Techniques for Improving Eyewitness Testimony: the Cognitive Interview

One of the reasons that eyewitness evidence is so unreliable is because human memory is very open to suggestion. In fact, just asking about something can alter our memory. (1) For example, in the 80-90’s, many psychotherapists were

Outline and evaluate research into the effects of anxiety on the accuracy of eye witness testimony.

Eyewitness testimonies are based on a person’s ability to recall what took place accurately. Memory research has proven that a person’s memory is not a recording but it is reconstructive. Loftus and Palmer’s study set out to prove that the memory could be reconstructed through the use of language.

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.

However, the effectiveness of context reinstatement in cognitive interviewing must consider the extent to which mental reinstatement of context may be effective (Bull & Memon, 1991). A study conducted by Bekerian, Dennett, Hill and Hitchcock (1990) classified imaged details into two types: molar details which include the placement of people, environmental factors and physical appearances; and molecular details which include the specificity of the information being imagined. The results indicated a significant increase in recall following imagery instructions, also reporting a proportional increase in errors. In summation, the picture that one obtains from an overview of the context is not reliable, and the combination of different context reinstatement procedures do not aid in the context of the recognition of suspects from photographs (Bekerian et al., 1990). This method, too, does not necessarily improve the credibility of eyewitness accounts, nor does it even decrease memory error and confabulations.

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.

In Canada, the leading cause of wrongful conviction is due to the factor of eyewitness account. It has been proven that individual’s minds are not like tape recorders because everyone cannot precisely and accurately remember the description of what another person or object looks like. The courts looks at eyewitness accounts as a great factor to nab perpetrators because they believe that the witness should know what they are taking about and seen what occurred on the crime scene. On the other hand, eyewitness accounts lead to a 70 percent chance of wrongful conviction, where witnesses would substantially change their description of a perpetrator.

Eyewitness misidentification can pose a serious threat in forensic evidence. Eye witness testimony can easily be tampered with due to words or phrases used. Bias is a major issue in identification especially if the police officer uses suggestive tones to portray whom they believe is the suspect. Some witnesses will change their opinion when they hear new information of the suspect. A study has shown that words can play a major impact in the witness' mind and cause them to recall false information. False information can also stem from human memory, age, distance, and how long it took before a witness could recall the information. It has been shown that due to the confidence that a witness may have, it could impact the court systems' reliability on the witness; however, there are several solutions that can be done to prevent misidentification in the court of law. Some examples that can be done are blind administration, lineup composition, instructions, confidence statements, and

First, the human memory does not record all information like a video recorder. Mistaken eyewitness testimony is one of the major causes of wrong conviction. Events of crimes, will have so much stress or focus on a weapon, than the face of criminal (Wrongful Convictions , n.d.). The victim’s or eyewitness’s memory can be changed with an easy simple suggestion. Police procedure dealing with key witnesses by a “show up”. This is showing the suspect in a physical or a picture line up. The confidence of accuracy of identification and exhibited by the witness is a “crucial determinant of believability” by jurors (Furman, 2003). The best result of eyewitness testimony is taken identification immediately. The

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

There are many different factors that play a part in the increased chance of a witness correctly identifying a suspect. Such factors should be brought to the attention of the jury and the judge to help in properly assessing whether a witness is correctly identifying a suspect. A study by Magnussen, Melinder, Stridbeck, & Raja (2010) found that of the three different types of people: judge, jury, and general public, that for the most part all where fairly ill-informed on the reliability of eyewitness testimony with judges having the most. Judges only had about an 8% difference in knowledge when compared to jurors. With this information it is very clear that education on the reliability of eyewitness testimony needs to become more of a general knowledge information for the everyone, especially people who are involved in upholding the law. Another factor to look into when evaluating the accuracy eyewitness testimony is the role that memory plays. Memory is divided into three processes: perceiving, remembering, and recalling information (Simmonsen, 2013). There is plenty of room in all three of those stages to forget or falsely remember something. Some factors that play a part when a person perceives an event is the amount of time they are exposed to the event and the suspect. A study conducted by Horry, Halford, Brewer, Milne, & Bull. (2014) found that witnesses were increasingly more likely to correctly identify a suspect if they had been exposed to the suspect for sixty

Researcher Elizabeth Loftus, encapsulated the reliability of human memory and the notion about the inaccuracy of eyewitness accounts. She hypothesized that if eyewitnesses are asked questions with false presuppositions, the erroneous information will be incorporated into the witness’s memory and alter the memory of the witnessed event.

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.

A false memory is simply a memory that did not occur. An actual experience can become distorted as best illustrated by the Cog Lab experiment on false memories accessed through Argosy University. The experiment is outlined as follows: a participant is given a list of words that are highly relative in nature at a rate of about one word every 2 seconds. At the finish of the given list, the participant is then shown a list of words in which he or she is to recall the words from the original list. A special distractor is inserted to the list, and this word, although highly relative in nature, was not in the original list. For example, the