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Contemporary Debate: The Reliability of Eye Witness Testimony - Coggle…
Contemporary Debate: The Reliability of Eye Witness Testimony
Eye Witnesses Are Not Reliable
Post Event Information (PEI)
Loftus & Palmer's research (1974) the info 'suggested' after the event became incorporated into the original memory
Loftus & Zanni (1975) also demonstrated the effects of such PEI
They found 7% of those asked 'Did you see any broken glass?' reported seeing a head light
The PEI was the work 'a' or 'the'
This research clearly demonstrated that even subtle changes can influence the recollection of the pps
Suggests whenever a witness is questioned either by police, lawyers, friends etc. their recollection of the actual event mat be distorted
Crimes are emotive experiences
EW may not be reliable as the crimes they witness are unexpected & emotionally traumatising
The process of repression is an ego-defence mechanism this can make a EW unreliable as they could choose to forget traumatic memories
Child Witnesses
They are said to be unreliable as they are prone to fantasy & their memories may be affected by suggestions made by others:
Therefore researchers have been interested in finding out if children are accurate EW's e.g. when identifying a perpetrator from a line up
A meta-analysis by Pozzulo & Lindsay (1998) drew data from a no. of studies that had tested over 2000 pps
They found that children under the age of 5 were less likely to make correct identifications than older children/adults when the target was present but more likely to make a choice in target absent conditions
Memory is reconstructive
Schemas are used to help us process info quickly but these can distort memory of an event e.g. in the 'criminal' schema you will have an idea of what a criminal will look like -> these can lead to inaccurate recall
Yamey (1993) asked 240 students to look at 30 unknown males & classify them as good/bad
Preconceived ideas about facial features of criminals may influence us when making decisions on suspects
Suggests EW may not select the actual criminal, just the one they think looks like a criminal
Eye Witnesses Are Reliable
Post Event Information (PEI)
EW research is misleading and tends to focus on details that are tricky for us to estimate/details that are not central to the incident & therefore may be more susceptible to corruption
Not all research suggests PEI is misleading
Loftus (1979) showed pps slides of a man stealing a large, bright red purse from a woman's bag:
The pps were later exposed to info containing subtle errors/more obvious one, proposing that the purse was brown
Although pps were often wring about 'peripheral' items, 98% of the pps correctly remembered the purse they had seen was red
Suggests the EW recollection for central/key details maybe more resistant to distortion from PEI than previously suggested
Crimes are emotive experiences
Some psychologists believe that when we experience events which are very emotional and/or which hold personal significance we create a particularly accurate & long lasting memory called a flashbulb memory
There is evidence that the hormones associated with emotion may enhance storage of memory (Cahill & MeGaugh, 1995)
Suggests emotion surrounding a crime maybe more accurate/reliable when recalling memory
Child Witnesses
Davies et al (1989) reviewed the literature discussing children used as witnesses & came to the conclusion:
Children 6 & 7yrs and 10 & 11yrs are fairly accurate their memories of an event & do not usually lie
Their memory for important details is not significantly altered by adult suggestion
Anastasi & Rhodes (2006) found that all age groups are most accurate when recognising an offender from their own age
Memories may be reconstructive
In many crimes EW know the perpetrator & so they do not need to refer to their schemas
Means EW's ability to identify the assailant is likely to be very reliable even if the crimes are traumatic
As shown by Yuille & Cutsall's research an EW to real life crime is much more accurate compared to lab based research:
if memory was reconstructive you would have had expected the EW recollections to have faded over time & been susceptible to leading questions
Ethical, Social & Economical Implications
Ethical
If EW is unreliable then miscarriages of justice can take place
E.g. the PEI provided by Jennifer Thompson about her rapist meant Ronald Cotton was incorrectly identified & sentenced to prison for life 50+yrs
1995 DNA evidence meant the real rapist was identified and Ronald Cotton was freed
A Columbia Uni report found 68% of death sentences imposed between 1973 & 1995 were overturned
Economical
The cost of retrials & compensation for those wrongfully imprisoned creates economic implications for unreliable EWT
E.g. Ronald Cotton was allegedly paid $10500 in compensation
Social
The only way to truly know what happened is to record it but this might infringe on peoples freedoms & creates a 'big brother' society
Conclusion
Methods have been developed which means EW recollection is less susceptible to distortion:
cognitive interviews
Sequential line up
The increased use of CCTV systems in the UK means the unreliability if EW is likely to become less of a problem in the future