (a head shake) or no feedback. Those presented with positive non-verbal feedback reported inflated confidence compared with those presented with negative non-verbal feedback regardless of accuracy, and this effect was most apparent when participants reported awareness of the feedback. These results provide further insight into the effects of interviewer behaviour in investigative interviewsPeer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Contemporary (2001) and ‘Little Ice Age’ glacier extents in the Buordakh Massif, Cherskiy Range, north east Siberia

The Buordakh Massif of the Cherskiy Range of sub-arctic north east Siberia, Russia has a cold continental climate and supports over 80 glaciers. Despite previous research in the region, a georeferenced map of the glaciers has only recently been completed and an enhanced version of it is reproduced in colour here. The mountains of this region reach heights in excess of 3,000 m and the glaciers on their slopes range in size from 0.1 to 10.4 km2. The mapping has been compiled through the interpretation of Landsat 7 ETM+ satellite imagery from August 2001 which has been augmented by data from a field campaign undertaken at the same time. The glaciers of the region are of the cold, ‘firn-less’ continental type and their mass balance relies heavily on the formation of superimposed ice. Moraines which lie in front of the glaciers by up to a few kilometres are believed to date from the Little Ice Age (ca. 1550-1850 AD). Over half of the glaciers mapped have shown marked retreat from these moraines

Spatial organization and evolutional period of the epidemic model using cellular automata

We investigate epidemic models with spatial structure based on the cellular automata method. The construction of the cellular automata is from the study by Weimar and Boon about the reaction-diffusion equations [Phys. Rev. E 49, 1749 (1994)]. Our results show that the spatial epidemic models exhibit the spontaneous formation of irregular spiral waves at large scales within the domain of chaos. Moreover, the irregular spiral waves grow stably. The system also shows a spatial period-2 structure at one dimension outside the domain of chaos. It is interesting that the spatial period-2 structure will break and transform into a spatial synchronous configuration in the domain of chaos. Our results confirm that populations embed and disperse more stably in space than they do in nonspatial counterparts.Comment: 6 papges,5 figures. published in Physics Review

Molecular Tracers of Embedded Star Formation in Ophiuchus

In this paper we analyze nine SCUBA cores in Ophiuchus using the second-lowest rotational transitions of four molecular species (12CO, 13CO, C18O, and C17O) to search for clues to the evolutionary state and star-formation activity within each core. Specifically, we look for evidence of outflows, infall, and CO depletion. The line wings in the CO spectra are used to detect outflows, spectral asymmetries in 13CO are used to determine infall characteristics, and a comparison of the dust emission (from SCUBA observations) and gas emission (from C18O) is used to determine the fractional CO freeze-out. Through comparison with Spitzer observations of protostellar sources in Ophiuchus, we discuss the usefulness of CO and its isotopologues as the sole indicators of the evolutionary state of each core. This study is an important pilot project for the JCMT Legacy Survey of the Gould Belt (GBS) and the Galactic Plane (JPS), which intend to complement the SCUBA-2 dust continuum observations with HARP observations of 12CO, 13CO, C18O, and C17O J = 3 - 2 in order to determine whether or not the cold dust clumps detected by SCUBA-2 are protostellar or starless objects. Our classification of the evolutionary state of the cores (based on molecular line maps and SCUBA observations) is in agreement with the Spitzer designation for six or seven of the nine SCUBA cores. However, several important caveats exist in the interpretation of these results, many of which large mapping surveys like the GBS may be able to overcome to provide a clearer picture of activity in crowded fields.Comment: 43 pages including 19 postscript figures. Accepted for publication in the PAS

The Saliency of Gestural Misinformation in the Perception of a Violent Crime

This is the accepted manuscript version of the following article: Daniel J. gurney, Louise R. Ellis & Emily Vardn-Hynard, ‘The saliencey of gestural misinformation in the perception of a violent crime’, Psychology, Crime & Law, Vol. 22(7): 651-665, first published online 18 April 2016. The version of record is available online via doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1068316X.2016.1174860 Published by Taylor & Francis Online.Recent research has revealed that misinformation from gestures can influence eyewitness memory. However, while the effects of verbal influence have been shown to have major impacts on prosecution, gestural misinformation is yet to demonstrate misinformation effects to this extent. To investigate the salience of suggestions provided nonverbally, and how these compare to those made verbally, two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, participants watched footage of a crime scene and were presented with one of two types of gestures during questioning that suggested different interpretations of the crime. The results confirmed that the gestures influenced responses with participants altering their interpretation of the crime according to the information gestured to them. Experiment 2 built on this to investigate how comparable this gestural influence was to verbal influence. The results revealed that gestural misinformation caused participants to alter their interpretation of the crime and elicited the same effects as verbal misinformation. Additionally, participants were less likely to have felt misled from gestures as they were from speech. These results reveal new insights into the strength of gestural misinformation and show that, despite their subtle nature in communication, gestures can exert a powerful influence in eyewitness interviews.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio