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False memories in eyewitness testimonies
Eyewitness memory and importance
Paper on memory and eyewitness testimony
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Throughout history, eyewitnesses have always played an important role in criminal justice system. The job of the eyewitness is important because sometimes those witnessing a crime may be the only evidence police may have to go on. Because this may be the case sometimes, it is crucial that the eyewitness do the best they can to pick out the suspect who they believe committed the crime. Unfortunately, however, the memory of the eyewitness may not always be at is best and they may forget a few details of what the criminal looked like or may have forgetting everything about the criminal in general. Some of the things that may affect an eyewitness’s memory during the crime are the amount of stress or emotional arousal they were in. Some studies …show more content…
There were four different types of scenarios which were created by using virtual reality. There were two locations where the scenarios took place. One scenario took place in a classroom, which is supposed to be where the unexpected crime took place. The other scenario took place in a meat market, which is supposed to be where the expected crime took place. In ever scenario, there is a women who is the victim, and the butcher who is the criminal. The first scenario had the butcher and woman in a classroom having a friendly conversation with the women. The second scenario had the butcher in the classroom threatening the woman. The third scenario had the butcher and woman in the meat market having a friendly conversation. The fourth scenario had the butcher threatening the woman in the meat market. At the beginning of the study, the participants asked to sign a consent forum and then take a STAI questionnaire, which was used to measure the level of anxiety the person was feeling. After the questionnaire, they then were given the virtual reality headset, which they practiced using until hey had gotten use to it. Once they had gotten use to it, they were then put in one of the four conditions, which lasted about 2-3 minutes. After the simulation was over, the participants were asked to talk an arousal questionnaire, another STAI questionnaire, and a memory test. The arousal questionnaire measured both the perceived threat and arousal of the participant and the memory test was an open ended about the environment, situation, characters, and the weapon. After they were done filling these out, they thanked and let go. The results showed that participants from the expected threat and unexpected threat scenario experienced threat from the scenario, felt arousal, and felt high levels of anxiety. Participants from expected non-threat and unexpected non-threat experienced did not feel
... the stress and depression they may be facing after viewing a crime. When an eyewitness is facing depressing they tend to have high stress levels and to tend to get damaged brain cells these are some of the factors that can cause such disruption and therefore source error can occur. Another issue that may interfere with an eyewitness' memory is retroactive interference. This usually occurs when new information is processed that obstructs the retrieval of old information. [Retroactive Interference Defined, 2014]. The most common source of interference that can occur after the event of a crime is the reporting of the crime. Police investigations include leading questioning that is often suggestive, which can cause confusing to the eyewitness. The processing of new information may disrupt or entirely replace old information. [Rawlings, Maren Skouteris, Helen, 2004.]
Psychological research shows that eyewitness testimony is not always accurate, therefore it should not be used in the criminal justice system. Discuss.
The Effect of Hypnosis on Eyewitness Testimony Works Cited Missing Under hypnosis an eyewitness could produce false information whist giving a statement to the police. This is because one of the characteristic of being hypnotised is being sensitive to suggestion. Therefore the witness can give suggestive information through leading question (even if this isn't intended). It could lead to an alteration. of the existing memory.
Eyewitnesses play a critical role in criminal justice systems throughout the world and are often essential in identifying, charging, and ultimately convicting perpetrators of crimes.
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
Eyewitness reports are not reliable in court. There are many reasons why eyewitness reports are unreliable. Some reasons are that people don't have a good memory and mistake the real criminal, another reason is that people don't have a perfect eyesight and even the mind plays tricks on you. on a report in 1984 there was a report that jennifer was raped. jennifer picked ronald cotton out of a photo and a physical lineup. she was sure that ronald was the rapist but a decade later dna proved that ronald wasn't the real rapist. elizabeth loftus said that “jennifer did not recognize the real rapist because she picked ronald first and in her mind she thought he was the real rapist” so her mind was set on ronald and no one else.
In Laurence Armand French Ph.D. and Thomas J. Young Ph.D.’s article The False Memory Syndrome: Clinical/Legal Issues for the Prosecution talks about memory recall being an unreliable form of evidence in the Criminal Justice System. French and Young state that hypnosis and lie detector tests are a misconception because “the cognitive interpretations of the emotional/autonomic aspects of the central nervous (CNS) and peripheral nervous systems are not true indicators of reality,” (p. 38).
Wells, G. L., & Olson, E. A. (2003). Eyewitness testimony. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 277-295.
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 essay is going to look at eye witness testimony. It will discuss whether or not it is reliable and studies will be looked at and evaluated to either back up or refute eyewitness reliability.
Wells, G. L., Olson, E. A., & Charman, S. D. (2002). The confidence of eyewitnesses in their identifications from lineups. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(5), 151-154.
The polygraph test, introduced nearly a century ago, has been widely used in the detection of deception and for some time, has been considered by law enforcement representatives, an exceptionally valid testing apparatus. The media and law enforcement representatives describe the various methods of detecting deception to be extremely valid and reliable in detecting deceptive cues, although the various research done through field studies and controlled experiments demonstrate significant error rates amongst the various testing procedures used. Physiological responses of an individual may vary from person to person. No matter how small the error rate may be, there is always a chance that environmental conditions as well as physiological conditions induced by the individual or the interpreter can have an effect on the interpretational conclusion of what were considered to be deceptive cues. These influential factors may illustrate a small positive or negative error rate, but when the conclusion is applied to a conviction, it can possibly establish or distinguish false results to be accurate or inconclusive.
Eyewitness testimony is defined as, “an area of research that investigates the accuracy of memory following an accident, crime, or other significant event, and the types of errors that are commonly made in such situations.” Much emphasis is placed on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony as often-inaccurate eyewitness testimony can have serious consequences leading to wrong convictions. Eyewitness testimony is a powerful tool within any field, particularly that of justice, as it is a readily accepted form of evidence that allows for convictions. However, Tests conducted by Loftus have shown an enormous swing from a non-guilty verdict, to guilty within the same case, simply through the introduction of an eyewitness. This alone displays the importance of eyewitness testimony, and accentuates the theory that jurors tend to over believe, or at least rely heavily on such accounts.
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
Representative studies including Loftus’s weapon effect study showed how attention has affected reliability. On the same token, research on the role of stress and emotion on eyewitness testimony provides additional information about the settings in which eyewitness testimony may be expected to be unreliable. Ultimately, we should be conscious on how our schemas work, as it can distort our memory through generalization and misinterpretation. All in all, schemas play a role in filling the big picture, but not the details, suggesting us to carefully monitor the details in what we expect, assume and