Kate A. Houston

Kate A. Houston is a tenured Associate Professor of Psychology and Criminal Justice at Texas A&M International University, specializing in experimental cognitive psychology. Her research focuses on the reliability of eyewitness memory, confession evidence, and interrogation strategies within legal and national security contexts.

• Primary Affiliation: Texas A&M International University
• Academic Rank: Associate Professor
• Department: Psychology and Criminal Justice

Dr. Houston's work explores how emotional experiences affect memory encoding and retrieval, the impact of social influence and rapport on investigative interviews, and best practices for interpreter-mediated interrogations. Her research bridges theoretical psychology with real-world legal applications, aiming to minimize false confessions while maximizing truthful information extraction.

Key trends in her publications include:

• Advancing deception detection in multilingual interviews
• Investigating the confidence-accuracy relationship in eyewitness testimony
• Evaluating military intelligence interrogation techniques
• Developing frameworks for ethical investigative interviewing

She provides consultancy services for legal cases involving eyewitness identification reliability or confession evidence challenges, with experience in Texas, Colorado, and Louisiana cases. Her first book, co-authored with Stephen Lane, has received significant academic acclaim for integrating basic psychological research with legal practice.