Dr Robert Nash

Biography

I completed my BSc (Hons) degree in Psychology at the University of Warwick. Following that, I stayed on at Warwick to carry out my PhD research, part of which I also conducted as a visiting student at the University of Victoria, Canada. After completing my PhD, I worked at Lancaster University for a year, before joining the School of Psychology at Surrey as a lecturer in January 2011.

I am interested in cognitive psychology and experimental social psychology, particularly where these areas can be applied to legal issues such as police interviewing, eyewitness testimony, and false confessions.

My main topic of interest is memory, primarily autobiographical/episodic memory. My research explores the internal (metacognitive) and external (social) processes that allow us to construct and reconstruct our own past experiences. For example, I am interested in the characteristics of mental and perceptual experiences that affect source monitoring, such as processing fluency and visual imagery. I am also interested in the effects of various forms of ‘evidence’ on memory and beliefs, and in how visual evidence in particular can be influential at various stages of the legal process. Another of my interests is in how intuitive social judgments can bias source monitoring. 

My research has been funded by the Richard Benjamin Trust, the British Psychological Society, and most recently, the British Academy.

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Publications

Note: The links below will direct you to the published version of each paper, which typically require access permissions to view in full. Final prepublication author-versions of some of the papers can instead be accessed by clicking here: Surrey Research Insight.

Journal articles

Kuivaniemi-Smith, H. J., Nash, R. A., Brodie, E. R., Mahoney, G., & Rynn, C. (in press). Producing facial composite sketches in remote Cognitive Interviews: A preliminary investigation. Psychology, Crime & Law.

Weinstein, Y., & Nash, R. A. (2013). False recognition of objects in visual scenes: Findings from a combined direct and indirect memory test. Memory & Cognition, 41, 60-68.

Clark, A., Nash, R. A., Fincham, G., & Mazzoni, G. (2012). Creating non-believed memories for recent autobiographical events. PLoS ONE, 7, e32998.

Anderson, R. J., Dewhurst, S. A., & Nash, R. A. (2012). Shared cognitive processes underlying past and future thinking: The impact of imagery and concurrent task demands on event specificity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 38, 356-365.

Nash, R. A., & Takarangi, M. K. T. (2011). Reconstructing alcohol-induced memory blackouts. Memory, 19, 566-573.

Wade, K. A., Green, S. L., & Nash, R. A. (2010). Can fabricated evidence induce false eyewitness testimony? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24, 899-908.

- This article was reprinted in (2011) Special Issue: Celebrating 25 years of Applied Cognitive Psychology. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25, S272-S282.

Nash, R. A., Bryer, O. M., & Schlaghecken, F. (2010). Look who’s talking! Facial appearance can bias source monitoring. Memory, 18, 451-457.

Wade, K. A., Garry, M., Nash, R. A., & Harper, D. N. (2010). Anchoring effects in the development of false childhood memories. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17, 66-72.

Nash, R. A., Wade, K. A., & Brewer, R. J. (2009). Why do doctored images distort memory? Consciousness & Cognition, 18, 773-780.

Nash, R. A., Wade, K. A., & Lindsay, D. S. (2009). Digitally manipulating memory: Effects of doctored videos and imagination in distorting beliefs and memories. Memory & Cognition, 37, 414-424.

Nash, R. A., & Wade, K. A. (2009). Innocent but proven guilty: Eliciting internalized false confessions using doctored-video evidence. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 23, 624-637.

Other publications

Nash, R. A., & Wade, K. A. (2009, October 24). Psychological insights on digital trickeries and criminal evidence. Criminal Law & Justice Weekly, 173, 677-679.

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Teaching

In the 2012/13 academic year I will be contributing to the following modules:

PSY2016 Social Psychology with Research Methods 2

PSY3065 Dissertation - Workshops

PSY3084 Psychology & the Law (convenor)

PSYM018 Aspects of the Investigative Process

PSYM028 Crafting Research: Linking Theories and Methods (convenor)

Dissertation supervisor for BSc Psychology; MSc Forensic Psychology; MSc Social Psychology; MSc Research Methods in Psychology

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Departmental Duties

Final year tutor (FHEQ6)

Deputy Chair, Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences Ethics Committee

Member, Staff-Student Liaison Committee

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Conference presentations

Nash, R. A., Mazzoni, G., & Clark, A. (2013, June, forthcoming). Producing non-believed false and true memories of recent experiences. Presentation at the biennial conference of the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Mui, S., Nash, R. A., & O’Neill, D. (2012, April). Can case characteristics distinguish true rape allegations from two distinct types of false allegation? Poster presentation at the British Psychological Society annual conference, London, UK.

Nash, R. A., Ryan, K., & Houston, K. A. (2012, April). Could video-mediated communication support effective interviews with witnesses? Presentation at the annual conference of the European Association of Psychology and Law, Nicosia, Cyprus.

Nash, R. A., Ryan, K., & Houston, K. A. (2012, March). Could video-mediated communication support effective interviews with witnesses? Presentation at the annual conference of the American Psychology-Law Society, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Ost, J., Nash, R. A., Portch, E., & Betts, K. (2011, August). Is fantasy proneness related to a more exhaustive memory search? Presentation at the 5th International Conference on Memory, University of York, UK.

Ost, J., Nash, R. A., Portch, E., & Betts, K. (2011, June). Is fantasy proneness related to a more exhaustive memory search? Presentation at the British Psychological Society, Division of Forensic Psychology annual conference, University of Portsmouth, UK.

Nash, R. A., Takarangi, M. K. T., & Garry, M. (2011, May). Reconstructing and verifying autobiographical events. Presentation at the British Psychological Society annual conference, Glasgow, UK.

Nash, R. A., Wade, K. A., & Green, S. L. (2010, June). Faking it: Using doctored video evidence to encourage false confessions and false testimony. Presentation at the British Psychological Society, Division of Forensic Psychology conference, University of Kent, UK. 

Nash, R. A., Wade, K. A., & Lindsay, D. S. (2009, July). Digitally manipulating memory: Doctored-video evidence distorts recent memories, but why? Presentation at the biennial meeting of the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, Kyoto, Japan.

Nash, R. A. (2009, July). Manipulations and heuristics that lead to false beliefs and memories. Symposium chaired at the biennial meeting of the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, Kyoto, Japan.

Nash, R. A., & Wade, K. A. (2008, November). Eliciting internalized false confessions using doctored video evidence. Poster presentation at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Chicago, IL.

Green, S. L., Nash, R. A., & Wade, K. A. (2008, July). Seeing is believing: False eyewitness testimony and the effects of fake video evidence. Poster presentation at the annual conference of the European Association of Psychology and Law , Maastricht, Netherlands.

Nash, R. A., & Wade, K. A. (2008, July). Innocent but proven guilty: False confessions and the effects of seeing or being told about (fake) evidence. Presentation at the annual conference of the European Association of Psychology and Law, Maastricht, Netherlands.

Green, S. L., Nash, R. A., & Wade, K. A. (2008, May). Seeing is believing: Doctored videos encourage false witness testimony. Poster presentation at the annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science, Chicago, IL.

Nash, R. A., Wade, K. A., & Lindsay, D. S. (2008, May). Doctored videos cause false memories of recent actions. Poster presentation at the annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science, Chicago, IL.

Wade, K. A., & Nash, R. A. (2008, May). Eliciting internalized false confessions using doctored video evidence. Poster presentation at the annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science, Chicago, IL.

My Academia.edu page: http://surrey.academia.edu/RobertNash