Abstract Epistemologists of testimony have focused almost exclusively on the epistemic dynamics simple testimony. We do sometimes testify by ways simple, single sentence assertions. But much our is narratively structured. I argue that narrative gives rise to a form dependence far richer and more reaching than characteristic

In trials witnesses often slant their testimony to advance their interests. To obtain truthful testimony, courts rely on perjury rules. We show that truth-revelation is possible and that perjury rules are not truth-revealing. If the judge uses a truth-revealing mechanism, he will get little testimony because the defendant will not present a witness with unfavorable news; however, testimony is o...

Mistaken identification testimony by highly confident eyewitnesses has been involved in approximately 72% of the cases in which innocent people have been convicted and later exonerated by DNA testing. Lab studies of eyewitness identification, however, show that mistaken eyewitnesses are usually not highly confident and that there is a useful confidence-accuracy relation that can help distinguis...

In trials witnesses often slant their testimony in order to advance their own interests. To obtain truthful testimony, the law relies on cross-examination under threat of prosecution for perjury. We show that perjury law is an imperfect truth-revealing mechanism. More importantly, we develop a perfect truth-revealing mechanism. Under this mechanism the witness is sanctioned if a court eventuall...

compared to experimental and human sciences, law has never been productive but it has always utilized the results and information obtained through other sciences, psychology in particular. therefore, new psychological findings about memory and age could both and must be taken into account in law as concerns interpretation and making judgment. psychological findings show judges rely on the testi...

in the civil procedure act, local inquiry is explained in a chapter separate from testimony, but for similarity of these two proofs, connection of them and criterion of separating them is disputable. in this article, we will study in one portion the role of witness and testimony conditions and in other portion, the role of number, sexuality, locality and ceremonies in separating of these proofs...

The present research investigated the nature of the inferences and decisions young children make about informants with a prior history of inaccuracies. Across three experiments, 3- and 4-year-olds (total N = 182) reacted to previously inaccurate informants who offered testimony in an object-labeling task. Of central interest was children's willingness to accept information provided by an inaccu...

Because much of what children learn extends beyond their first-hand experience, they are reliant upon the testimony of others to acquire information about aspects of the world they have not experienced directly. Here we asked whether testimony alone would be sufficient to induce cognitive biases in knowledge attribution that have been observed when children acquire information through direct ob...