Between Legal Truth and Psychological Truth: Tensions in the Assessment of Testimony in Criminal Proceedings
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70577/cieninter.v4i3.40Keywords:
testimony; forensic psychology; criminal proceedings; legal truth; memory; evidentiary assessment; credibilityAbstract
The assessment of testimony in criminal proceedings constitutes one of the most complex epistemological nodes at the intersection of law and psychology. Legal truth, built on procedural standards of certainty and burden of proof, and psychological truth, articulated from empirical findings on memory, credibility, and suggestibility, do not always converge, generating tensions that can lead to judicial errors with irreparable consequences. This article analyzes, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the main sources of conflict between both epistemologies in testimonial assessment, with particular attention to the phenomena of reconstructive memory, cognitive biases of the adjudicator, lie detection, child testimony psychology, and the impact of forensic interview procedures. A narrative systematic review methodology is employed, covering specialized literature published between 2022 and 2025, indexed in Scopus, Web of Science, and PsycINFO. The results show that the persistent undervaluation of psychological contributions in evidentiary systems generates structural vulnerabilities that compromise both substantive justice and the fundamental rights of the accused and victims. It is concluded that overcoming this tension requires not only the systematic incorporation of testimony psychology as an auxiliary discipline of criminal procedural law, but also an epistemological reform in the training of legal practitioners.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Maria Gabriela Mora Velasco, Jose Andres Mora Velasco, Mateo Alberto Alvarez Maldonado, Jhonatan Antony Valle Sanabria
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