Selected Publications

 (PDF file) Investigating Deception Findings in Canadian Refugee Status Rejections: Legal Inferences and Psychological Assumptions

Hilary Evans Cameron, Jane Herlihy & Michaela Hynie, “Investigating Deception Findings in Canadian Refugee Status Rejections: Legal Inferences and Psychological Assumptions” (2025) 32 Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 949–975

This study combines legal and psychological approaches to analyse a large set of Canadian refugee status rejections. It identifies the most significant kinds of assumption that underlie the finding that a refugee claimant is lying.

 (PDF file) Just Tell Us What Happened to You: Autobiographical Memory and Seeking Asylum

Jane Herlihy, Laura Jobson & Stuart Turner, “Just Tell Us What Happened to You:  Autobiographical Memory and Seeking Asylum” (2012) 26 Applied Cognitive Psychology 661-676

This paper reviews selected areas of the literature on autobiographical memory in the context of refugee claims – in particular, the effects on memory of emotion, including emotional disorder, and the differing types of memory styles seen in different cultures. It presents conclusions about decision-makers’ reliance on refugee claimants’ autobiographical memories in credibility assessment.

 (PDF file) Psychological Research Evidence in Refugee Status Determination

Jane Herlihy, Hilary Evans Cameron & Stuart Turner, “Psychological Research Evidence in Refugee Status Determination” (2024) 37 Journal of Refugee Studies 938-953.

This paper presents evidence that refugee status decision makers make assumptions about how humans think and act that are contrary to decades of scientific evidence about human behaviour and cognition. While decision makers regularly benefit from expert county of origin information, they do not have access to relevant psychological research evidence. This paper proposes that this expert evidence is similarly needed to ensure fairer, more sustainable refugee status decisions.

 (PDF file) Refugee Status Determination and the Limits of Memory

Hilary Evans Cameron, “Refugee Status Determination and the Limits of Memory” (2010) 22 International Journal of Refugee Law 469-511

This article reviews autobiographical memory studies for insights into how refugee status decision-makers should draw credibility conclusions based on what and how people remember. It demonstrates that assumptions about memory that are common in refugee status decision-making are inconsistent with decades of psychological research.

 (PDF file) Risk and the Reasonable Refugee: Exploring a Key Credibility Inference in Canadian Refugee Status Rejections

Hilary Evans Cameron, “Risk and the Reasonable Refugee: Exploring a Key Credibility Inference in Canadian Refugee Status Rejections” (2023) 35 International Journal of Refugee Law 10-36

This study analyses a set of 303 decisions by the adjudicators at the Refugee Protection Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. It explores the role that inferences about the claimant’s risk response play in supporting the adjudicator's conclusions that the claimant is lying. The findings demonstrate that adjudicators often infer deception by measuring claimants actions against an idealized “reasonable person at risk,” relying on normative judgements about what someone should have done rather than engaging with claimants' subjective explanations of risk. Adjudicators did not rely on social scientific research in any of the cases examined to inform their credibility assessment.

 (PDF file) Risk Theory and ‘Subjective Fear’: The Role of Risk Perception, Assessment, and Management in Refugee Status Determinations

Hilary Evans Cameron, “Risk Theory and ‘Subjective Fear’: The Role of Risk Perception, Assessment, and Management in Refugee Status Determinations” (2008) 20 International Journal of Refugee Law 567

This article reviews interdisciplinary research on how human beings perceive and respond to danger. It challenges the assumption that genuinely fearful refugee claimants will act promptly, seek protection immediately, and never return home. Before inferring a lack of fear or deception from a claimant’s risk response, adjudicators must consider the psychological and cultural factors shaping risk perception, assessment and management. 

 (PDF file) Sin of Omission: Exploring a Key Credibility Inference in Canadian Refugee Status Rejections

Hilary Evans Cameron, “Sin of Omission: Exploring a Key Credibility Inference in Canadian Refugee Status Rejections” (2023) 60:1 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 127–174

This study provides the first quantitative overview of the significant role that the “omissions from the narrative” inference plays in a sample of Canadian refugee decisions. It challenges the assumption that, when drafting their narrative, the claimant would have understood what information the Board expected them to provide. It concludes that adjudicators often cannot reliably infer deception from the fact that a claimant has added relevant new information during their hearing.

 (PDF file) Impact of Sexual Violence on Disclosure During Home Office Interviews

Diana Bogner, Jane Herlihy & Chris R. Brewin, “Impact of Sexual Violence on Disclosure During Home Office Interviews” (2007) 191 British Journal of Psychiatry 75-81

This study investigates barriers to disclosure in asylum interviews. Building on earlier work that suggested that people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with a history of sexual violence are likely to have high numbers of avoidance symptoms (Van Velsen et al., 1996), this study showed that these symptoms, together with shame and dissociation, are directly related to the difficulties that people report in disclosing their past histories in interviews for refugee claims.

 (PDF file) The Importance of Looking Credible: The Impact of the Behavioural Sequelae of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder on the Credibility of Asylum Seekers

Hannah Rogers, Simone Fox & Jane Herlihy, “The Importance of Looking Credible: The Impact of the Behavioural Sequelae of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder on the Credibility of Asylum Seekers” (2015) 21:2 Psychology, Crime & Law 139–155

Behaviours such as averting one's gaze, fidgeting, and hesitant speech are commonly interpreted as signs of dishonesty, yet they are also symptoms of PTSD. This study examines the effects of this overlap on credibility assessment in the asylum process.

 (PDF file) What Assumptions about Human Behaviour Underlie Asylum Judgments?

Jane Herlihy, Kate Gleeson & Stuart Turner, “What Assumptions about Human Behaviour Underlie Asylum Judgments?” (2010) 22 International Journal of Refugee Law 351-366

This qualitative study investigates the assumptions that decision makers make about asylum seekers' behaviour in their accounts of their experiences. Its analysis raises questions about which of these assumptions are in line with best available empirical knowledge, and lays out a series of hypotheses, open to scientific enquiry.

 (PDF file) What Do We Know So Far about Emotion and Refugee Law?

Jane Herlihy & Stuart Turner, “What Do We Know So Far about Emotion and Refugee Law?” (2013) 64 Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 47-62

This paper examines wider issues of emotion and law. It describes a study of the assumptions made about refugee claimants' behaviour, intentions and ability to present themselves in the legal domain, situating these findings in the context of Maroney's 2006 taxonomy of the study of emotion and law. It outlines a number of key studies on traumatic memory, disclosure and presentation, showing that science can contribute a 'breadth of evidence' to this area of law, and considers what the psychological literature has to offer with regard to the difficult role of the decision maker.