Eye Witness Testimony Essay

“Eyewitness testimony is so untrustworthy that it should never be used in convicting criminals”. Eyewitness testimony is known as a legal term.

It refers to; an account given by person(s) of the event they’ve witnessed. Eyewitness testimony is admissible within a court of law to aid in the certainty of individuals. In 1976, the Devlin survey examined more than 2000 identification parades inside the U. K. Of the 2000 parades, 45% resulted in a suspect staying identified and out of the, 82% were eventually found guilty of a crime. In above 300 cases, the eyewitness testimony was your sole “evidence” used in dedication. 4% of those 300 circumstances resulted in felony convictions.

The importance of eyewitness testimony was highlighted through this report and resulted in much more research becoming undertaken. Cohen describes “erroneous eyewitness testimony” as being the “leading cause of wrongful conviction”. The multi retail store /Atkinson-Shiffrin memory space model was initially recognised in 1968 by Atkinson and Shiffrin. The model endeavors to identify the procedure that a incitement must move through to become a retrievable memory.

After being rebuked for its intended simplicity, Baddeley and Problem (1974) developed the working storage model. These two models suggest that memory is a complex sensation that must proceed through numerous periods to become a great accurately remembered memory. It truly is this process that offers explanation in to the complexity of memory plus the many areas that may cause memory confabulation. The Psychology of Rumour study simply by Allport & postman’s (examined latter) as well alludes to memory becoming more complex than previously thought and strengthens the theory that memory can be described as process rather than a simplified film. Friend Frederic Bartlett, (1932) released the theory of “Reconstructive memory” & “schemas” to Psychology.

Schemas where defined by Mike Cardwell as; “packages of information” or “unconscious mental structures”. These mental structures are acquired through our experience, or as a result of our objectives and ethnical norms. Bartlett proposed that people use schemas constantly to complete duties and to aid in making impression of our natural environment. The theory of schemas as well suggests that you will discover gaps in a person’s memory space that are filled up with confabulated details when reconstructed. Sir Bartlett (1973) invented an experiment to investigate the consequence of schemas about people’s memories.

Twenty members read a story called; “The War of the Ghosts”. The story was widely different european literature, and was tough for them to know. After some time, the participants were asked to repeatedly recall the story in as much fine detail as possible. Following recalling precisely the same story half a dozen times, when even a year later, individuals accidentally shortened the story by 330 words and phrases to an average of 180.

Participants also altered areas of it to better suit their westernized tradition. A summary of this research is that Memory recall is usually influenced by simply our schemas of social background and pre-existing knowledge. The experiment has been criticised for a lack of objectivity, being locker on varying control and casual conditions. However , the experimenter’s findings were also heightened by Cromberg et ‘s whom in 1996 interviewed people 12 months after plane crash.

In the 193 inhibited, 55% inaccurately said that they’d seen the airplane hit the building and 59% inaccurately reported that a fireplace had started immediately about impact. Allport and Postman (1947) conducted a study named: “Psychology of Rumour” with participants who had been all white colored. They were displayed a picture of your argument among a dark man and a white colored man on a train. The white man is keeping a razor blade and harmful the black man strongly. The members were broken into groups of seven.

One participator from every group was shown the style and asked to describe that to the second participant, who have described this to the third, and so forth. More than half the participants who received a final description reported that the dark-colored man, not really the white-colored was possessing the razor blade. This was bogus and implies that memory is definitely susceptible to change by our personal biases and prejudices inside society. This kind of experiment has become at the forefront of the user interface between regulation and mindset. The results have been frequently relayed in courts of law to convey the unreliability of eyewitness testimony.

Nevertheless , inaccurate accounts of the methods and ramifications of the analyze have been greatly misunderstood and distorted. Dialect is very important in eyewitness account; the way that memory can be retrieved coming from a witness strongly impacts what that person recalls. Loftus proposed that witnesses may accept fake information which usually would dramatically affect the reliability of their testimony. This is called: “misinformation acceptance” and May happen in a content event scenario such as becoming interviewed. Loftus believed a few interviews covered “leading questions”.

A leading question is defined as a question that is phrased in a way as to influence or perhaps prompt a particular form of answer. To test weather leading questions could perspective eyewitness account, Loftus and palmer (1974) conducted the: “Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction” experiment. Forty five American learners were split up into 5 subgroups. After getting shown various car accidents on photo slides that were dependant variables for each and every group, Individuals were advised to answer concerns on the actual had witnessed.

The groupings where asked to approximate the speed in the cars prior to they possibly: “hit/smashed/collided/bumped/contacted”. Every subgroup was asked the same question but with different verbs (the self-employed variable. ) A week later on participants were asked queries such as; “Did you see any broken a glass? ” when non-e this sort of existed. The findings of the experiment were that the action-word used to illustrate the accident affected the participants rate estimate given. The Biasing questions that they can answered methodically affected the participant’s memory of the car accident.

The participants in the “smashed” condition reported the highest rates of speed, followed by “collided”, “bumped”, “hit”, and “contacted” in climbing down order. The “smashed” group also got more individuals reporting to acquire seen a glass when there were none. This experiment shows that memory is easily distorted by simply questioning approaches and information can be accepted post function causing confabulated memory.

Strong points of this test are it turned out conducted in a controlled environment and provides serious ramifications for meeting with witnesses. On the other hand there is weakness’s to the experiment such almost all participants had been students rather than a wide range of persons. Also, the collisions wherever viewed on video not really in real life.

Videos may possibly lack the emotional impact caused the moment witnessing a real-life accident Loftus ain al (1978) proposed that emotion can impact memory. Loftus stated that emotional sexual arousal levels during a conference can lead to a decrease in accurate memory recall. Loftus et ing conducted an experiment in the effect of feeling on memory by displaying two films of an provided robbery to participants.

One particular film was violent, the other was non-violent. Then they tested the participant’s thoughts for information on what they acquired witnessed. The findings confirmed that the high-arousal version of any young boy being taken and falling to the ground, led to impaired memory call to mind. This was when compared to the low-arousal edition. These results show that emotions could affect memory.

This experiment is usually lab structured and findings may be difficult to transfer in to real-life environment. However , being conducted in a controlled environment gives it enhanced ecological quality. Peters (1988) supported Yerkes & Dodson that illustrated an optimum degree of emotional arousal enhanced memory.

Peters found that when getting inoculations within a clinic (an anxiety producing event) patients found hard in effectively identifying the nurse who have issued all their jab. One can possibly conclude that was because of the high amounts of arousal encircling the participator during the time of the jab. There may be conflicting data weather feelings strengthen or weaken the accuracy of eyewitness tales. However , both theories support the idea that feelings has an effect on memory space.

Eastbrook (1959) proposed that arousal narrows the focus of attention. This kind of causes improved memory pertaining to central specifics but damaged memory pertaining to peripheral details. Another factor that influences the trustworthiness of eyewitness testimony when witnessing a meeting is the: “weapons focus affect”.

Weapon target refers to the concentration of attention on a weapon by witnesses of any crime. Loftus et al claimed that diverted their very own attention and resulted in a reduction of remembering many other details of the offense or legal. Loftus (1979) conducted a great experiment to study whether the occurrence of a weapon in an psychologically heightened condition could impact eyewitness storage. Participants believed they were waiting to engage in a memory space study and were waiting around outside a laboratory. As they waited, members in “condition 1” overheard a staged yet detrimental conversation from a room with regards to equipment failure.

A man then simply exited the bedroom with a greasy hand possessing a pen. Condition two participants were privy to a staged chat from a great unseen area. This discussion was “hostile” and was accompanied by requirements of disregarding class and broken pieces of furniture.

A man then exited the bedroom holding a blood covered knife. Individuals were asked to identify the boys they saw from forty five photographs. Condition one members accurately determined the man 49% of the time. However , condition two participants could accurately determine the man just 33% of times.

From these types of results, Loftus concluded that occurrence of a weapon and a hostile confrontation affected witness’s ability to determine the individual. They were unable to focus attention within the man mainly because more attention was targeted on the weapon. This research is important in demonstrating the effect a tool has on the reliability of eyewitness’s testimony. However , there were many criticisms of these trials.

No differentiation is made as to whether the aggressive experience influenced participant’s memories or simply the weapon. There are also huge worries over the ethics of this experiment, participants might have been psychologically broken by the encounter and were unable to take away from that as they were unaware it had already commenced. This test was conducted under handled conditions in a controlled environment; this fortifies the information obtained by raising the environmental validity with the experiment.

The findings are much less transferable to real life scenarios. Chrstianson & Hubinette (1993) demonstrated that in real life adjustments, memory may be accurate with acute pressure. Eyewitness account is intensely dependent upon face recognition, therefore, the study on this subject features acute implications in understanding just how reliable recollections of faces are. Exploration shows that individuals have difficulty accurately recognizing specific members of any different race. One reason for this is the fact we employ specific features to distinguish among members of the own race and those features are not usually present among other events.

In a study done by Sitz and Hosch, (1986) ease store clerks were asked to identify three customers: a single white, one black, and one Philippine American, most of whom halted in the store previous that time. The outcomes of the research showed that every of the clerks identified clients belonging to their particular race accurately, but when looking to identify members of the other events, they explained “they most look as well. ” Cross-Race Identification Bias demonstrates just how prone folks are to making fake identifications when ever asked to identity people from another type of racial or perhaps ethnic qualifications other than their particular. This study offers a lot of support towards the existence of cross-race id bias.

However the experiment has its own weaknesses; the participants may have seen a large number of people that day time and it’s unclear whether or not they were briefed prior to the experiment. This try things out has enhanced ecological validity because it is emerge one environment. There are many 3rd party variables within this research that if changed, may significantly distort the previous findings. Fisher and Geiselman (1992) developed the cognitive interview” This is certainly a dedicated interviewing strategy designed to improve the accuracy details given and minimise fake testimony.

The interviewer tries to remove all verbal & non-verbal responses which may affect the witness’s testimony. This is certainly to avoid the “Clever Hans” effect where a witness’s may well pick up cues. There are four basic principles of the cognitive interview; firstly to report almost everything; all details of an event, which includes information considered irrelevant. Mental reinstatement of original circumstance is another; the interviewee psychologically recreates the incident fully. The interviewer may also change the timeline of events by simply reversing the events in order.

Finally, the interviewee is advised to imagine just how other witnesses saw the incident. A meta-analysis present in 53 situations, an average enhance of 34% in appropriate event identification compared to a noncognitive interview. However it was conducted within a laboratory not only a real-life placing. Mine & Bull (2002) decided to test out each of the 4 cognitive principles separately.

Individuals were evaluated with one cognitive principal as compared to the four. Recollect of correct information was broadly similar to other individuals in a control group who had been informed to “try again”. However , when ever participants were interviewed by using a combination of the cognitive rules their pieces were drastically higher.

Extremely young and old people tend to have a greater susceptibility to suggestion (Ceci & Bruck, 1993; Cohen & Faulkner, 1989) along with those who score high on measures of dissociation. It is clear that eyewitness testimony is not as reliable as a means of conviction as generally thought because of many various factors. There is nevertheless many improvements and safe guards that can be employed to improve the trustworthiness of eyewitness testimony such as; performing intellectual interviews and using multiple testimonies.

Crucial factors such as: age, race, and the mental stimulus of the event needs to be taken into account. Eyewitness testimony can be described as vital device in convicting criminals yet may not be correct enough like a sole means of conviction.

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