LEWISTON – A Bates College associate psychology professor will talk about the accuracy of eyewitness identification and its ramifications at the Great Falls Forum from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday.

Amy Bradfield Douglass will present “Mistaken Eyewitness Identifications: Prevalence, Causes, and Remedies” at the Marsden Hartley Cultural Center in the Lewiston Public Library on Lisbon Street. The discussion is a brown bag lunch affair; water is available for a small donation.

Douglass’ interests lie in both law and memory distortion. Among the questions she’ll be asking are:

Does feedback about the accuracy of eyewitness identification affect a witness’s willingness to make a subsequent identification?

Do instructions to jurors affect decisions?

Does the presence of an audience in a courtroom affect perceptions of a defendant?

How does an eyewitness’s decision affect an investigator?

What kind of feedback to eyewitnesses can distort their memories?

When are eyewitnesses most susceptible to social influence?

Douglass earned a bachelor’s degree from Williams College in 1996 and a Ph.D. in psychology from Iowa State University in 2001. She has been on the faculty at Bates College since 2001, where she teaches statistics and applied social psychology. She also teaches a psychology and law course, closely related to her own research interests.

The Great Falls Forum is in its 10th season. Reservations are not necessary.

Upcoming speakers are: New York Times best-selling author Tess Gerritsen on March 20; the Somali immigrant panel on April 17; and Maine’s first female commissioner of public safety, Anne Jordan, on May 15.

The forum is sponsored by the Sun Journal, Lewiston Public Library, St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center and Bates College.