Eyewitness Testimony Of The Human Eye

Eyewitness evidence has always been considering critical information when it comes to court trials and convictions. But how reliable are eyewitnesses? Scientific research has shown that eyewitness’s memories are often not accurate or reliable. Human memory is very malleable and is easily changed by suggestion. Relying on eyewitness evidence instead of scientific data often leads to wrongful convictions. Scientific evidence is much more reliable, and should be more important in court cases than eyewitness evidence.

The way we perceive objects depends on different things. One thing that changes the way we view things is monocular depth cues. Monocular depth cues are cues on depth perception that are accessible only to one eye at a time. There are actually a couple of different monocular depth cues. The ones that I will cover will be size constancy, aerial perspective, linear perspective, and texture gradient. Size constancy refers to the tendency to perceive an object or objects as the same size regardless of it being near or far. For example, the imagineers at Walt Disney World use this with their Christmas tree to make it appear bigger. At the bottom of the tree, they place ornaments that are huge. Since people see the huge ornaments at the bottom of

Eyewitness testimony has long been viewed as important evidence in court cases. The general population believes eyewitness identification more than any other evidence, even if the witness account is conflicting with the other evidence presented. Studies show that eyewitness testimony is unreliable, and yet it is still considered the most important form of evidence. People think that if a person says they saw something then it must have happened. Currently there are no universal guidelines on how to obtain and present such evidence. The purpose of this paper is to explain why eyewitness testimony is unreliable, and discuss the proposed guidelines on how law enforcement agencies should gather identifications, as well how

Gibson’s and Gregory’s theories of perception both suggest that eye-retina is important for perception. The both believe that without eye-retina, a person will not be able to see. This is a common view of both of the theories of perception. The idea is supported by the case of SB. SB was a man who had been blind from birth due to cataracts. When he was 52, he had an operation which restored his sight and hence he could see. Thus, this case has shown the importance of eye-retina for things to be perceived. And therefore, supports both of theories of perception which eye-retina is essential for perception.

Another issue was Loftus and Palmer didn’t have valid consent from their participants which is unethical but this type of deception is acceptable as no psychologically or physical harm came to the participants. There are social implications as many people have been convicted wrongfully as a result of eyewitness testimonies. This has led to people being sceptical about testimonies. Loftus and Palmer’s research means that less compensation is being paid out. The biggest social implication is that the real perpetrator is still free.

The reliability if an eyewitness testimony is questionable. The witness may be so certain that the person that thy are pointing out is one hundred per cent the suspect or they could be so certain when it comes to retelling the incident, although these people are so sure on what it is they are doing, their testimony cannot always accurate. Due to the lack of accuracy with eyewitness

An eyewitness testimony is unreliable because of many different things. Sometimes when witnesses see something they don’t see the whole crime, but only parts which could cause the wrong people to be in trouble. When it’s a serious crime the trial could take years and when asked to stand trial against the perpetrator the witness’s memory could not be fully correct anymore. You could forget important things or get mixed up with things you’ve seen somewhere else, like in a movie. Another reason they are unreliable is Because individuals with certain psychological disorders, like antisocial personality disorder and substance dependence, are at high risk for criminal involvement, they are also at high risk for false identifications by eyewitnesses.

There has been considerable interest and study in the accuracy or inaccuracy of the use of eyewitness testimonies in the current criminal justice system. Results collated by several studies add to the bulk of literature suggesting that the current usage of eyewitness testimony by the legal system is far from ideal. Currently, high emphasis is being placed on reviewing and reconsidering eyewitness accounts (Leinfelt, 2004). In particular, recent DNA exoneration cases have substantiated the warnings of eyewitness identification researchers by showing that mistaken eyewitness identification was the largest single factor contributing to the conviction of innocent people (Wells & Olson, 2003). In this essay, the use of eyewitness testimony in the criminal justice system will be explored, with a particular focus on the impreciseness of this practice.

It has been shown that eyewitness misidentification is one of the biggest factors in wrongful convictions, which has been overturned due to DNA (Innocence). Forensic evidence is one of the factors used to determine ones’ guilt or innocence in the court of law; however, some of the evidence used can pose a problem in court. Eye witness testimony has caused a lot of faults in court cases because it is portrayed as a strong factor of evidence. Eye witness testimony should not be used as primary evidence because of how unreliable, misidentified, and the impact it can have in the court of law. Eyewitness identification should have different alternatives in how it should be presented to the witness so that bias is not present.

An eye witness is a person who has personally seen something happen and so can give a first hand description of it. Every year, more than 75,000 eyewitnesses recognize criminal suspects in the U.S., and studies propose that as many as a third of them are wrong. Mistaken eyewitnesses helped convict three quarters of the people who have been freed from U.S. prisons base on DNA evidence presented by the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project is a nonprofit legal organization that challenges uncertain prosecutions. The California Innocence Project says that they are numerous reasons why eyewitness are mostly wrong. They are High Stress Environment and Trauma, Human Memory, and Suggestive Identification and etc. There are all these reasons that eyewitnesses have a high rate of error but, are still considered some of the most powerful evidence against a suspect. After a comprehensive two-year study of eyewitness testimonies, the New Jersey Supreme Court concluded that they often leads to fictional or false identifications. Thus, recently ordered that new rules on how such testimonies are treated in the courtroom. This is

The impact of eyewitness testimony upon the members of a jury has been the subject of various research projects and has guided the policies formed by the federal government regarding its competent use in criminal matters (Wells, Malpass, Lindsay, Fisher, Turtle, & Fulero, 2000). Therefore, eyewitness studies are important to understand how

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.

Also, an eye witness testimony can shed light into the sequence of the events that took place while the crime was committed. This helps the jury and lawyers better understand everything about the case as the eyewitness testimony explains how the crime was committed, who was involved and where it happened. Eyewitness testimonies are generally reliable. When the testimony is obtained and reported right after the event took place, the witness’ memory is still fresh, which gives a higher chance that their account of the incident is still vivid in their mind. This makes the testimony more reliable.

A camera lens focuses patterns of light onto film which records the image exactly. If the lens is out of focus or partially covered, a b lurry or obscured picture will result. The film is a recording device, it does not interpret and select what it portrays. Images from a camera are objective in a very literal sense. Seeing, however, is not such a seamless process. Our eyes work similarly to a camera in that they have a lens which focuses a real image on our retina, a light sensitive sheet of cells. This retinal image is a portrayal of the world as it truly is. The image which we see, however, is not this image. By considering a normal vis ual property as well as an uncommon ocular disorder the process of formulating our

We see things with our eyes through different visual cues this is called “Depth Perception”. “Depth perception is the use of two different types of visual cues to perceive depth, Binocular cues and Monocular cues” (Department of Psychology,2015). “Depth perception lets us view items in three dimensions and the distance of items. We use several cues to perceive the distance (or depth) of the objects from us and from each other” (Department of Psychology,2015). Goldstein (1984) stated that Cues for seeing depth come from binocular disparity, and also from a range of monocular cues such as motion parallax, linear perspective, relative size, interposition, relative height, and texture gradients. (as cited in Laboratory Manual: Psychology 111/112