Two Reasons Why Eyewitness Testimonies Are Considered Unreliable
Memory and formatting
d. Memory is not a recorder!!! Consider this statement and citing two sources, explain two reasons why eye witness testimonies are considered unreliable.
Eyewitness testimony is an important area of research in cognitive psychology and human memory.
According to Saul Mcleod, eyewitness testimony is a legal term that refers to an account given by people of an event they have witnessed.
For example they may be required to give a description at a trial of a robbery or a road accident someone has seen. This includes identification of perpetrators, details of the crime scene etc.
Juries tend to pay close attention to eyewitness testimony and generally find it a reliable source of information. However, research into this …show more content…
Many people believe that memory works something like a videotape. Storing information is like recording and remembering is like playing back what was recorded. However, memory does not work in this way. People store information in the way that makes the most sense to them. We make sense of information by trying to fit it into schemas, which are a way of organizing information.
Schemas are therefore capable of distorting unfamiliar or unconsciously ‘unacceptable’ information in order to ‘fit in’ with our existing knowledge or schemas. This can, therefore, result in unreliable eyewitness testimony.
Bartlett tested this theory using a variety of stories to illustrate that memory is an active process and subject to individual interpretation or construction.
In his famous study 'War of the Ghosts', Bartlett (1932) showed that memory is not just a factual recording of what has occurred, but that we make “effort after meaning”. By this, Bartlett meant that we try to fit what we remember with what we really know and understand about the world. As a result, we quite often change our memories so they become more sensible to
d. Memory is not a recorder!!! Consider this statement and citing two sources, explain two reasons why eye witness testimonies are considered unreliable.
Eyewitness testimony is an important area of research in cognitive psychology and human memory.
According to Saul Mcleod, eyewitness testimony is a legal term that refers to an account given by people of an event they have witnessed.
For example they may be required to give a description at a trial of a robbery or a road accident someone has seen. This includes identification of perpetrators, details of the crime scene etc.
Juries tend to pay close attention to eyewitness testimony and generally find it a reliable source of information. However, research into this …show more content…
Many people believe that memory works something like a videotape. Storing information is like recording and remembering is like playing back what was recorded. However, memory does not work in this way. People store information in the way that makes the most sense to them. We make sense of information by trying to fit it into schemas, which are a way of organizing information.
Schemas are therefore capable of distorting unfamiliar or unconsciously ‘unacceptable’ information in order to ‘fit in’ with our existing knowledge or schemas. This can, therefore, result in unreliable eyewitness testimony.
Bartlett tested this theory using a variety of stories to illustrate that memory is an active process and subject to individual interpretation or construction.
In his famous study 'War of the Ghosts', Bartlett (1932) showed that memory is not just a factual recording of what has occurred, but that we make “effort after meaning”. By this, Bartlett meant that we try to fit what we remember with what we really know and understand about the world. As a result, we quite often change our memories so they become more sensible to