Introduction A robbery has been committed. Lucky for the investigating officers, there’s a room full of eyewitnesses. One by one they are interviewed meticulously. The investigators are seasoned officers with a great deal of expertise in this field. All the right questions are asked and all details are recorded correctly. Still, at the end of the day, the officers are left with an empty cash register, a frantic victim, fifteen different suspect descriptions and no leads. Why did a room full of witnesses come up with various accounts of the incident? Because, unfortunately, the human memory is fallible and easily manipulated. Everything in daily life is subjective and open to interpretation. The video Eyewitness Testimony: Psychological Aspects, In the unlikely event that you agree, he asks you numerous questions about what you ate for breakfast, if you purchased a hot beverage at any restaurant before heading to school and, how often you eat fast food. At the very end of the interview he asks a strange question: “What color tie was I wearing when I walked up to you?” You look at the mans collar; he is not wearing a tie. You can not remember ever seeing him remove the tie. He is wearing an all black suit with a white shirt. You answer embarrassed with “black”. The man laughs. He was never wearing a tie. Your mind used it’s imagination to reconstruct an event using the knowledge given to you. Your answer would have most likely been different had he reworded the question. If he would have asked “Was I wearing a tie when I approached you?” or “Do you recall anything being different from when I first approached you to now?” Your answer would have most likely been no but with the information you were given, your answer changed. This is how easily influenced and convoluted our memory can be. This is a prime example of why officers must be especially cautious and highly aware of themselves when performing interviews. The questioning utilized, whether it be open or closed, can completely change an The cost is impressionism; the ability to be altered and contaminated inadvertently. Eyewitness testimonies can give insight into an event that has occurred but it can also cause misdirection. This is especially true in witnesses recounting events to someone in a position of power in which they feel a strong requirement to help the interviewing officer. They can feel both overwhelmed and overzealous in attempting to offer aid. To add to the complexity, the officer has a great deal of responsibility in such a situation to ensure that the word choice they use and the questions in which they are asking are not altering the highly suggestible witness’s memory. It is a delicate combination of strategically placed neutral open and closed ended questioning that will subsequently deliver the most efficient and reliable eyewitness
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 wording of a question may lead you to believe information that is not true, because it may be incorporated in our memory, this is called a false memory. Because a person cannot remember every detail in a situation, they have to rebuild their memory with subsequent information, this being either through prior experience or influenced memory. Open and close ended questions are important in interviewing, but each should be used at a specific time in an interview. Open ended questions should be to gather information and closed ended questions should be manipulated to confirm information. The start of an interview is when open ended questions should be used. This is because open ended questions help recall information and provide triggers for witnesses. Through open ended questions, the mass of information is given throughout the interview process. Close ended questions should be
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...
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
For this book report, I decided to read Hugo Münsterberg's On the Witness Stand. This book contains essays on psychology and crime and eyewitness testimony. Today this book is used as a reference for many issues in forensic psychology. For this report, I focused on two chapters of the book: Illusions and the Memory of the Witness. I am going to first summarize the two chapters I read then talk about what was going on at the time this book was written. I will then report some of the research in the book, and finish with my opinion on how this book has contributed to the literature and how it relates to the current knowledge of forensic psychology.
Elizabeth Loftus, is a psychologist, mainly concerned with how subsequent information can affect an eyewitness’s testimony. Loftus has focused on misleading information in both the difference in wording of questions and how these questions can influence eyewitness testimony. This research is important because frequently, eyewitness testimony is a crucial element in criminal proceedings. Throughout Loftus’s career she has found a witness’s memory is highly flexible and subject to being influenced. The classic study by Loftus and Palmer (1974), illustrates that eyewitness testimony can be influenced by leading questions and ultimately proved unreliable.
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.
Fradella, H.F. (2006) Why judges should admit expert testimony on the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Federal Courts Law Review. Retrieved from http://www.fclr.org/fclr/articles/html/2006/fedctslrev3.pdf
Inaccurate eyewitness identifications can confound investigations at the earliest stages. Critical time is lost while police are distracted from the real perpetrator, focusing instead on building the case against an innocent person” (Sheck, InnocenceProject.com). So the question arises “how reliable would you predict an eyewitness’s testimony of a crime to be”? Well, the eyewitness can have several factors that determine their decisions. These factors include misinformation, imagination, and things such as amnesia.
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.
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.
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.
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.
From a legal standpoint, eyewitness memories are not accurate. Though they all illustrate the same concept, each paper described different ways eyewitness memories were altered. One’s memory can be misleading by their own attributions towards the situation, what they choose to see and not see, and if the individual has been through a single event or repetitive stressful events. As human beings, our memories on all matters are not concrete. When retelling stories, we tend to modify the situation and tailor certain events, making the information provided unreliable. An eyewitness testimony changes the track of a trial and information that is given to the court can be ambiguous and can cause bias towards the circumstances. Eyewitnesses can even be confident in their retelling of a situation and explain a complete event, when in fact, that particular event never