PSYCHOLOGY IN THE COURT-ROOM

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 46, 18 November 1907, Page 8

PSYCHOLOGY IN THE COURT-ROOM

That perfectly honest and truthful persons may, on the witness stand, testify to directly contradictory statements in regard to the. same occurrence is proved, by Hugo Mnnsterborg, professor of psychology at Harvard University, in "Nothing but the Truth," in the September "M'Clure's." He says, howover:—

"The jurymen and the judge do not discriminate whether the witness tells that ho saw' in late twilight a woman' in a red gown or one in a blue gown. They are not ex-

pected to know that such a faint light would still allow the blue colour sensation to come in, while the red colour sensation would have disappeared. They arc not obliged to know what directions of sound are mixed up by all of us and What are discriminated; they do not' know, perhaps, that we can never be in doubt whether we heard on the country road a cry from the right or from the left, but that we may.be utterly unable to say whether we heard it from in front or from behind. They have no reason to know that the victim of a crime may have been utterly unable to perceive that he was stabbed with a pointed dagger; he may have felt it like a dull blow. We, hear the- witnesses talking'' about the taste of poisoned liquids, and there is probably no one in the jury box who knows enough of physiological psychology to be awaro that tho same substanco may tasto quite differently on different parts 'of the tongue. Wo may hoar quarrelling parties in a civil suit testify as to the size and length and form of a field as it appeared to them, and yet. there is no one to remind the court that.the same distance must appear quite differently under a hundred different-condi-tions. The judge listens, perhaps, to a description of things which the witness has secretly seen through the key-hole of the door; ho does .'not understand why all tho judgments as to the size of objects and their place -are probably erroneous under such circumstances.' Tho witness may be sure'of having felt something wet, and'yet lie may have felt only some smooth, cold'motal. In short, every chapter and sub-chapter of sense psychology may help to clear up the chaos and the confusion which prevail in the observation of witnesses." •>