Memory is an imperfect thing: research shows that recollections of single events – a purse being snatched, say – differ from those about repeated or ongoing events, such as incidents of domestic and family violence.
“What our research shows is that compared to a single-event witness, a repeated-event witness tends to report more gist-like details, the overall details of what typically would happen, and the things that remain constant between the episodes,” said Helen Paterson, an associate professor in forensic psychology at the University of Sydney.
