What Are The Key Factors That Affect Eyewitness Testimony

An eyewitness testimony is simply, an account given by person or persons of an event that they witnessed. An example of this would be a witness giving a description on the stand at trial of a gas station robbery. The witness would recall the events that they saw take place, people they saw at the crime scene, and the perpetrators. Eyewitness testimonies have become an important area in human memory, and cognitive psychology. If a witness is asked to take the stand at a trial, the juries are known to pay very close attention to that witnesses’ testimony, and make rely on it to make their important decision. Therefore, eyewitness testimonies are extremely important, that is why psychologist have started to conduct intensive research into this area. So far, they have found that witness testimonies can be affected by many psychological factors.
I don’t think that eyewitness testimonies are reliable at all. I took the time to do a little research, I watched videos of people conducting a fake crime and talking to the witnesses after and they had the witnesses describe what they saw. In one of the videos, a girl in a blue dress ran up to a man, grabbed his wallet, and took off. When the eyewitnesses were asked what they saw happen they all said different things, and one even said that the man robbed the women. While watching law and order SVU, I noticed that even when cops are acting they still question the eyewitness testimony. There are too many factors that can make an eyewitness unreliable. If a black male come up to a female and there was a scuffle and the women runs away with his wallet, an eyewitness is more than likely going to tell a cop it was the black males fault. A lot of things go into an eyewitness’s testimony, and their preconceived ideas is a major