- Institution:
- Abertay University
- Email:
- j.gawrylowicz@abertay.ac.uk
Dr Gawrylowicz is a Reader in Applied Cognitive Psychology in the Department of Sociological and Psychological Sciences at Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland. She is a Cognitive Psychologist and examines what factors might negatively or positively impact our memory recall, particularly in forensic settings, such as eyewitness memory scenarios and investigative interviews. She is particularly interested in making the Criminal Justice System fairer and more accessible to vulnerable individuals, such as children, older adults, individuals with an intellectual disability, and intoxicated witnesses and victims. Her work has influenced current guidelines by the College of Policing on how to obtain initial accounts from victims and witnesses (College of Policing, 2019). Her current research examines how drinking alcohol and alcohol-related expectancies may influence our memory recall and metacognition. She has supervised PhD projects examining the combined effect of alcohol and trauma on memory recall and intrusive thoughts, and how co-witness discussion and alcohol intoxication can impact eyewitness accuracy.
Before she joined Abertay in 2018, she worked as a lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University and as senior lecturer at London South Bank University. Dr Gawrylowicz is a visiting fellow of the Centre for Addictive Behaviours Research at London South Bank University and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Julie was awarded an MSc in Legal Psychology from Maastricht University, the Netherlands, and completed her PhD at Abertay University in 2010. Her PhD was funded by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR) and examined how we can facilitate facial composite construction by mock-witnesses with intellectual disabilities. After her PhD, she was a post-doctoral researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London. She worked on a Leverhulme-funded project investigating how we can best support eyewitness memory recall by elderly witnesses.
Contact Julie Gawrylowicz via email j.gawrylowicz@abertay.ac.uk
Relevant Publications
1. Gawrylowicz, J., & Kirk, N. W. (2025). Drunken Speech: The Impact of Dialect and Alcohol Intoxication on Mock Juror Perceptions of Sexual Assault Victims. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 39(4). https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.70097
2. Butterworth, B., Hand, C. J., Lorimer, K., & Gawrylowicz, J. (2023). The impact of post-encoding alcohol consumption on episodic memory recall and remember-know responses in heavy drinkers. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1007477. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1007477 xx
3. Bartlett, G., Gawrylowicz, J., Frings, D., & Albery, I. P. (2022). Would you believe an intoxicated witness? The impact of witness alcohol intoxication status on credibility judgments and suggestibility. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 983681. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.983681
4. Bartlett, G., Albery, I. P., Frings, D., & Gawrylowicz, J. (2022). The effects of alcohol and co-witness information on memory reports: a field study. Psychopharmacology, 239(9), 2945–2953. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-022-06179-5
5. Bartlett, G., Gawrylowicz, J., Frings, D., & Albery, I. P. (2021). The intoxicated co-witness: effects of alcohol and dyadic discussion on memory conformity and event recall. Psychopharmacology, 238(6), 1485–1493. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-021-05776-0
6. Gawrylowicz, J., Scoboria, A., Teodorini, R., & Albery, I. P. (2019). Intoxicated eyewitnesses: The effect of a fully balanced placebo design on event memory and metacognitive control. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 33(3), 344–357. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3504
7. Gawrylowicz, J., Ridley, A. M., Albery, I. P., Barnoth, E., & Young, J. (2017). Alcohol-induced retrograde facilitation renders witnesses of crime less suggestible to misinformation. Psychopharmacology, 234(8), 1267–1275. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-017-4564-2
Relevant Book Chapters
Gawrylowicz, J., & Bartlett, G. (2021). Alcohol and the legal system: Effects of alcohol on eyewitness testimony. In: The Handbook of Alcohol Use (pp. 379-398). Academic Press.