The Influence Of Eyewitness Testimony

For decades, show-ups have played a significant role in solving criminal cases in this country. A show-up normally occurs immediately or shortly after a crime has occurred. According to Lehman and Phelps (2005), Using the eyewitness testimony law enforcement personnel can bring back anyone near the crime scene who they suspect is the perpetrator in hopes of detaining the correct suspect. Eyewitness’s testimony can be the key to recognizing, charging, and convicting a suspect in a criminal case. Moreover, in certain cases, eyewitness evidence could be the only evidence available to solve a crime. Yet in various cases eyewitness evidence can lead to the conviction of the wrong person. The debate on regards eyewitness testimonies and their accuracy at identifying perpetrators has led to important Psychological research over the past decades to identify
The Good Pluto Bad Pluto study explores the influence of misinformation presented after the fact on memory. In this study researchers fabricated a false story about Pluto in which he has developed a bad habit of licking the ears of many visitors (Storm, Lecture, January 21, 2016). Participants were given evidence that challenged their memory by trying to make them believe Pluto’s behavior. The results of the study showed a great amount of people believing Pluto’s behavior even though it might of never even happened to them, or witness it, creating a misinformation effect. Following the results of this study one can conclude that the misinformation effect can cause innocent people to be taken to jail after a show-up because of a memory error, which sometimes could be triggered simply by the wording of a question. The wording of the question causes confusion in the witness and often causes false memories, which likely will lead the eyewitness to choose to wrong person in the