Christian Meissner is Associate Professor of Psychology & Criminal Justice at the University of Texas at El Paso. He holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive & Behavioral Science from Florida State University (2001) and conducts empirical studies on the psychological processes underlying investigative interviews, including issues surrounding eyewitness recall and identification, deception detection, and interrogations and confessions. He has published over 35 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, has presented more than 75 papers at national and international conferences. His research has been funded by both the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Defense. He has served as a reviewer for over 20 major journals in the field, has participated as an advisory panel member for the National Science Foundation, and is currently Associate Editor for the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology. In 2008, Dr. Meissner received the Saleem Shah Award for "Early Career Excellence in Psychology and Law" from the American Psychology-Law Society and the American Academy of Forensic Psychology.
Cross-Race Effect
Assessing the influence of recollection and familiarity in memory for own- vs. other-race faces (with Jessica L. Marcon and Kyle J. Susa), Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (2009)
The current research examined the contributions of recollection vs. familiarity in memory for own- and...
Cross-racial lineup identification: The potential benefits of context reinstatement (with Jacqueline R. Evans and Jessica L. Marcon), Psychology, Crime, & Law (2009)
The current research examined the potential benefit of context reinstatement on the cross-race effect in...
Recognising faces across continents: The effect of within-race variations on the own-race bias in face recognition (with Patrick M. Chiroro, Colin G. Tredoux, and Stephano Radaelli), Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (2009)
People are better at recognising faces of their own-race than faces of other racial groups....
Cross-race effect (with Jessica L. Marcon and Roy S. Malpass), To appear in B. Cutler’s (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Psychology & Law. Sage Publications. (2008)
Examining the cross-race effect in lineup identification using Caucasian and First Nations samples (with Luke B. Jackiw, Katherine D. Arbuthnott, Jeffrey E. Pfeifer, and Jessica L. Marcon), Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science (2008)
This study examined whether findings from research on the cross-race effect (CRE) in eyewitness memory...
Deception Detection
“I’d know a false confession if I saw one”: A comparative study of college students and police investigators (with Saul M. Kassin and Rebecca J. Norwick), Law & Human Behavior (2005)
College students and police investigators watched or listened to ten prison inmates confessing to crimes....
You’re guilty, so just confess!: Cognitive and behavioral confirmation biases in the interrogation room (with Saul M. Kassin), In D. Lassiter’s (Ed.), Interrogations, confessions, and entrapment. (pp. 85-106). Kluwer Academic / Plenum Press (2004)
He’s guilty!: Investigator bias in judgments of truth and deception (with Saul M. Kassin), Law & Human Behavior (2002)
Detecting deception is an inherently difficult task, but one that plays a critical role for...
Description-Identification Relationship
A theoretical and meta-analytic review of the relationship between verbal descriptions and identification accuracy in memory for faces (with Siegfried L. Sporer and Kyle J. Susa), European Journal of Cognitive Psychology (2008)
Verbal descriptions can sometimes impair (or “overshadow”) and other times facilitate subsequent attempts at perceptual...
Description accuracy (with Kyle J. Susa), To appear in B. Cutler’s (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Psychology & Law. Sage Publications. (2008)
Person descriptions as eyewitness evidence (with Siegfried L. Sporer and Jonathan W. Schooler), In R. Lindsay, D. Ross, J. Read, & M. Toglia, (Eds), Handbook of Eyewitness Psychology: Memory for People (pp. 3-34). Lawrence Erlbaum & Associates. (2007)
Applied aspects of the instructional bias effect in verbal overshadowing, Applied Cognitive Psychology (2002)
Previous studies have demonstrated that instructional manipulation of a participant witness’s response criterion on a...
Verbal overshadowing: A special issue exploring theoretical and applied issues (with Amina Memon), Applied Cognitive Psychology (2002)
Over a decade of research has investigated the verbal overshadowing effect. This phenomenon, first demonstrated...
Eyewitness Identification
A “middle road” approach to bridging the basic-applied divide in eyewitness identification research (with Sean M. Lane), Applied Cognitive Psychology (2008)
Over a century of laboratory research has explored the mechanisms of memory using a variety...
Basic and applied issues in eyewitness research: A Münsterberg centennial retrospective (with Brian H. Bornstein) (2008)
Training eyewitnesses (with Roy S. Malpass and Kyle J. Susa), To appear in B. Cutler’s (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Psychology & Law. Sage Publications. (2008)
The phenomenology of carryover effects between showup and lineup identification (with Ryann M. Haw and Jason J. Dickinson), Memory (2007)
This study explored carryover effects from showups to subsequent lineup identifications using a novel paradigm...
Eyewitness decisions in simultaneous and sequential lineups: A dual-process signal detection theory analysis (with Colin G. Tredoux, Janat F. Parker, and Otto H. MacLin), Memory & Cognition (2005)
Many eyewitness researchers have argued for the application of a sequential alternative to the traditional...
Interrogations & Confessions
False confessions (with Allyson J. Horgan and Justin S. Albrechtsen), Applied criminal psychology: A guide to forensic behavioral sciences (2009)
Interrogations and confessions: A conference long overdue (with G Daniel Lassiter, Lezlee J. Ware, Jessica L. Marcon, and Kim D. Lassiter), Interrogations & confessions: Reserach, practice, & policy (2009)
The importance of a laboratory science for improving the diagnostic value of confession evidence (with Melissa B. Russano and Fadia M. Narchet), Interrogations and confessions: Research, practice, and policy (2009)
Techniques and controversies in the interrogation of suspects: The artful practice versus the scientific study (with Allison D. Redlich), To appear in J. Skeem et al. (Eds.), Psychological science in the courtroom: Controversies and consensus. Guilford Press (2008)
Juror Decision-Making
The effects of accomplice witnesses and jailhouse informants on jury decision making (with Jeffrey S. Neuschatz, Deah S. Lawson, Jessica K. Swanner, and Joseph S. Neuschatz), Law & Human Behavior (2008)
The present study presents one of the first investigations of the effects of accomplice witnesses...
Racial bias in juror decision-making: A meta-analytic review of defendant treatment (with Tara L. Mitchell, Ryann M. Haw, and Jeffrey E. Pfeifer), Law & Human Behavior (2005)
Common wisdom seems to suggest that racial bias, defined as disparate treatment of minority defendants,...
Jury nullification: The influence of judicial instruction on the relationship between attitudes and juridic decision-making (with John C. Brigham and Jeffrey E. Pfeifer), Basic & Applied Social Psychology (2003)
Prior research on jury nullification has suggested that individuals tend to operate on their “sentiments”...
Memory (Basic & Applied)
Event memory and misinformation effects in a gorilla (with Bennett L. Schwartz, Megan Hoffman, Sian Evans, and Leslie D. Frazier), Animal Cognition (2004)
Event memory and misinformation effects were examined in an adult gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). The...
Towards a model of false recall: Experimental manipulation of encoding context and the collection of verbal reports (with Kerri A. Goodwin and K. Anders Ericsson), Memory & Cognition (2001)
The likelihood of false recall in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm was shown to depend on...