Validity Of Eyewitness Testimony
Validity of eyewitness testimony
Eyewitness testimony are accounts given by an individual about the details of an event that may include, what the perpetrator was wearing or physical description of the person , in what direction did the person run, details of a crime scene of a accident etc.., but can the eyes lie? Eyewitness testimony has been recognized as the leading cause of wrongful convictions in the U.S and because of this there are organizations in place such as the innocent project, which is committed to exonerating wrongly convicted people through the use of DNA testing and to reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice ().
Two articles that I have chosen with opposing views are:
• Distinguishing accurate from inaccurate eyewitness identifications via inquiries about decision processes. …show more content…
Argument here is that just because there are limitations on the human mind with the way memory and processing is handled when given information which may lead to invalidity and inaccuracy the mind does demonstrate the ability to process information where the acquired stimulus information is stored.
Dunning & Stern conducted 5 studies using 131 Cornell University Students. Studies 1-4 was conducted to prove their position that accurate witnesses making positive identifications were more likely to automatically recognize the culprit while inaccurate witnesses were more likely to use the process of elimination strategy and study 5 was used to answer the questions “How useful is the information garnered in the previous four studies? If subjects were placed in the role of police officer, lawyer, judge, or juror, and asked to decide whether a given eyewitness identification was accurate or erroneous, would they find cues about decision processes to be
helpful?”(p.828)
• Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction Between Language and Memory.
Argument here is that eyewitness accounts for the excessive inaccuracy being used as a vital source of information within courts and the criminal justice system. The experiment of showing student participants video of traffic accidents and then asking them questions were conducted to prove if leading questions would affect recall in a situation where participants were asked to estimate speed. () states “that two kinds of information go into one’s memory for some complex occurrence; the first is information gleaned during the perception of the original event; the second is external information supplied after the fact. Over time, information from these two sources may be integrated in such a way that we are unable to tell from which source some specific detail is recalled. All we have is one “memory.”” And based on the results of the test it indicates that memory is not reliable and that memory can be manipulated by using specific words (p.587).
Fallacies are common errors in reasoning that will undermine the logic of your argument. Fallacies can be either illegitimate arguments or irrelevant points, and are often identified because they lack evidence that supports their claim.
Three fallacies between the two articles are:
• Mistaking deductive validity for truth
• Sweeping generalizations
• Hasty generalizations
There is no denying that eyewitness testimony is extremely important to any justice system but there are some psychologists that claim that memories and individual perceptions are unreliable and can be manipulated and there are other psychologists they do not feel the same way. The Impact that fallacies may have on the psychology profession and on public perception, behavior, and/or attitudes is that it could lessen the credibility of the witnesses and the psychologist, creates a divide within the court system, and may lead to innocent people being sentenced to death, spending ample amount of time in jail or locked up for the rest of their lives. I agree with the preface “Few things should go together better than psychology and law. Both are concerned with human behavior: analyzing it, predicting it, understanding it and, sometimes, controlling it”. Therefore, more research and effort needs to be made to safeguard eyewitness testimony.
Eyewitness testimony are accounts given by an individual about the details of an event that may include, what the perpetrator was wearing or physical description of the person , in what direction did the person run, details of a crime scene of a accident etc.., but can the eyes lie? Eyewitness testimony has been recognized as the leading cause of wrongful convictions in the U.S and because of this there are organizations in place such as the innocent project, which is committed to exonerating wrongly convicted people through the use of DNA testing and to reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice ().
Two articles that I have chosen with opposing views are:
• Distinguishing accurate from inaccurate eyewitness identifications via inquiries about decision processes. …show more content…
Argument here is that just because there are limitations on the human mind with the way memory and processing is handled when given information which may lead to invalidity and inaccuracy the mind does demonstrate the ability to process information where the acquired stimulus information is stored.
Dunning & Stern conducted 5 studies using 131 Cornell University Students. Studies 1-4 was conducted to prove their position that accurate witnesses making positive identifications were more likely to automatically recognize the culprit while inaccurate witnesses were more likely to use the process of elimination strategy and study 5 was used to answer the questions “How useful is the information garnered in the previous four studies? If subjects were placed in the role of police officer, lawyer, judge, or juror, and asked to decide whether a given eyewitness identification was accurate or erroneous, would they find cues about decision processes to be
helpful?”(p.828)
• Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction Between Language and Memory.
Argument here is that eyewitness accounts for the excessive inaccuracy being used as a vital source of information within courts and the criminal justice system. The experiment of showing student participants video of traffic accidents and then asking them questions were conducted to prove if leading questions would affect recall in a situation where participants were asked to estimate speed. () states “that two kinds of information go into one’s memory for some complex occurrence; the first is information gleaned during the perception of the original event; the second is external information supplied after the fact. Over time, information from these two sources may be integrated in such a way that we are unable to tell from which source some specific detail is recalled. All we have is one “memory.”” And based on the results of the test it indicates that memory is not reliable and that memory can be manipulated by using specific words (p.587).
Fallacies are common errors in reasoning that will undermine the logic of your argument. Fallacies can be either illegitimate arguments or irrelevant points, and are often identified because they lack evidence that supports their claim.
Three fallacies between the two articles are:
• Mistaking deductive validity for truth
• Sweeping generalizations
• Hasty generalizations
There is no denying that eyewitness testimony is extremely important to any justice system but there are some psychologists that claim that memories and individual perceptions are unreliable and can be manipulated and there are other psychologists they do not feel the same way. The Impact that fallacies may have on the psychology profession and on public perception, behavior, and/or attitudes is that it could lessen the credibility of the witnesses and the psychologist, creates a divide within the court system, and may lead to innocent people being sentenced to death, spending ample amount of time in jail or locked up for the rest of their lives. I agree with the preface “Few things should go together better than psychology and law. Both are concerned with human behavior: analyzing it, predicting it, understanding it and, sometimes, controlling it”. Therefore, more research and effort needs to be made to safeguard eyewitness testimony.