Why Is Eyewitness So Important?

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.

As time goes on, eyewitness testimony has become more and more of a disputed topic due to many different factors. The first study I was exposed to was in an introductory psychology class which sparked my interest into the topic. For this reason, I chose to look at different demographics such as, gender and major, and see if those factors had any impact on the perception of eyewitness testimony. My main issues remained the same throughout this research project.

Although eyewitness testimony can be significant when displaying it to a judge or a jury, years of supportive social science research has sustained that eyewitness identification is often unreliable. As the Innocence Project website illustrates, studies show that the human mind is nowhere near like a ‘tape recorder’ and we as humans do not record events exactly as we see them. Instead, witness recollection is just like any other evidence at a crime scene and must be preserved carefully and sensibly retrieved or it can be considered as contaminated.

Based on those experiments, Loftus affirms the inaccuracy of our memory, events may be reconstructed with new information added. Applying those results into criminal investigations based on eyewitness, Loftus pointed out that witness is questioned often more than once. Also, studies have demonstrated that line-up might be a inefficient way of point a suspect since many faces are introduced to the witness. In addition to eyewitness testimony, Loftus is leading also in repressed childhood memory. Most of her experiments demonstrated that repressed childhood memories do not exist. In fact, the most traumatic memories that we experience are the ones that we tend to not forget

Although at times it can be unreliable, the function of it makes us who we are. Currently in Psychology 1100, we are learning about memory, which ties into the article completely. Short-term memory and long-term memory, two important parts of a humans recollection. Short-term memory lasts less than 30 seconds then disappears, the mind chooses what to remember, it takes what is important and processes it to long-term memory. On a daily basis many don’t memorize what their friend was wearing, but we have in long-term memory what their physical features are, height, weight, age, build, etc., this allows us to easily recognize who they are and therefore we remember it. With strangers it’s entirely unnecessary to remember what clothes they’re wearing or what they look like because there is nothing connecting you to them, now if something occurs where you ran into them or had an awkward conversation, your mind would remember it because it was personal and that memory will continue to replay within one’s mind. Now a crime occurs where you were waiting in line at a store and someone robbed the place, you would barely remember what they looked like because you were maybe more focused on your safety and only had a glance, yet some people even without knowing who robbed the store would give a testimony that is presumably false. One aspect I don’t understand is how some investigations and cases solely rely on witness testimony and so many people have been falsely accused because they were “seen” at the crime by a bystander who had very little recollection of the story and pieced in the rest of the information through a schema that they had. With some many of these occurrences it would be a surprise to me if any investigation continued to rely on a witness testimony unless that witness is someone who was trained on remembering these events. I assume articles similar to these give more insight and a compelling argument to

Eyewitness memory is not reliable because the memory of the witness may change throughout the case. The witness may

According to the article “Expert testimony: Does eyewitness memory research have probative value for the courts?”, “…eyewitness identifications are the single most common cause of wrongful convictions” even though compared to actual confessions, “eyewitness testimony has been described as the most incriminating evidence that can be introduced against the accused” (Yarmey, 2001). While even though eyewitness testimony can lead to false accusations, it is still considered to be a necessary source of evidence in a crime case. A statistic provided by Christine Mumma, Dwayne Allen Dail’s lawyer, supports the liability of eyewitness testimony, stating that “Misidentification is the leading factor in wrongful conviction across the country…it’s present in 75 percent of wrongful convictions” (Mumma, 2009). Inaccurate eyewitness testimonies are not just simple memory slips of the brain, as they can unfairly affect the lives of innocent

False memory can be defined as a person believing they remember something that did not actually happen (Loftus, 1997). It is a common misconception that human memories are accurate and reliable (Poston, 2014), though many studies have revealed the reconstructive nature of memory and its vulnerability to distortion (e.g., Frenda, Nichols, & Loftus, 2011; Nash & Wade, 2008). This misconception forms an integral part of the modern justice system. Judges, attournies and juries are all prone to believe testimony from a confident eyewitness (Van Wallendael et al., 2007) and legal confessions are considered among the most compelling forms of evidence (e.g., Cutler, 2012; Kassin, Bogart, & Kerner, 2012). But what happens when these legal statements are based on false memories?

The social implication that have happened with a better understanding of eyewitness testimony are quite big. Because of the thousand and thousand of crime that have been made by people, we cant really trust everyone testimony of the situation. Because pretty much a conversation with someone else can easily mess every thing up. Which could suck for the person who is taken to jail because a of a eyewitness mistake. When the real criminal is out their actually doing more harm to others. Its actually scary to think how many individuals might be in jail for years of their life knowing that they had nothing to do with a crime that they weren’t even involved

The sole purpose of this experiment was to test the accuracy of eyewitness accounts. It was hypothesized that more than 50% of the questions asked would be incorrect. The results fully support the hypothesis. Out of the five questions that were asked, only one was answered correctly by both participants. One of the major factors affecting the reliability of eyewitness testimony is reconstructive memory. Reconstructive memory refers to the idea that the retrieval of memories does not occur in the accurate form but rather as a recollection of memories involving a process of trying to reconstruct past events, This idea was first produced by Sir Fredrick Bartlett where he suggested that certain pieces of information is stored and when it time to recall it, the pieces are then reconstructed based on personal interpretation. (McLeod, 2009) It is also believed that if new information is introduced after the event but before the actual recalling of the event, then the newly introduced information would have tremendous influence on what the person actually recalls. Therefore, memory can be regarded as flexible in nature.

Loftus realizes that, the length of time between the incident and being interviewed about an event plays a role in how suggestible people are to false memory. “These false memories can be formed because the memory wasn’t encoded in the correct places to begin with” (Cherry). We as humans tend to see things that aren’t really there and we being to form our own opinions of an event. In some instances, we might hear certain key words and this leads us to form complete sentences to support those key words. Our long term memories are also susceptible to change.

Elizabeth Loftus is a cognitive psychologist who studies memory. More specifically she studies false memories and how memories can be changed by things we are told. Facts, ideas, suggestions and other post-event information can modify our memories. In the video, Loftus opens with a story about a man named Steve Titus. He was a convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. The victim that identified him first told the police that Steve Titus’s picture looked closest to the perpetrator. Later, during the trial the same person identified him with absolute certainty. How is this possible? False memories.

In the Washington Post article, Philip Hilts discussed the issue with hypnotized witnesses and how they tend to recall vague memories and uncertain falsehoods as facts. A study conducted by two Canadian researchers suggest that hypnosis conducted by various police departments becomes a very “risky business” (Hilts, 1983, para. 1, and 2).

The Loftus & Palmer study was a psychological study completed by Elizabeth Loftus and Palmer in 1974. The aim of the case study was to determine whether an eyewitness’s memory can be changed by information given to them after an event. Loftus and Palmer also wanted to investigate whether or not a person's memory can be affected by this information. Past studies had determined that memories were not precise representations of actual events but were formed from past events and other occurrences. The study was performed on forty-five students split into five categories, each with nine students. In the study forty-five students from the University of Washington were shown seven film clips of car accidents. The clips ranged from five to thirty seconds

I presume that hundreds maybe thousands of people witnessed frequent over-flights at low altitude above or near the Building for the period of time starting from September 20, 2016, until July 09, 2017 including my neighbors from Dayton Towers Cooperative and neighboring houses, and visitors of Rockaway Beach.