Key Issue - Is Eye Witness Testimony Reliable?
- Created by: individdy0410
- Created on: 22-03-16 14:46
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- Key Issue - Is Eyewitness Testimony Reliable?
- Eyewitness - someone who witnessed an event and is later asked to recount the event from memory
- The account is used in a criminal justice setting and is often the corner-stone of the prosecution case
- Research has found that juries pay particular attention to eye witness testimony in reaching a verdict
- Juries are more likely to rely on EWT than scientific proof or forensic evidence
- EWT refers to an account given by people of an event they have witnessed
- One may be required to give a description of a robbery or a road accident someone has seen
- Can include the identification of the perpetrators, details of the crime scene, etc
- Cue dependent memory can be used to help increase the amount of accurate information recalled by an eyewitness.
- Police reconstruct: reactivates context cues to help trigger recall, so more can be recalled - making the 'original memory' accessible
- State cues: witnesses to crime may be stressed or anxious so should be interviewed immediately to maintain the inner state
- Cue dependent memory can be used to help increase the amount of accurate information recalled by an eyewitness.
- Elizabeth Loftus argued that EWT should be treated with caution and demonstrated through numerous studies that memory could easily be distorted by leading questions
- Devlin Committee was set up to investigate the use of EWT in court
- Found that many people had been convicted of serious crimes through EWT alone
- 82% suspects chosen from an identification parade were convicted and in 74% of cases people were judged guilty based only on EWT
- Found that many people had been convicted of serious crimes through EWT alone
- On the basis of unreliable EWT, innocent people have spent many years in jail
- The real perpetrator is free to commit more crimes
- The Devlin Report recommended that the trial judge be required to instruct the jury that it isn't safe to convict on single EWT alone
- Except in exceptional circumstances or when there's substantial corroborative evidence
- Field study by Yuille & Cutshall (1986): reports of the crime was extremely reliable with more witnesses giving accurate information
- Leading questions had little effect
- Loftus's theory: reconstructive hypothesis, explaining how memory can be distorted
- Two kinds of information goes into a person's memory an event and get integrated so we can't tell which source the specific information is recalled from
- 1) information obtained through perceiving an evemt
- 2) information supplied to us after an event
- Two kinds of information goes into a person's memory an event and get integrated so we can't tell which source the specific information is recalled from
- Eyewitness - someone who witnessed an event and is later asked to recount the event from memory
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