Psychological research that will inform how judges, lawyers and investigators use psychological assessments, eyewitness testimony, and memory for conversation as evidence was the focus of a press briefing held at the 2020 AAAS Annual Meeting.

More Research into Validity of Fingerprint Comparisons Needed, Forensic Report Says Courtroom testimony and reports stating that fingerprints collected from a crime scene belong to a single person lack scientific foundation.

Examples of “fake news,” such as a report that Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, are the equivalent of a bad cold in the body politic, says Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale University. But much more troubling, he told a session of the 2017 AAAS Annual Meeting, are the “toxic memes” Trump has mastered that represent what he called “a cancer” on enlightened democracy.