Human memory is one of the most important for people to recall past events. Eyewitness is frequently the critical evidence for solving crimes, and also the important evidence for determining whom the perpetrator is. Thus, it’s essential to consider the reliability and accuracy of eyewitness memory for recall the details of past events for evaluating the crime. This article will against the argument of eyewitness memory reliability to recall past events. Unfortunately, human memory may not be that reliable that we think of as eyewitness memory might have some limitation and difficulties. The good witnesses are confident and remember details. This argument is support by researchers Odinot, Wolters, van Koppen (2009) and Morgan, Hazlett G, Baranoski, Doran, Southwich and Loftus (2007). In Odinot et al. (2009) article, they state that although the eyewitness memory accuracy is high, the confident is low. Odinot et al. (2009) suggested that jurors considered eyewitness confidence is one of the most important to indicate the accuracy of eyewitness memory. Furthermore, in Morgan et al. (2007) study has shown that there are potential factors such as personally relevant and stressful events that will affect eyewitness memories and bias. These two studies will strongly support this study; moreover, both studies are good source of evidences for people to consider the reliability of eyewitness memory for testimony. The unreliability of human eyewitness memory to recall past events under stress conditions and other factors will be discussed in this article. Among the variables that affect the accuracy of eyewitness identification will also be discussed in this article.
The aim of the Odinot et al. (2009) study is to determine the accuracy a...
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...n eyewitness memory is not reliable to perceive past events.
To conclude, it is clear from the results of Odinot et al. (2009) that although most of the information remembered by eyewitness memory was correct, there are still substantial proportion of incorrect eyewitness memory. In Morgan et al. (2007) study has proposed that a large proportion of inaccuracy of eyewitness memory to perceived and recall for past events under high stress. These two studies examine the eyewitness memory by different methods and both studies give a clear point that eyewitness memory is not reliable to recall past events. These two studies have strongly support the argument for this article. Thus, it is very important that judges and juries need to consider the eyewitness testimony carefully as there is a significant result of inaccurate and low correlation of confidence.
In the magic of the mind author Dr. Elizabeth loftus explains how a witness’s perception of an accident or crime is not always correct because people's memories are often imperfect. “Are we aware of our minds distortions of our past experiences? In most cases, the answer is no.” our minds can change the way we remember what we have seen or heard without realizing it uncertain witnesses “often identify the person who best matches recollection
The use of eyewitness statements and testimony’s can be a great source of information, but can also lead to wrongful convictions. Due to eyewitness testimony, innocent people are convicted of crimes they have not committed. This is why the wording of a question is important to consider when interviewing witnesses. Due to the fact that eyewitness testimony can be the most concrete evidence in an investigation, witnesses may feel they are helping an officer by giving them as much information as possible, therefore they may tell them information that is not entirely true, just to please them. This is why there are advantages and disadvantages to using open and close ended questioning at different durations of an interview. The way you word a question may impact the memory of a witness, this is because a person cannot completely memorize the exact occurrences of an event.
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...
In the study by Hilgard (1965). can clearly see how suggestions of negative visual hallucination and others can distort the participants' recall. Therefore the effect of hypnosis on eyewitness testimony is indeed a big effect and should be used with caution and caution. Study: Yuille and McEwan 1985. Aim: to find out more about the belief that hypnosis doesn't improve.
Memory is not reliable; memory can be altered and adjusted. Memory is stored in the brain just like files stored in a cabinet, you store it, save it and then later on retrieve and sometimes even alter and return it. In doing so that changes the original data that was first stored. Over time memory fades and becomes distorted, trauma and other events in life can cause the way we store memory to become faulty. So when focusing on eyewitnesses, sometimes our memory will not relay correct information due to different cues, questioning, and trauma and so forth, which makes eyewitness even harder to rely on. Yet it is still applied in the criminal justice system.
During the identification and prosecution of a suspect, eyewitnesses are the most important. Eyewitness testimony needs to be reliable as it can have serious implications to the perceived guilt or innocence of a defendant. Unfortunately, the reliability of eyewitness testimony is questionable because there is a high number of eyewitness misidentification. Rattner (1988) studied 205 cases and concluded that eyewitness misidentification was the factor most often associated with wrongful conviction (52%). Eyewitness testimony can be affected by many factors. A substantial literature demonstrates own group biases in eyewitness testimony. For example, the own-race bias, in which people are better at recognizing faces of their own race versus another
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.
This study took place because if memories are believed to be inaccurate then why are things such as eyewitnesses’, in legal proceedings, taken so seriously when their memory can easily be false
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.
The memory of the occasion may not be crisp and might be adjusted each time it is recovered from memory and not just that, new data can make the old data to be lost. Its reliability is addressed as far as how much the witness can precisely review all snippets of data, particularly having encountered high measures of weapon focus and the reliability of the elderly. Also, likewise, the race factor and the mediating line-up which additionally assumes a part in misleading the witness. Eyewitness testimony will dependably remain a fundamental wellspring of substantiation, however, the utilization of it ought to be deliberately quantified to keep away from any erroneous data or commixed up feelings as it can eradicate someone else's
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
Goodwin, Kukucka, and Hawks (2013) investigated the relationship between confidence and memory in eyewitness testimony in their study. The goal of an eyewitness is to provide the information to an investigator as accurately as possible. However, eyewitnesses can be pressured into providing information that conforms to someone else’s views and provide wrong answers to fit into the society. Often, researchers discovered that, participants answered more correctly when they were alone versus when they were in a group (Goodwin, Kukucka, & Hawks, 2013). Moreover, confidence is an important part of a witness’s personality. Seventy nine percent of the participants were confident about their statement when they heard similar statements from other witnesses. The purpose of this study is to explain how witnesses’ confidence level rely on other people’s
Eyewitness testimony is especially vulnerable to error when the question is misleading or when there’s a difference in ethnicity. 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. For instance, a group of students saw the face of a young man with straight hair, then heard a description of the face supposedly written by another witness, one that wrongly mentioned light, curly hair. When they reconstructed the face using a kit of facial features, a third of their reconstructions contained the misleading detail, whereas only 5 percent contained it when curly hair was not mentioned (Page 359). This situation shows how misleading information from other sources can be profoundly altered.
Loftus has focused the bulk of her career on both the psychological and legal aspects of distorted or false memories, and her work demonstrates the facility with which memories and beliefs can be molded. Her findings regarding the strength of eyewitness testimony and repressed traumatic memories have helped change the notion that such testimony is absolutely reliable (Zagorski, N., 2005).”