During the identification and prosecution of a suspect, eyewitnesses are of the utmost importance. They provide crucial information that determines the fate of the criminal, whether their memories are true to the event or slightly altered. Many eyewitnesses, being the victims of these crimes, have strong emotions related to the event. It has been found that emotions play a role in the accuracy and completeness of memories, especially in eyewitness testimony (Huston, Clifford, Phillips, & Memon, 2013). When emotions are negative in content, accuracy increases for memory of an event (Storbeck & Clore, 2005; Block, Greenberg, & Goodman, 2009). This finding holds true for all types of eyewitnesses, including children. There is no difference in memory between children and adults for aversive events, suggesting that the child eyewitness is just as capable as the adult eyewitness to give an accurate testimony (Cordon, Melinder, Goodman, & Edelstein, 2012). For my research paper, I will focus on the role of emotion in children’s eyewitness testimony.
Children are extremely susceptible to recalling false memories due to suggestive questioning (Quas et al., 1999). Therefore, it is very important that the most accurate testimony is retrieved from the child, and this can be done through emotional focusing. It has been found that emotional focusing increases autobiographical memory, meaning that the more emotionally focused the child is, the better they remember events from their own life (Drummond, Dritschel, Astell, O’Carroll, & Dalgleish 2006). In one study, children were taken to a pretend zoo and reminisced about their experience two days later. They found that children who reminisced about emotions recalled more information about the tr...
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...ing on autobiographical memory specificity in children. Cognition and Emotion, 20, 288-505.
Houston, K. A., Clifford, B. R., Phillips, L. H., & Memon, A. (2013). The emotional eyewitness: The effects of emotion on specific aspects of eyewitness recall and recognition performance. Emotion, 13(1), 118-128.
Lyon, T. D., Scurich, N., Choi, K., Handmaker, S., & Blank, R. (2012). "how did you feel?": Increasing child sexual abuse witnesses' production of evaluative information. Law and Human Behavior, 36(5), 448-457.
Quas, J. A., Goodman, G. S., Bidrose, S., Pipe, M., Craw, S., & Albin, D. S. (1999). Emotion and memory: Children's long-term remembering, forgetting, and suggestibility. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 72, 235-270.
Storbeck, J., & Clore, G. L. (2005). With sadness comes accuracy; with happiness, false memory. Psychological Science, 16(10), 785-791.
This paper will consider eye witness testimony and its place in convicting accused criminals. Psychology online (2013) defines “eye witness testimony” as a statement from a person who has witnessed a crime, and is capable of communicating what they have seen, to a court of law under oath. Eye witness testimonies are used to convict accused criminals due to the first hand nature of the eye witnesses’ observations. There are however many faults within this system of identification. Characteristics of the crime is the first issue that will be discussed in this paper, and the flaws that have been identified. The second issue to be discussed will be the stress impact and the inability to correctly identify the accused in a violent or weapon focused crime. The third issue to be discussed is inter racial identification and the problems faced when this becomes a prominent issue. The fourth issue will be time lapse, meaning, the time between the crime and the eye witness making a statement and how the memory can be misconstrued in this time frame. To follow this will be the issue of how much trust jurors-who have no legal training-put on to the eye witness testimony, which may be faltered. This paper references the works of primarily Wells and Olsen (2003) and Rodin (1987) and Schmechel et al. (2006) it will be argued that eye witness testimony is not always accurate, due to many features; inter racial identification, characteristics of the crime, response latency, and line up procedures therefore this paper will confirm that eyewitness testimonies should not be utilised in the criminal ju...
The reliability of children’s eyewitness testimony is a controversial issue. Opinions range from proponents believing that children are virtuous in every detail to those who are more skeptical. In actuality, child testimony falls somewhere in between the two divergent views. Though children may not intend to intentionally distort the truth, they do seem to be very vulnerable to suggestibility. Therefore, certain comments and the form of questions can influence testimonials.
There has been considerable debate worldwide, regarding the accuracy of eyewitness testimony in the criminal justice system. Particularly, arguments have surrounded wrongful convictions that have resulted from incorrect eyewitness evidence (Areh, 2011; Howitt, 2012; Nelson, Laney, Bowman-Fowler, Knowles, Davis & Loftus, 2011). The purpose of this essay is to consider psychological research about the accuracy of eyewitness testimony and its placement in the criminal justice system. Firstly, this essay will define how eyewitnesses and their testimonies are used within the criminal justice system and the current debate surrounding its usage. Secondly, the impact of post-identification feedback will be used to show the affect on the confidence of a witness. Thirdly, studies around gender related differences will show how a witnesses gender can affect memory recall and accuracy. Fourthly, empirical studies will be used to highlight how a psychological experience called change blindness can cause mistakes in eyewitness identification. Finally, the effect of cross-examination will be used to explore the impact on eyewitness accuracy. It will be argued, that eyewitness testimony is not accurate and highly subjective, therefore, the criminal justice system must reduce the impact that eyewitness testimony is allowed to have. Developing better policies and procedures to avoid wrongful convictions by misled judges and jury members can do this.
In the court of law, eyewitnesses are expected to present evidence based upon information they acquired visually. However, due to memory processing, presenting this information accurately is not always possible. This paper will discuss the reliability of eyewitness testimony, its use in a relevant court case, and how the reasonable person standard relates to eyewitness testimony.
Many people think that children do not lie. It is not that they lie, they just cannot remember what happened a year or two ago when they were much younger, perhaps only a year or two old. The truth is children do lie. “One study shows that twenty three percent of abuse allegations are false and there was insufficient information to determine the truth in another twenty four percent” (Slicker W.D., 1999, Child testimony ¶ 16). Fear is also a factor in children lying or not providing adequate information. Lepore (1991) says that studies show in most abuse cases the suspect will usually bribe the child or threaten them into secrecy. This causes the child to become afraid to tell the truth, and they will begin to deny what has happened or even worse not report the abuse at all. The way an interviewer phrases a question will influence a child.
The use of eyewitnesses has been a constant in of criminal justice system since its very beginning. Unfortunately, people do not make the best witnesses to a crime. The person may not have seen the actual criminal, but someone that looks similar to them. The witness may lie about what he or she may have scene. Also the witness can be influenced by the police as to who or what they saw at the time of the crime. The witness or victims memory of the person may have faded so that they don’t remember exactly what had seen, which could be disastrous for the accused.
Eyewitness identification and testimony play a huge role in the criminal justice system today, but skepticism of eyewitnesses has been growing. Forensic evidence has been used to undermine the reliability of eyewitness testimony, and the leading cause of false convictions in the United States is due to misidentifications by eyewitnesses. The role of eyewitness testimony in producing false confessions and the factors that contribute to the unreliability of these eyewitness testimonies are sending innocent people to prison, and changes are being made in order to reform these faulty identification procedures.
Have you ever been an eyewitness at the scene of a crime? If you were, do you think that you would be able to accurately describe, in precise detail, everything that happened and remember distinct features of the suspect? Many people believe that yes they would be able to remember anything from the events that would happen and the different features of the suspect. Some people, in fact, are so sure of themselves after witnessing an event such as this that they are able to testify that what they think they saw was indeed what they saw. However, using an eyewitness as a source of evidence can be risky and is rarely 100% accurate. This can be proven by the theory of the possibility of false memory formation and the question of whether or not a memory can lie.
Regan, P.C. & Baker, S.J. (1998). The impact of child witness demeanor on perceived credibility and trial outcome in sexual abuse cases. Journal of Family Violence, 13(2), 187-195.
As a result of the myelination of the limbic system, growth of the prefrontal cortex and a longer attention span, emotional regulation and cognitive maturation develop together, enabling one another to advance (Berger,2014, p.213). This type of development and level of maturation is most noticeable in children ages four and five because uncontrollable outburst of emotion, such as tantrums and phobias begin to disappear; however, I believe it’s possible for children younger than four to achieve this level of maturation and cognitive development much sooner based on external influences such as parents, friends and their environment. For example, not long after my daughter turned she began to speak in small but full sentences to express her needs and emotions. I’ll never forget the first time I told her no when she made a request. Her facial expression immediately changed and she burst into tears. I was completely at a loss for words, being a first time mother, because I could not understand why she had such a dramatic reaction to being told no. Finally, I realized that even though it was very apparent to myself my reason for saying no, she was not able to comprehend the why at this stage in her life. From that day forward I have made it a conscious effort to explain and demonstrate my actions and the reasons for them;
However, these studies may not be accurate in proving how these factors affect children’s eyewitness accounts because they lack ecological validity. They were all done in a very lab-like environment, and therefore eliminating the nature of a child’s recall. The children knew that they were participating in a study and therefore they may have
For example, the old man that lived beneath the boy and his father testified that he heard a fight between the boy and the father and heard the boy yell, “I’m gonna kill you,” along with a body hitting the ground, and then claims that he saw the boy running down the stairs. With this information, along with other powerful eyewitness testimonies, all but one of the jury members believed this boy was guilty. The power of eyewitness testimony is also shown in Loftus’s (1974) study. In this study, Loftus (1974) found that those who claimed to “see” something were usually believed even when their testimony is pointless. She discovered in her study that only 18 percent of people convicted if there was no eyewitness testimony, 72 percent of people convicted when someone declared, “That’s the one!”, and even when the witness only had 20/400 vision and was not wearing glasses and claimed “That’s the one!”, 68 percent of people still convicted the person. This proves that in 12 Angry Men and Loftus (1974) study, eyewitness testimony is very powerful and influential in one’s decision to convict a
Not many children’s movies show children how the brain develops, stores memories and works in day to day life, but Inside Out does just that. Within this hour and a half movie the psychology topics of long term memory, short term memory, emotions, and development is all include. Although it is very clear Inside Out indulges on these psychological topics throughout the movie, memory and emotions take the spotlight. Developmental psychology may not be as obvious, but is still in several of the scenes in Inside Out.
assist in the development of emotions in early childhood (Berk & Meyers, 2016). These different
R. J. Dolan, Emotion, Cognition, and Behavior, Science 8 November 2002: 298 (5596), 1191-1194. [DOI:10.1126/science.1076358]