The term ‘eye witness testimony’ refers to an area of research into the accuracy of memory concerning significant events, it is legally considered to be a reliable account of events. However, research into eye witness testimony has found that it can be affected by many psychological factors such as, anxiety and stress, reconstructive memory, selective attention and leading questions.…
Research suggests that anxiety and the age of witnesses can affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony (EWT) for a variety of reasons. The age of a witness can affect the accuracy of eye witness testimony and it is thought that as a result, EWT is often inaccurate. Research by Geiselman and Padilla (1988) found that children were less accurate when reporting events of a filmed bank robbery than adults; despite this, other research has failed to find much of a difference between adults and children, especially when free recall instead of structured interview is used. Furthermore, Children appear to be more susceptible to leading questions than adults (Goodman & Reid, 1986), and younger children are more likely to incorporate misleading information into their memories of the events if they are asked the same question repeatedly (Leichtman & Ceci, 1995). Most research into the accuracy of children’s memory has come from laboratory research, therefore it allows for precise control of variables, the experiments can be replicated for reliability and the independent variables will be carefully constructed allowing good inference of cause and effect. On the other hand, lab experiments are artificial as the setting is not typical of real life situations, therefore lacking ecological validity. It is not just the memory of children that has been tested; Anastasi & Rhodes (2006) used participants aged 18 – 78 years and found that young and middle-aged participants were more accurate at recognising photographs than older participants. Furthermore, Yarmey (1984) and Cohen & Faulkner (1988) found older people made more recall errors than younger people. Both researches suggest that the memory and therefore EWT is probably as unreliable as a child’s.…
Faulty memory has a lot of negative effects, but most importantly it has led to at least a hundred people being wrongly imprisoned. For example, Larry Mayes was convicted of raping a gas station cashier after the victim positively identified him in court. Mayes spent twenty one years in prison after attorney Thomas Vanes wrongfully prosecuted him of the crime. It was only two decades after prosecuting Mayes that Vanes saw the result of old evidence being subjected to new DNA testing, and he changed his mind. In a newspaper, Vanes wrote, “he was right, I was wrong” (Loftus). Faulty memory can change a person’s life forever and it is just one of the reasons why the study of memory is so important (Loftus).…
A well-documented research by an influential psychologist named Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, suggested that interviews can actually lead to tremendous errors in eyewitness testimony. Additionally, for many years researchers have also suspected that forensic interview methods highly influence eyewitness testimonies which are a major cause of inaccuracies. Eyewitnesses could be led to give reports of objects of events they did not actually experience. This debate about why the misinformation effect takes place has challenged dominant views in regards to the validity of memory and had raised concerns about the reliability of eyewitness testimony. Furthermore, early demonstrations of the effects of questioning did exhibit various ways in which eyewitness testimony could be influenced (Lotus, 2005).…
Chapter 16 was a very intriguing section of reading mostly due to the fact that I am currently taking a criminal justice class. It is interesting to see the different perspectives of mental illnesses and disorders when comparing textbooks and material that I have learned from both classes. Most recently, I have conducted research on the validity of eyewitness testimonies and the cognitive psychology behind it. I also had the opportunity to interview Dr. Robert Belli, a professor at UNL that focuses most of his research on factors that affect the reliability of eyewitness testimonies such as the misinformation effect and recovered memory.…
In society it is substantially common for people to be exonerated for a crime they did not commit. Unfortunately it is even more common for that to happen when they are incarcerated due to inaccurate eyewitness testimonies. Eyewitness research has demonstrated that there are a multitude of ways to conduct identification processes, however, the processes that police often use today are more likely to encourage inaccurate identification. In addition there have been many case studies of exonerated people that show the downfalls of eyewitness testimony. Wrongful incarceration has consistently demonstrated that inaccurate identification carries a big weight when it comes to wrongful identification, in fact, in the article Contamination of Eyewitness Self-Reports and Mistaken-Identification Problem by Laura Smalarz and Gary L. Wells, they state that there is an average of thirty three percent of witnesses who make an identification from a lineup identify a known innocent filler. There is a lot of thought behind the processes of identification but there are so many variables that can taint a subject’s confidence.…
Overall eyewitness evidence strength was further examined across prosecution outcomes in the eyewitness identification alone cases” (Flowe, 2011). When it comes to being a creditable source of being an eye witness there are many things that, factor how using someone’s testimony as accountable source. When it comes to linking and eyewitness testimony and the accusing someone under false pretenses there has been amplitude of research that has being placed into forensic psychology to help see how useful resources are when it comes to taking an eyewitness word. “The connection between erroneous eyewitness identification evidence and wrongful convictions has been the motivating force behind much research in forensic psychology” (Wells, 2006). When…
Eyewitness testimony has been used frequently over time in various situations. It sometimes holds more merit then some facts or evidence. Yet it is also the reason why many innocent people go to jail and criminals still walk free. Eyewitness testimony has been used for over 100 years. It has played a major part in convicting criminals, from the common thief to the most dangerous murderer. However, with the time between incident and testimony or even report can vary drastically, the quality of eyewitness testimony wasn 't really recognized as an issue until the 1970 's. With plenty of unsolved crimes and not enough evidence eyewitness testimony was all that was needed. Now with psychologists holding scientific studies to see if it is reliable;…
As time passes, people tend to forget details and certain events. Even those events that were originally crystal clear, will naturally fade with time. Also, a person’s bias – how he or she views what happened based on past experiences and upbringing, will affect how the person will relay what occurred. Even if the person is only stating facts, the bias will be present in the testimony. Finally, when a traumatic event occurs, a person’s senses are heightened, their adrenaline starts pumping and hence, the brain then naturally, does not commit everything to memory – because it is concentrating on the traumatic event and the testimony will be lacking.…
Historically, eyewitnesses have played a crucial role in arrests and convictions in New York, and elsewhere. Law enforcement, judges and juries have relied heavily on the statements and identifications of witnesses because they were actually present for, or otherwise a part of, a criminal offense. Recent studies have shown, however, that eyewitness testimony may not be as reliable as it was long thought to be.…
who take the opposite view also seem to have just as valid an argument. Which…
Eyewitness testimony is defined as formal evidence of a persons direct observations of an event in question (Mann & Blunden, 2010), and is considered a vital part of the Australian CJS for both investigating and prosecuting crimes. Eyewitness testimony is one of the oldest forms of evidence and was previously considered the most credible source to implicate a suspect short of perhaps a confession (Vollen, 2005). However, eyewitness testimony is fundamentally defective due to its reliance on the human senses and on the brain’s ability to process and remember these perceptions (Howitt, 2012).…
However, eyewitness testimony is not always accurate – whether that be from erroneously reported witness testimony or malicious intent, there is always the possibility that something is wrong with the identification or testimony of the eyewitness(s) of a crime. In fact, as a report written in 2007 claims, “Eyewitness misidentification is widely recognized as the leading cause of wrongful conviction in the U.S., accounting for more wrongful conviction than all other causes combined.” (The Justice Project, 2007) One reason for an eyewitness being an unreliable source of concrete evidence is the memory of the witness – in that it is like the memory of every one else. Memory is not infallible. As any human goes about their lives, they form memories every waking and…
Eyewitness memory, which depend on on the exactitude of human beings has colossal influence on the crime suitcases and their consequences. What man watch with their eyes is to be considered true? However, not only eyewitness memory helps in directing the crime cases but also the evidence, because with the help of eyewitness everyone can say that what is happening. Nevertheless, to reach on the exact point we prerequisite the evidences. We do not believe only what human beings watch moreover they may be erroneous or right we cannot able to magistrate except we have evidences of what we watch. In more or less cases, the eyewitness memories lead to us, find the evidences because what we watch we explain that goings-on and the lawyer can reach to the evidences and capable to elucidate the case. It is true that everything that we lookout deposited in our minds everlastingly. However, the problem is that everyone can give his or her declarations conferring to crimes to whom the lawyer…
Further research showed that both proactive and retroactive interference are maximal when two separate responses have been linked with the same stimulus and minimal when different stimuli are involved. Further significant evidence supporting the interference theory has been found from eye-witness testimony studies where memory of an event or incident is interfered with questioning after the event as the questions asked may somewhat have an impact on the witness’s memory and change their opinion of what they think they saw and therefore reduce their reliability (Eysenck & Keane, 2005). There are multiple ways in which eyewitness’s memory can be affected by interference, one way in which this happens is when the interviewer misleads witness’s with questions that may cause retroactive interference as new or misleading information is given to them…