The Visualisation of Cognitive Structures in Forensic Statements

Forensic statements are often unstructured, intricate, and thus difficult to interpret and assess. This is due to the varied nature and format of how interviews with victims, witnesses, or suspects are conducted. It is even more difficult for police investigators, lawyers or other legal practitioners to grasp intuitively and accurately the key information pertaining within the varied statements. This research investigates the opportunities in the convergence of linguistic approaches to extracting and reconstructing the cognitive structure, i.e. “Text-Worlds”, in a statement, and the computerised operational settings for enabling effective and hopefully more accurate interpretation of forensic discourse through visualisation.