MUN Psychology - Faculty


Brent Snook

My research involves the study of bounded rationality in forensic environments. Bounded rationality is the study of the heuristics that people with limited time, knowledge, or cognitive power use to make decisions; the structure of the environment in which people make decisions; and the match between the two. Forensic psychology is the study of human behaviour as it relates to the law or legal system. Specifically, the research in my lab investigates (i) the evidence that people use simple heuristics to make consequential forensic decisions, (ii) the heuristics that are used to search for information or alternatives, stop that search, and make a decision, (iii) when and why heuristics work well, and (iv) the conditions under which simple heuristics are used to make decisions. My recent research has examined the heuristics that people use to predict where serial offenders live and an analysis of the structure of offender spatial decisions. Research in my lab also involves the study of bounded rationality in non-forensic environments (we have recently tested whether people use the recognition heuristic in sports environments) and other general forensic psychological issues (the use and misuse of psychologically-based investigative techniques).

Bennell, C., Snook, B., Taylor, P. J., Corey, S., & Keyton, J. (in press). It's no riddle, choose the middle: The effect of number of crimes and topographical detail on police officer predictions of serial burglars' home locations. Criminal Justice and Behavior.

Eastwood, J., Cullen, R. M., Kavanagh, J. K., & Snook, B. (in press). A review of the validity of criminal profiling. Canadian Journal of Police and Security Services.

Cullen, R. M., Snook, B., Rideout, K., Eastwood, J., & House, J. C. (in press). Using police data to inform investigative decision making: A study of commercial robbers’ spatial decisions. Canadian Journal of Police and Security Services.

Snook, B., & Cullen, R. M. (in press). Bounded rationality and criminal investigations: The adaptive function of tunnel vision. In K. D. Rossmo (Ed.), Criminal investigative failures. Oxford, UK: Taylor & Francis.

Snook, B., Eastwood, J., Gendreau, P., Goggin, C., & Cullen, R. M. (in press). Taking stock of criminal profiling: A narrative review and meta-analysis. Criminal Justice and Behavior.

Bennell, C., Jones, N., Taylor, P. J., & Snook, B. (2006). Validities and abilities in criminal profiling: A critique of the studies conducted by Richard Kocsis and his colleagues. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 50(3), 344-360.

House, J. C., Cullen, R. M., Snook, B., & Noble, P. (2006). Improving the effectiveness of the National DNA Data Bank: A consideration of the criminal antecedents of predatory sexual offenders. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 48(1), 61-76.

Snook, B., & Cullen, R. M. (2006). Recognizing national hockey league greatness with an ignorant heuristic. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60(1), 33-43.

Snook, B., Wright, M., House, J.C., & Alison, L. J. (2006). Searching for a needle in a needle stack: Combining criminal careers and journey to crime for suspect prioritization. Police Practice and Research, 6, 419-432.

Ennis, A. R., Snook, B., Bennell, C., Johnson, S. D., Taylor, P. J., & Campbell, L. (2005). The effect of heuristic-training and topographical information on geographic profiling performance. Psychology, Crime, and Law. (submitted).

Snook, B., Bennell, C., Hillier, K. D., Taylor, P. J., & Keyton, J. (2005). The effect of police officers' prediction strategies on geographic performance: A brief research report. Behavioral Sciences and Law. (submitted).

Bennell, C., Snook, B., Taylor, P. J., Corey, S., & Keyton, J. (2005). It's no riddle, choose the middle: The effect of number of crimes and topographical detail on police officer predictions of serial burglars' home locations. Criminal Justice and Behavior. (submitted).

Cullen, R., Snook, B., M., Mokros, A., & Harbort, S. (2005). Serial murderers spatial decisions: Factors that influence crime location choice. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 2, 147-164.

Snook, B., Taylor, P. J., & Bennell, C. (2005). Shortcuts to geographic profiling success: A reply to Rossmo (2005). Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19, 1-7.

Snook, B., Zito, M., Bennell, C., & Taylor, P. J. (2005). On the complexity and accuracy of geographic profiling strategies. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 21(1), 1-26.

Snook, B., Taylor, P. J., & Bennell, C. (2004). Geographic profiling: The fast, frugal and accurate way. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 105-121.

Snook, B. (2004). Individual differences in distance travelled by serial burglars. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 1, 53-66.

Snook, B., Canter, D. V., & Bennell, C. (2002). Predicting the home location of serial offenders: A preliminary comparison of the accuracy of human judges with a geographic profiling system. Behavioural Sciences and The Law, 20, 109-118.

Taylor, P. J., Bennell, C., & Snook, B. (2002). Problems of classification in investigative psychology. In K. Jajugar, A. Sokolowski, and H. H. Bock (Eds.), Classification, clustering, and data analysis: Recent advances and applications (pp. 479-487). Heidelberg: Springer.

Alison, L., Snook, B., & Stein, K. L. (2001). Unobtrusive measures: Using police information for forensic research. Qualitative Research, 1, 241-254.