Henry Otgaar    

Welcome to my personal homepage,

My research focuses on the development of memory. Specifically, I am interested in the creation of adults' and children's memory illusions (i.e., false memory, omission errors).  In sexual abuse cases, such as the "McMartin Preschool" and "Oude Pekela" case, children developed memories of events that never happened, like for instance sexual abuse. In these cases, children remembered extremely bizarre, implausible, and negative events. Some children reported that they were taken to an isolated farm where they had to watch a horse being beaten with baseball bats while other children stated that they had to ride naked on the back of horses.

The interesting question herein is how it is possible that children and adults adopt such implausible and negative events and develop false memories of them. This could result in people falsely accusing innocent people which in turn could end in legal consequences. Hence, my main research interest lies in the identification of mechanisms that contribute to the development of memory illusions. To tackle this issue, I adopt a multifaceted approach in which I study the development of memory illusions by using different memory paradigms (DRM paradigm, implantation paradigm, misinformation paradigm). 

Contact

* Mailing Address

Department of Clinical Psychological Science

Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience

 Maastricht University

PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht

The Netherlands

( Phone and Fax
+31 / 43 388 4340

- E-mail
Henry.Otgaar@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Back to Top of Page

Curriculum Vitae

Short

2001-2005 Psychology, Neuropsychology, Psychology and Law at Maastricht University

2005-2006 Teaching Assistant at Faculty of Psychology, Maastricht

2006-2009  (cum laude) PhD-student at Faculty of Psychology, Maastricht

2009-2011 Post doc at Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University

2011-present Assistant professor at Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University

For a full version of my CV click here: CV Henry Otgaar

Back to Top of Page

Research

Areas of Expertise

1. Adults'  and children's memory (e.g., adaptive memory)

2. Adults' and children's false memory development

3. Suggestibility

4. Delayed disclosure of traumatic events

Back to Top of Page

Publications

2007

Otgaar, H.P., & Candel, I. (2007). Kinderen en valse herinneringen: de rol van valentie [Children and false memories: The role of valence]. Kind en Adolescent, 28, 236-247.

Otgaar, H.P., & Candel, I. (2007). Herinneringen kleuters Heerle wellicht vals. [Memories children Heerle probably false]. Dagblad de Limburger.

2008

Otgaar, H.P., Candel, I., & Merckelbach, H. (2008). Children's false memories: Easier to elicit for a negative than a neutral event. Acta Psychologica, 128, 350-354. (pdf)

Candel, I., & Otgaar, H. (2008). De (on)mogelijkheden van de getuige-deskundige in zedenzaken [The (im)possibilities of the expert witness in child sexual abuse cases]. Expertise en Recht, 3, 83-86

Smeets, T., Otgaar, H., Candel, I., & Wolf, O.T. (2008). True or false? Memory is differentially affected by stress-induced cortisol elevations and sympathetic activity at consolidation and retrieval. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 33, 1378-1386.

2009

Otgaar, H., Candel, I., Merckelbach, H., & Wade, K.A. (2009). Abducted by a UFO:  Prevalence information affects young children’s false memories for an implausible event. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 23, 115-125. (pdf)

Otgaar, H. (2009). Not all false memory paradigms are appropriate in court. In L. Strömwall & P.A. Granhag (Eds.), Memory: Reliability and personality (pp. 37-46). Göteborg: Göteborg University.

De Ruiter, C., & Otgaar, H. (2009). Zo onderzoek je geen zedenzaken. [That's not how you should investigate sexual abuse cases] NRC Handelsblad.

2010

Howe, M., Candel, I., Otgaar, H., Malone, C., & Wimmer, M.C. (2010). Valence and the development of immediate and long-term false memory illusions. Memory, 18, 58-75. (pdf)

Otgaar, H. (2010). Het gevaar van geheugenillusies bij kinderen in de rechtzaal [The danger of children's memory illusions in court]. Asega, 29, 11.

Otgaar, H. (2010). Het ontstaan van pseudo-herinneringen van kinderen. Over de rol van plausibiliteit, valentie en kennis [The development of children's false memories. The role of plausibility, valence, and knowledge]. Ars Aequi, 7, 513-517. 

Otgaar, H., Candel, I., Memon, A., & Almerigogna, J. (2010). Differentiating between children's true and false memories using Reality Monitoring criteria. Psychology, Crime & Law, 16, 555-566. (pdf)

Otgaar, H.,  & Smeets, T. (2010). De zaak Robert M. [The case Robert M.] NRC Handelsblad.

Otgaar, H., & Smeets, T. (2010). Adaptive memory: Survival processing increases both true and false memory in adults and children. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36, 1010-1016. (pdf)

Otgaar, H., Candel, I., Scoboria, A., &  Merckelbach, H. (2010). Script knowledge enhances the development of children's false memories. Acta Psychologica, 133, 57-63. (pdf)

Otgaar, H., Candel, I., Smeets, T., & Merckelbach, H. (2010). "You didn't take Lucy's skirt off": The effect of misleading information on omissions and commissions in children's memory reports. Legal & Criminological Psychology, 15, 229-241.(pdf)

Otgaar, H., Meijer, E.H., Giesbrecht, G., Smeets, T., Candel, I., & Merckelbach, H. (2010). Children's suggestion-induced omission errors are not caused by memory erasure. Consciousness and Cognition, 19, 265-269. (pdf)

Otgaar, H., Smeets, T., & van Bergen, S. (2010). Picturing survival memories: Enhanced memory after fitness-relevant processing occurs for verbal and visual stimuli. Memory & Cognition, 38, 23-28. (pdf)

Otgaar, H., Smeets, T., & Merckelbach, H. (2010). De nieuwste hit in geheugenland: survival processing [The newest hit in memory land: Survival processing]. De Psycholoog, 12, 10-17. (pdf)

Raymaekers, L., Peters, M., Otgaar, H., & Smeets, T. (2010). Het classificatieprobleem bij onderzoek naar hervonden herinneringen [The classification problem in recovered memory research]. GZ-psychologie, 8, 20-27.

2011

Otgaar, H., & Candel, I. (2011). Children's false memories: Different false memory paradigms reveal different results. Psychology, Crime & Law, 17, 513-528. (pdf)

Otgaar, H., Smeets, T., Merckelbach, H., Jelicic, M., Verschuere, B., Galliot, A., & van Riel, L. (2011). Adaptive memory: Stereotype activation is not enough. Memory & Cognition, 39, 1033-1041. (pdf)

Verschuere, B., Spruyt, A., Meijer, E., & Otgaar, H. (2011). The ease of lying. Consciousness & Cognition, 20, 908-911.

2012 and in press

Otgaar, H., Alberts, H., & Cuppens, L. (2012). How cognitive resources alter our perception of the past: Ego depletion enhances the susceptibility to suggestion. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26, 159-163. (pdf)

Otgaar, H., Peters, M., & Howe, M.L (2012). Dividing attention lowers children's, but increases adults' false memories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 38, 204-210. (pdf)

Otgaar, H., Verschuere, B., Meijer, E.H., & Van Oorsouw, K. (2012). The origin of children's implanted false memories: Memory traces or compliance? Acta Psychologica, 139, 397-403. (pdf)

Otgaar, H., Horselenberg, R., van Kampen, R., & Lalleman, K. (in press). Clothed and unclothed human figure drawings lead to more correct and incorrect reports of touch in children.  Psychology, Crime & Law. (pdf)

Otgaar, H., Smeets, T., & Peters, M. (in press). Children's implanted false memories and additional script knowledge. Applied Cognitive Psychology.

Peters, M.J.V., Engel, M., Hauschildt, M., Morizt, S., Jelinek, L., & Otgaar, H. (in press). Investigating the corrective effect of forewarning on memory and meta-memory in schizophrenia patients. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology.

Sauerland, M., Sagana, A., & Otgaar, H. (in press). Theoretical and legal issues related to choice blindness for voices. Legal and Criminological Psychology.

Scoboria, A., Wysman, L., & Otgaar, H. (in press). Credible suggestions affect false autobiographical beliefs. Memory.

Smeets, T., Otgaar, H., Raymaekers, L., Peters, M., & Merckelbach, H. (2012). Survival processing in times of stress. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19, 113-118.

in revision/review

Otgaar, H., Peters, M., Howe, M.L.,  Smeets, T., van den Elzen, A., & Moritz, S. (under review). The development of spontaneous visual false memories.

Otgaar, H., Alberts, H., & Cuppens, L. (under review). Ego depletion results in an increase in spontaneous false memories.

Otgaar, H., Scoboria, A., & Smeets, T. (in revision). Experimentally evoking nonbelieved memories for childhood events.

Howe, M.L., & Otgaar, H. (submitted). Does children's performance on survival-related processing tasks provide a litmus test for theories of adaptive memory?

Raymaekers, L., Smeets, T., Peters, M., Otgaar, H., & Merckelbach, H. (under review). The classification of recovered memories: Some cautionary notes.

Thijssen, J., Otgaar, H., Howe, M.L., & De Ruiter, C. (under review). Emotional true and false memories in children with callous-unemotional traits.

Thijssen, J., Otgaar, H., Meijer, E., Smeets, T., & De Ruiter, C. (in revision). Emotional memory for central and peripheral details in children with callous-unemotional traits.

Conferences

Otgaar, H. & Candel, I. (2007) Abducted by a UFO: The effect of prevalence information on children’s false memories for an implausible event. The 7^th International Conference, The Society of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, July-25-29, Lewiston , Maine.

Otgaar, H., Candel, I., Scoboria, A., & Merckelbach, H. (2008). Script knowledge affects the development of children's false memories. The 18th International Conference, The European Association of Psychology and Law, July 2-5, Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Otgaar, H., Candel, I., Memon, A., & Almerigogna, J. (2009). Differentiating between children's true and false memories using reality Monitoring criteria. Society for Research in Child Development, April 2-4, Denver, CO.

Otgaar, H., Candel, I., Smeets, T., & Merckelbach, H. (2009). Erasing children's memory.  Society for Research in Child Development, April 2-4, Denver, CO.

Otgaar, H., Meijer, E.H., Giesbrecht, G., Smeets, T., Candel, I., & Merckelbach, H. (2009). Erasing children's memories: A reaction time analysis of children's suggestion-induced omission errors. The 8^th International Conference, The Society of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, July-25-30, Kyoto, Japan.

Otgaar, H., Verschuere, B., Meijer, E., & van Oorsouw, K. (2010). Children's implanted false memories: Memories or compliance? The 20th International Conference, The European Association of Psychology and Law, June 15-18, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Otgaar, H. (2011). Adaptive memory: Stereotype activation is not enough. The Society of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, June 15-18, New York, US.

Otgaar, H. (2011). Non-believed memories and false memories. The Society of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, June 15-18, New York, US.

Awards

(2006) Best Teaching Assistant Award at the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University (100 euro)

(2009) Nominated for the Koningsheide award, the Netherlands

(2009) Best Paper Award at the 8th International Conference, The Society of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, July-25-30, Kyoto, Japan (150 euro)

(2009) PhD thesis Cum Laude

(2010) Nominated for the Rabobank Dissertation award, Maastricht

(2006-2009) Dr. Otgaar’s research has been funded by the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (NWO); Children’s false memories: The role of plausibility and valence

(2010) Travel grant for visit from Professor Gail Goodman (2500 euro)

(2011) Edmond Hustinx Science award (15.000 euro)

Reviewer

Applied Cognitive Psychology

Cognition

Cognition & Emotion

Current Directions in Psychological Science

Experimental Psychology

Memory

Memory & Cognition

Psychology, Crime and Law

Legal and Criminological Psychology

Journal of Applied Social Psychology

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Journal of Cognitive Psychology

Back to Top of Page

Teaching

• History of Psychology

• Consciousness

• Development and Learning

• Statistics 1/2/3

• Psychodiagnostics

• Mathematics

• Perpetrators and Defendants

• Critical Thinking

• Communication Skills

• Complex Cognition

• Writing and Presenting

• Memory

• Methods and Techniques in Psychology

• Individual Differences

• Decisions

• Research: How to do it?

• Practical "Psychology and Law"

• Individual courses "Psychology and Law in a Nutshell"

• Supervision BSc/MSc theses

• Master courses "Psychology and Law" and "Forensic Psychology".

Back to Top of Page

Affiliations

Chair of the Organizing Committee of the Forensic Psychology Update Conference (2011)

Member of the Organizing Committee of the European Association of Psychology and Law (EAPL) 2008

Member of the Working Group on Psychology and Law (IRP; Interfacultaire Werkgroep Rechten & Psychologie)

Member of the Institute Experimental Psycho-Pathology (EPP)

Member of the research school Experimental Psycho-Pathology (EPP)     

 Back to Top of Page

Links

Workgroup Forensic Psychology section
http://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/web/Faculties/FPN/Theme/Research/ClinicalPsychologicalScience/ForensicPsychology.htm

Blog Forensische Psychologie
http://forensischepsychologie.wordpress.com/

Back to Top of Page

Last updated on September 11, 2007