This chapter describes how testimony regarding conversation is central to the vast majority of criminal and civil cases litigated in the courts. The chapter illustrates, using a variety of case examples, that testimony regarding the content of conversation is central to a vast array of criminal and civil cases litigated in our judicial system. Notwithstanding this centrality of memory for conversation, memory researchers have largely neglected basic research in this area and memory experts have rarely been asked to testify regarding the determinants of accuracy in memory for conversation. Although basic memory research offers a rich source of hypotheses regarding the determinants of memory for conversation, it remains for future research to explore the ways in which the principles governing memory for conversation converge (or not) with those governing memory for other events. Meanwhile, it is clear that memory for conversation can and does fail for most, if not all, for the same reason that memory for other events fails. Thus, memory experts can be helpful to trial attorneys that are faced with potentially inaccurate witness testimony regarding the contents or context of conversation.
Abstract