{"id":878970,"date":"2026-09-03T22:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T22:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/878970\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T22:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T22:40:10","slug":"australian-science-prize-awarded-to-researcher-studying-memory-accuracy-of-domestic-violence-survivors-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/878970\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian science prize awarded to researcher studying memory accuracy of domestic violence survivors | Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

Memory is an imperfect thing: research shows<\/a> that recollections of single events \u2013 a purse being snatched, say \u2013 differ from those about repeated or ongoing events, such as incidents of domestic and family violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat 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,\u201d said Helen Paterson, an associate professor in forensic psychology at the University of Sydney.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes they confuse one episode with another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paterson\u2019s work has important implications for victim-survivors of domestic and family violence and how their testimony is received.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they\u2019re saying this in trial, it\u2019s defence 101 to say \u2026 they\u2019ve made this inconsistency, therefore their whole memory is unreliable,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we do know what they do report tends to be highly accurate in that it did happen to them. It\u2019s just they might mix up the episode in which it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paterson\u2019s work has also found that repeated-event witnesses are perceived to be \u201cless honest, less cognitively competent, and less overall credible than the single-event witnesses \u2013 which is pretty concerning that the more repeatedly you are victimised, the less credible you appear to others\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email <\/a><\/p>\n

In recognition of her work in advancing how police and courts understand victim-survivor testimony in such cases, Paterson was awarded a prestigious Eureka prize on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Established in 1990, the Australian Museum Eureka prizes recognise the work of Australian scientists and science communicators.<\/p>\n

Paterson was recognised for excellence in forensic science \u2013 one of 19 categories \u2013 at an event at\u00a0Sydney town hall.<\/p>\n

She hopes the award will help elevate the voices of victim-survivors. \u201cOften we don\u2019t give them the support and encouragement, and we don\u2019t believe them and see them as credible as we should.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assoc Prof Jane Tiller was recognised at the Eureka prizes for driving national legislative change that bans life insurers from discriminating against people due to genetic test results. Photograph: Michelle McFarlane\/Australian Museum<\/p>\n

Also among the winners was Assoc Prof Jane Tiller of Monash University, recognised for driving national legislative change that bans life insurers from discriminating against people due to genetic test results<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Passed into law in April, the ban will come into effect on 8 October. The legal change will enable scientists to use genomics more effectively to prevent conditions such as cancer and heart disease, Tiller said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest reason that people don\u2019t want this testing is because of fear of insurance discrimination,\u201d she said. The legal change was a \u201ccritical barrier that we needed to remove\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to \u2026 start finding young people who we know have very high risks of diseases that we can prevent, and give them the screening, the surveillance, the health tools available to them to prevent or treat those diseases early.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prof Georgina Long, who alongside the late Prof Richard Scolyer<\/a> was named Australian of the Year in 2024, won the Eureka prize for scientific research, for her pioneering melanoma work. Four other Australians of the Year have previously received Eureka prizes: Prof Tim Flannery, Prof Ian Frazer, Prof Michelle Simmons, and the late Prof Alan Mackay-Sim.<\/p>\n

Also among Thursday night\u2019s winners were Australia\u2019s marine heatwaves forecasting tool, developed by the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology; the Women\u2019s Microbiome Innovation Group, a Melbourne-based research collaboration that discovered that bacterial vaginosis<\/a> is sexually transmitted between partners; and Prof Yansong Shen of the University of New South Wales, who developed a scalable low-cost process to recover valuable metals and silicon from used solar panels.<\/p>\n

The Australian Museum director and chief executive, Kim McKay, said: \u201cThis year\u2019s winners are tackling some of our greatest challenges: protecting our environment, advancing healthcare, informing public policy and inspiring the next generation of scientists.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorld-changing discoveries do not happen overnight. They are built on years of dedication, collaboration and sustained investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Australia, domestic and family violence counselling <\/a>is available from Full Stop Australia on 1800 385 578. Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Memory is an imperfect thing: research shows that recollections of single events \u2013 a purse being snatched, say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":878971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-878970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/878971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}