You are absolutely right that the delay between the offence and the trial is an area of debate among forensic psychologists. Indeed, if the criminal justice system were run by psychologists, we'd probably hustle eyewitnesses into court at the first opportunity: and, l especially, before there was very much chance of the memory trace being changed as a result of discussion with family, friends, and police. For better or worse, though, forensic psychologists have little say in the matter! I imagine that in aviation, stressful times are pretty common and therefore one might well expect a lot of mistakes as we approach the downside of the Yerkes-Dodson curve and people's cognitive abilities fall off. Did you know that the earliest research in modern cognitive psychology actually comes from studies of air-traffic controllers? The RAF wanted to know about their ability to attend to more than one message at a time. That led Donald Broadbent to construct his model of selective attention. Our two fields have a long history together.
In UK it can be a long time from offence date to charging a suspect. Then a long time to get to trial. What does that do to witness memory?
In aviation, my own specialty, a lot of mistakes are made after busy times (= high arousal). As things go easier, concentration can lapse.
You are absolutely right that the delay between the offence and the trial is an area of debate among forensic psychologists. Indeed, if the criminal justice system were run by psychologists, we'd probably hustle eyewitnesses into court at the first opportunity: and, l especially, before there was very much chance of the memory trace being changed as a result of discussion with family, friends, and police. For better or worse, though, forensic psychologists have little say in the matter! I imagine that in aviation, stressful times are pretty common and therefore one might well expect a lot of mistakes as we approach the downside of the Yerkes-Dodson curve and people's cognitive abilities fall off. Did you know that the earliest research in modern cognitive psychology actually comes from studies of air-traffic controllers? The RAF wanted to know about their ability to attend to more than one message at a time. That led Donald Broadbent to construct his model of selective attention. Our two fields have a long history together.