Criticalreview
Angry Voices from the Past and Present: Effects on Adults’ and Children’s Earwitness Memory
Lisa Öhman, Anders Eriksson and Pär Anders Granhag
A critical review
Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling
2013 Volume 10, Issue 1, Pages 57 – 70
Word count: 3347
As the old adage goes ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. Often for investigating officers, eye witness testimony and what is seen, is heavily relied on in order to prosecute crimes (Wells and Olsen, 2003). As such eye witness testimony and memory has become one of the most researched areas in Cognitive Psychology. What can be quite disconcerting is that from the research conducted into this area, the consensus seems to be that eyewitness testimony is unreliable due to many different factors. One of the most familiar being the Loftus and Palmer (1974) classic study into misleading questions, showing that by changing just one word can generate a different answer and can even trigger additional yet false information.
But what about crimes in which the offender cannot be seen, such as crimes committed in poor light or the offender being masked, or even crimes involving phone calls like ransom calls, bomb threats and obscene messages. Earwitness testimony would then come into play. This on the other hand, has limited research focus despite The Devlin Committee (1976) stating that ‘research should proceed as rapidly as possible into the practicality of voice parades’ (Clifford, 1983). Yarmey (1994) highlighted that earwitnesses have been used in English courts since the 17th century, but rather than being based on empirical research and sound scientific evidence, earwitness testimony seems to be accepted more on the basis of instinct and common knowledge. Unfortunately from the sparse research that there is, there does seem to be many problems with this type of testimony. One example was explored by Sasglove and Yarmey
Lisa Öhman, Anders Eriksson and Pär Anders Granhag
A critical review
Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling
2013 Volume 10, Issue 1, Pages 57 – 70
Word count: 3347
As the old adage goes ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. Often for investigating officers, eye witness testimony and what is seen, is heavily relied on in order to prosecute crimes (Wells and Olsen, 2003). As such eye witness testimony and memory has become one of the most researched areas in Cognitive Psychology. What can be quite disconcerting is that from the research conducted into this area, the consensus seems to be that eyewitness testimony is unreliable due to many different factors. One of the most familiar being the Loftus and Palmer (1974) classic study into misleading questions, showing that by changing just one word can generate a different answer and can even trigger additional yet false information.
But what about crimes in which the offender cannot be seen, such as crimes committed in poor light or the offender being masked, or even crimes involving phone calls like ransom calls, bomb threats and obscene messages. Earwitness testimony would then come into play. This on the other hand, has limited research focus despite The Devlin Committee (1976) stating that ‘research should proceed as rapidly as possible into the practicality of voice parades’ (Clifford, 1983). Yarmey (1994) highlighted that earwitnesses have been used in English courts since the 17th century, but rather than being based on empirical research and sound scientific evidence, earwitness testimony seems to be accepted more on the basis of instinct and common knowledge. Unfortunately from the sparse research that there is, there does seem to be many problems with this type of testimony. One example was explored by Sasglove and Yarmey
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