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Professor Catriona Havard

Profile summary

  • Central Academic Staff
  • Professor of Psychology
  • Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
  • School of Psychology & Counselling
  • Psychology
  • catriona.havard@open.ac.uk

Professional biography

Qualifications

BA (Hons) Psychology & Sociology, Edinburgh Napier University (1999-2001)
MSc in Psychological Research Methods, University of Stirling (part-time from 2002 to 2004)
PhD in Psychology, University of Glasgow (2004-2007)

Professional affiliations

Associate member of Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition
Associate member of the Scottish Institute of Policing Research
Associate member of the Higher Education Academy

Research interests

The main and continuing theme of my research is in the area of face recognition. One strand of this research is in the applied area of eyewitness identification from lineups and also the biases people make when trying to match or recognise faces.  I have worked on projects investigating how children, adolescents and older adults make identifications, as these are groups that often perform poorly in these tasks, and have looked at ways to improve their performance.  I've also investigated other factors that influence face identification, such as the own-age and own-race bias, and length of delay between viewing an event and subsequent identification. The eyewitness research has led to the development of new techniques to try and reduce the false identification rates that can lead to wrongful convictions.  Click here for a short film about my research.

I am currently one of the Co-Directors of the Open Psychology Research Centre (OPRC)  where I work with the other Co-Director Gini Harrison and our Director of Research Sarah Crafter. I am also part of the  Forensic Cognition Research Group where I work closely with Sarah Laurence, Lara Frumkin, Graham Pike,  Hayley Ness, Ailsa Strathie Jim Turner, and Zoe Walkington. I am a member of and the Harm Evidence and Research Collaborative (HERC) and a member of the Centre of Police Research and Learning.

I am happy to supervise PhD students in any aspect of face recognition and eyewitness identification. 

Teaching interests

Since joining the OU in 2011,  I have been involved with a number of different modules such as Introducing  the Social Sciences (DD102), Investigating Psychology 1 (DE100), DD310 Counselling and Forensic Psychology and the postgraduates modules Forensic psychology: witnesses, experts and evidence on trial (D873) and Research methods dissertation in Social Science (D845) and was the Qualification director for BSc (Honours) Psychology (Q07). Currently I am Co-Chairing our D110 module Exploring psychological worlds: thinking, feeling, doing. 

External collaborations

Research groups

NameTypeParent Unit
Forensic Psychology Research GroupGroupFaculty of Social Sciences

Publications

Does Cross‐Age Contact Reduce the Cross‐Age Deficit in Younger and Older Adult's Eyewitness Identification Performance? (2024)
Humphries, Joyce E.; Havard, Catriona and Breese, Emily
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 38, Article e4250(5)

From witness to web sleuth: Does citizen enquiry using social media affect formal eyewitness identification procedures? (2023)
Havard, C.; Strathie, A.; Pike, G.; Walkington, Z.; Ness, H. and Harrison, V.
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 38 (pp. 309-317)

A background of bias: Subtle changes in line up backgrounds increase the own race bias (2023)
Havard, Catriona; Breese, Emily; Thirkettle, Martin; Kask, Kristjan; Leol, Kris-Loreen and Mädamürk, Kaja
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology ((Early access))

An international survey of applied face-matching training courses (2021-10)
Moreton, Reuben; Havard, Catriona; Strathie, Ailsa and Pike, Graham
Forensic Science International, 327, Article 110947

Digital detectives: websleuthing reduces eyewitness identification accuracy in police lineups (2021-04)
Elphick, Camilla; Philpot, Richard; Zhang, Min; Stuart, Avelie; Pike, Graham; Strathie, Ailsa; Havard, Catriona; Walkington, Zoe; Frumkin, Lara; Levine, Mark; Price, Blaine; Bandara, Arosha and Nuseibeh, Bashar
Frontiers in Psychology, 12, Article 640513

Eyewitness identification procedures: Do researchers and practitioners share the same goals? (2021-03)
Pike, Graham; Havard, Catriona; Harrison, Gini and Ness, Hayley
International Journal of Police Science & Management, 23(1) (pp. 17-28)

The Importance of Internal and External Features in Matching Own and Other Race Faces (2021)
Havard, Catriona
Perception, 50(10) (pp. 861-875)

A task‐ and role‐based perspective on super‐recognizers: Commentary on ‘Super‐recognizers: From the laboratory to the world and back again’ (2019-07-13)
Moreton, Reuben; Pike, Graham and Havard, Catriona
British Journal of Psychology, 110(3) (pp. 486-488)

Entitlement to Tell on Police Facebook Sites (2019-05-01)
Walkington, Zoe; Pike, Graham; Strathie, Ailsa; Havard, Catriona; Harrison, Virginia and Ness, Hayley
Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 22(5) (pp. 355-357)

Effects of Changes in Background Colour on the Identification of Own- and Other-Race Faces (2019-03-01)
Havard, Catriona; Richter, Stephanie and Thirkettle, Martin
i-Perception, 10(2) (pp. 1-11)

Are you talking to me? How identity is constructed on police-owned Facebook sites (2018-10)
Walkington, Zoe; Pike, Graham; Strathie, Ailsa; Havard, Catriona; Ness, Hayley and Harrison, Virginia
Narrative Inquiry, 28(2) (pp. 280-300)

The own-race bias in child and adolescent witnesses: Evidence from video line-ups (2017-12-01)
Havard, Catriona; Memon, Amina and Humphries, Joyce E.
International Journal of Police Science & Management, 19(4) (pp. 261-272)

The Mystery Man Can Increase the Reliability of Eyewitness Identifications for Older Adult Witnesses (2017-09-30)
Havard, Catriona; Laybourn, Phyllis and Klecha, Barbara
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 32(3) (pp. 214-224)

Selfish learning: The impact of self-referential encoding on children's literacy attainment (2015-12-31)
Turk, David J.; Gillespie-Smith, Karri; Krigolson, Olave E.; Havard, Catriona; Conway, Martin A. and Cunningham, Sheila J.
Learning and instruction, 40 (pp. 54-60)

Are children less reliable at making visual identifications than adults? A review (2014)
Havard, Catriona
Psychology, Crime & Law, 20(4) (pp. 372-388)

The Mystery Man can help reduce false identifications for child witnesses:evidence from video lineups (2013-01)
Havard, Catriona and Memon, Amina
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 27(1) (pp. 50-59)

Identity-lineup location influences target selection: evidence from eye movements (2012-10)
Megreya, Ahmed M.; Bindemann, Markus; Havard, Catriona and Burton, A. Mike
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 27(2) (pp. 167-178)

Effects of installing a marked crosswalk on road crossing behaviour and perceptions of the environment (2012-05)
Havard, Catriona and Willis, Alexandra
Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 15(3) (pp. 249-260)

The headscarf effect: direct evidence from the eyewitness identification paradigm (2012-03)
Megreya, Ahmed M.; Memon, Amina and Havard, Catriona
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26(2) (pp. 308-315)

Delay and age effects on identification accuracy and confidence: an investigation using a video identification parade (2012-01)
Clifford, Brian R.; Havard, Catriona; Memon, Amina and Gabbert, Fiona
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26(1) (pp. 130-139)

Own-age bias in video lineups: a comparison between children and adults (2012)
Havard, Catriona; Memon, Amina; Laybourn, Phyllis and Cunningham, Clare
Psychology, Crime & Law, 18(10) (pp. 929-944)

A field evaluation of the VIPER system: a new technique for eliciting eyewitness identification evidence (2011-10)
Memon, Amina; Havard, Catriona; Clifford, Brian; Gabbert, Fiona and Watt, Moray
Psychology, Crime & Law, 17(8) (pp. 711-729)

Sex differences in unfamiliar face identification: evidence from matching tasks (2011)
Megreya, Ahmed M.; Bindemann, Markus and Havard, Catriona
Acta Psychologica, 137(1) (pp. 83-89)

Left face matching bias: right hemisphere dominance or scanning habits? (2011)
Megreya, Ahmed M. and Havard, Catriona
Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition, 16(1) (pp. 75-92)

A comparison of video and static photo lineups with child and adolescent witnesses (2010)
Havard, Catriona; Memon, Amina; Clifford, Brian and Gabbert, Fiona
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24(9) (pp. 1209-1221)

The influence of face age on identification from a video line-up: a comparison between older and younger adults (2009)
Havard, Catriona and Memon, Amina
Memory, 17(8) (pp. 847-859)

Let’s you do that: sharing the cognitive burdens of dialogue (2007)
Bard, E. G.; Anderson, A. H.; Chen, Y.; Nicholson, H. B. M.; Havard, C. and Dalzel-Job, S.
Journal of Memory and Language, 57(4) (pp. 616-641)

Human movement behaviour in urban spaces: implications for the design and modelling of effective pedestrian environments (2004)
Willis, Alexandra; Gjersoe, Nathalia; Havard, Catriona; Kerridge, Jon and Kukla, Robert
Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 31(6) (pp. 805-828)

When face recognition goes wrong (2024)
Havard, Catriona
ISBN : 9781003177128 | Publisher : Routledge (In press)

Developmental Psychology (2017-08-22)
Gjersoe, Nathalia and Havard, Catriona
In: Puri, Basant and Treasaden, Ian H. eds. Forensic Psychiatry, (pp. 63-71)
ISBN : 9781444135213 | Publisher : Hodder Arnold

Working therapeutically in forensic settings (2017-06-02)
Vossler, Andreas; Havard, Catriona; Barker, Meg-John; Pike, Graham; Raabe, Bianca and Walkington, Zoe
In: Vossler, Andreas; Havard, Catriona; Pike, Graham; Barker, Meg-John and Raabe, Bianca eds. Mad or Bad? A Critical Approach to Counselling and Forensic Psychology (pp. 9-22)
ISBN : 978-1-4739-6351-1 | Publisher : Sage

Children’s face identification ability (2017)
Havard, Catriona
In: Bindemann, Markus and Megreya, Ahmed M. eds. Face Processing: Systems, Disorders and Cultural Differences
ISBN : 978-1-53612-431-6 | Publisher : Nova Science Publishers Inc

Historical Overview (2017)
Havard, Catriona and Watson, Katherine D.
In: Vossler, Andreas; Havard, Catriona; Pike, Graham; Barker, Meg-John and Raabe, Bianca eds. Mad or Bad: A Critical Approach to Counselling and Forensic Psychology (pp. 23-36)
ISBN : 9781473963528 | Publisher : Sage

Facial Recognition from Identification Parades (2012-05-01)
Havard, Catriona and Memon, Amina
In: Wilkinson, C. M and Ryan., C. eds. Cranofacial Identification (pp. 86-100)
Publisher : Cambridge University Press | Published : Cambridge

Mad or Bad? A Critical Approach to Counselling and Forensic Psychology (2017-06-02)
Vossler, Andreas; Havard, Catriona; Pike, Graham; Barker, Meg-John and Raabe, Bianca eds.
ISBN : 9781473963511 | Publisher : Sage

Are you talking to me? A qualitative study of Facebook use by two police forces (2024)
Walkington, Zoe; Pike, Graham; Strathie, Ailsa; Havard, Catriona; Ness, Hayley and Harrison, Virginia
In : 2024 Conference of The Association of Psychology and Law (10-12 Jul 2024, Caparica, Portugal)

Exploring citizen forensics: witnesses, websleuths, vigilantes and the need for multi-directional channels of online collaboration (2024)
Pike, Graham; Zhang, Min; Elphick, Camilla; Bandara, Arosha; Philpot, Richard; Stuart, Avelie; Price, Blaine; Levine, Mark; Walkington, Zoe; Frumkin, Lara; Havard, Catriona; Strathie, Ailsa and Nuseibeh, Bashar
In : 2024 Conference of The Association of Psychology and Law (10-12 Jul 2024, Caparica, Portugal)

The use of Facebook in creating police identity (2018-03-01)
Walkington, Zoe; Pike, Graham; Strathie, Ailsa; Havard, Catriona; Ness, Hayley and Harrison, Virginia
In : 2018 Conference of the Society of Evidence Based Policing (1-2 Mar 2018)

The own race bias in child and adolescent witnesses (2016)
Havard, Catriona; Humphries, Joyce and Memon, Amina
In : 57th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomics Society (17-20 Nov 2016, Boston, US)

Variability of background colour in suspect line-ups and identification accuracy (2016)
Thirkettle, Martin; Havard, Catriona and Richter, Stephanie
In : 26th Annual Conference of the European Association of Psychology and Law (EAPL) (05-08 Jul 2016, Toulouse, France)

How does image background colour influence facial identification? (2015-08-16)
Havard, Catriona; Thirkettle, Martin; Barrett, David and Ritcher, Stephanie
In : 38th European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP) (24-27 Aug 2015, Liverpool, UK)

Improving line-up identifications using the mystery man procedure (2015-07-02)
Havard, Catriona
In : The Student Connections Conference (30 Jun - 4 Jul 2014, Milton Keynes, UK)

Police perceptions of eyewitness evidence and research (2015)
Harrison, Virginia; Pike, Graham; Havard, Catriona and Ness, Hayley
In : European Association of Psychology and Law Conference (EAPL 2015) (4-7 Aug 2015, Nuremberg, Germany)

Viewing a video lineup twice can reduce identification accuracy for child witnesses (2012-08-30)
Havard, Catriona and Memon, Amina
In : British Psychological Society Annual Conference, Cognitive Section (29-31 Aug 2012, Glasgow, UK)

Can the ‘Mystery Man’ help to reduce false identification for older adult witnesses? (2012)
Havard, Catriona; Laybourn, Phyllis and Klecha, Barbara
In : The European Association of Psychology and Law (EAPL) (10-13 Apr 2012, Nicosia, Cyprus.)

Can the Mystery Man help to reduce false identification for child witnesses: A study with video lineups (2011)
Havard, Catriona and Memon, Amina
In : Society of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition (SARMAC) IX (27-29 Jun 2011, New York)

Own race bias in video lineups: A comparison between Caucasian and Asian witnesses (2011)
Havard, Catriona; Memon, Amina and Humphries, Joyce
In : British Psychological Society Annual Conference (4-6 May 2011, Glasgow, UK)

The influence of the cross-race effect on children’s and adolescents identification accuracy in sequential video line-ups (2010)
Humphries, Joyce; Memon, Amina and Havard, Catriona
In : The British Psychological Society Division of Forensic Psychology Annual Conference, (22-25 Jun 2010, Canterbury, UK)

Obtaining evidence from child witnesses: the advantage of VIPER parades. (2008)
Havard, Catriona; Memon, Amina; Clifford, Brian; Gabbert, Fiona and Watt, Moray
In : Scottish Institute of Policing Research (SIPR) Evidence & Investigation Network Seminar, "Obtaining evidence from vulnerable witnesses" (15 Oct 2008., Aberdeen, UK)

The behaviour of witnesses viewing VIPER Parades: evidence from a Scottish survey. (2008)
Havard, Catriona; Chaudhry, Fraz and Memon, Amina
In : 2nd Scottish Institute of Policing Research (SIPR) Annual Conference (2 Sep 2008, Edinburgh, UK)

Obtaining evidence from child witnesses using video parades (2008)
Havard, Catriona; Memon, Amina; Clifford, Brian and Gabbert, Fiona
In : 18th Conference of the European Association of Psychology and Law (2-5 Jul 2008, Maastricht,The Netherlands)