Describe and Evaluate Research by E.Loftus into Eye Witness Testimony, the implications of the findings and the Cognitive Interview.

by davaders (student)

One area of importance into memory research is Eyewitness Testimony which can have important applications to everyday life. Understanding our memory of events that occurred when a crime or incident has happened, details of who and what happened surrounding the crime or event relies on eyewitnesses and their recollection of the crime' or incident. A legal term) Eyewitness Testimony is crucial as it plays an important role in evidence used in criminal investigations and trials. However research into eyewitness testimony has shown that Eyewitness Testimony is not always accurate.

One of the leading researchers in the field of Eye Witness Testimony (EWT) is Elizabeth Loftus who along with her colleagues carried out extensive research in EWT. In 1974 Loftus & Palmer conducted an experiment to investigate the accuracy of memory after witnessing a car accident, particularly to see how information provided to a witness by way of leading questions after the accident would influence their recollection of the accident.

In the first experiment carried out under laboratory conditions, 45 participants divided into 5 groups were shown 7 clips of events leading up to a car accident, after each clip they were asked to answer some questions but the crucial question was "About how fast were the cars going when they ...... into each other? There were 5 conditions in the experiment, each being the independent variable (verb) used to fill the blank in the question they were smashed, collided, bumped, hit and contact with the dependent variable being the speeds estimated by the participants.

The results showed that the verb used in the question influenced the participants speed estimates, with smashed getting a speed of 40.8mph, collided 39.3mph, bumped 38.1mph, hit 34mph and contacted 31.8mph.

A Second Experiment was carried out whereby 150 student participants divided into 3 groups of 50 viewed a short (one minute) film which contained a 4 second scene of a multiple car accident and were then questioned about it. There were three conditions and the independent variable (verb used) was manipulated by the wording of the question. The first group was asked 'how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?' The second group was asked 'How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other? 'The third group was not asked about the speed of the vehicles.

One week later, the participants returned and, without viewing the film, again they were asked questions about the accident. The critical question was 'did you see any broken glass?’ which was part of a longer series of questions and was placed in a random position on each participants question paper. There was in fact no broken glass in the film. The results show that the verb used in the original question influenced whether the participants had thought they seen broken glass, those participants that heard the word smashed were more than twice as likely to recall seeing broken glass. Loftus and Palmer gave two explanations for the findings of their first experiment. Firstly, they argued that the results could be due to a distortion in the memory of the participant, the memory of how fast the cars were travelling could have been distorted / by the verb which had been used to characterize the intensity of the crash. Secondly, they argued that the results could be due to response-bias factors, in which case the participant is not sure of the exact speed and therefore adjusts his or her estimate to fit in with the expectations of the questioner (this is also an example of a demand characteristic). To account for the results of the second experiment, Loftus and Palmer developed the following explanation called the Reconstructive hypothesis they Z argue that two kinds of information go into a person's memory of an event. The first is the information obtained from perceiving an event (e.g. witnessing a video of a car accident), and the second is the other information supplied to us after the event (e.g. the question containing hit or smashed). Over time, the information from these two sources may be integrated in such a way that we are unable to tell from which source some specific detail is recalled. For example in Loftus and Palmer's 2nd experiment, the participants first formed some memory of the film they had witnessed. The experimenter then, while asking, "About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?" supplied a piece of external information, namely, that the cars did indeed smash into each other. When these two pieces of information were integrated, the participant has a memory of an accident that was more severe than it actually was. Since broken glass relates to a bigger accident, the participant is more likely to think that broken glass was present. Looking at both experiments we see that they were controlled in a laboratory and as such the eye witnesses were prepared and had to pay attention to the footage, this is not the case in real life situations and was a criticism levelled at Loftus.

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As with any research there are both strengths and weaknesses, looking at the strengths we see both parts of Loftus and Palmer (1974) were laboratory experiments with strong scientific controls, as all the participants watched the same film and were asked identical questions except for the verb change, which meant the study was replicable and could be repeated to test for reliability. The research supported the idea that memory can be easily distorted and would have implications for eyewitness testimony in court. The use of estimates of speed in both experiments and the yes/no question of the second experiment yielded quantitative data which meant there was no subjective interpretation of the data , therefore it could be said that the experiments had objectivity. The fact that leading questions can affect memory has important implications for interviewing witnesses by police straight after the event and also by lawyers in court some time after. Interviewers should avoid leading questions and be careful in how they word questions. The weaknesses of the study showed the validity of the task was questionable, as the student participants were not likely to have been under the same emotional strain as a real eyewitness of a horrific accident. As they only watched video clips of the car crashes and did not witness them first hand, it could have affected their response. The studies were also criticised for being ethnocentric, as American students were used only, so the findings of the experiments were not necessarily generalisable to the population as a whole until it could be repeated on other groups. The student participants may have figured out what the purpose of the study was and tried to amend their answers to help out the researchers accordingly. Another factor known as the Hawthorne effect may have come into play as the participants may have changed their behaviour as they knew they were in an experiment. Loftus was also criticised for trying to portray psychology as a science. Psychology should not just be seen as objective and scientific, the study is only one of many frameworks the researchers work in, there are other more subjective methods to study human behaviour like memory, such as participant observation in a group and unstructured interviewing where more valid responses may be given in a more informal situation. What was equally important too was the fact there will always be individual differences, where not everyone’s memory will be inaccurate which Loftus did not take into account.

Further research into eyewitness testimony has shown that there are several factors which can affect the testimony of eyewitnesses. Anxiety or Stress is almost certainly associated with crimes and violence and plays an important role in recalling the event. Clifford and Scott (1978) found in a study that people who watched a film of a violent attack recalled less than 40 items about the attack than a control group who watched a less stressful version of the same attack. Again this was a controlled study but witnessing a real life crime is likely to be more stressful than an experiment and memory recall and accuracy will most certainly be affected. Another factor that influences eyewitness testimony is the 'Weapons Focus Effect' where the eyewitness is concentrated on the weapon and excludes other details of the crime to the extent that when questioned, is not able recall the events around the crime such as the attacker or what was going on. A study by Steblay (1992) showed that the presence of a weapon affected the witness's ability to identify the person holding it. Loftus et al. (1987) monitored eyewitness's eye movements and found that the presence of a weapon caused the focus of the eyewitness to be drawn to the weapon rather than the person holding it or his face.

As a result of research into eyewitness testimony and the factors that affected it Geiselman et al. (1984) developed a memory retrieval procedure for eye witnesses known as the Cognitive Interview a questioning technique designed to improve retrieval of information from a witness's memory relating to an event or crime. A number of techniques are involved in the cognitive interview, report everything- report every detail you recall no matter how trivial it might seem. Context reinstatement- mentally recalls the scene, weather, what you were thinking or feeling all the time of the event and before it. Recall from changed perspective- report the event from multiple perspectives like imagining how it would have appeared to other witnesses present at the time. Recall from reverse order- describing the event as it would have been seen from different viewpoints, not just your own. As a result the cognitive interview leads to better memory of events and helps witnesses - recall more relevant information than compared to the traditional method. Gieselman et al (1985) tested participants using videos of simulated crime and then tested different groups using the standard police interview, under hypnosis and the cognitive interview and found the cognitive interview method extracted more information from the participants than the other two methods. Fisher et al (1990) also demonstrated the effectiveness of the cognitive interview technique in real police settings in Miami. Police detectives were trained to use cognitive interview techniques with real crime witnesses and found the cognitive interview method increased the amount of information recalled. Overall what research done into eyewitness testimony has greatly improved and as result the cognitive interview rites have helped in many cases. The cognitive interview has strong supporting research, Kohnken et al for example, reviewed research into eyewitness testimony and found that the cognitive interview increased the amount of correct information recalled by 48%, compared to the standard interview. Also, Stein & Memon (2006) found that the cognitive interview was effective because people remember more when given cues. They made Brazilian female cleaners watch a video of an abduction, and then used the cognitive interview and standard interview to gain eyewitness reports, finding those who were in the cognitive interview condition not only recalled more, but were accurate in the information recalled.

More importantly the cognitive interview has helped reduce the number of incidences in the miscarriages of justice based on eye witness testimony. Research in the United States reveals that 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing is due to eyewitness misidentification, which is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions in the USA. As far back as the late 1800s, experts have known that eyewitness testimony is prone to error, and that scientific study should guide reforms for identification procedures. In 1907, Hugo Munsterberg published “,” in which he questioned the reliability of eyewitness testimony. When Yale law professor Edwin Borchard studied 65 wrongful convictions for his pioneering 1932 book, “,” he found that eyewitness testimony was the leading cause of wrongful convictions.

There are many cases where eyewitness testimony has lead to miscarriages of just, looking at the case Calvin Willis we see that eyewitness testimony can lead to an innocent man being convicted of a crime. One night in 1982, three young girls were sleeping alone in a Shreveport, Louisiana home when a man in cowboy boots came into the house and raped the oldest girl who was 10 years old. When police started to investigate the rape, the three girls all remembered the attack differently. One police report said the 10-year old victim did not see her attacker’s face. Another report, which wasn’t introduced at trial, stated she identified Calvin Willis, who lived in the neighbourhood. The girl’s mother testified at trial that neighbours had mentioned Willis’s name when discussing who might have committed the crime. The victim testified that she was shown photos and told to pick the man without a full beard. She testified that she didn’t pick anyone, police said she picked Willis. Willis was convicted by a jury and sentenced to life in prison. In 2003, DNA testing proved Willis’ innocence and he was released. He had served nearly 22 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Since then, hundreds of scientific studies (particularly in the last three decades) have affirmed that eyewitness testimony is often inaccurate, while new methods of helping witnesses recall events such as the cognitive interview have helped reduce miscarriages of justice.

REFRENCES:

(). Calvin Willis. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Calvin_Willis.php. [Last Accessed 3/05/2013]

Bailey 3, McGinely R,Willerton 3,Willson 3, (2008). 'Memory in Everyday

Life'. In: Simon Green (ed), AQA Psychology A. 1st ed. United Kingdom: Nelson Thornes Ltd. pp. (32-34).

Cardwell.M, Flanagan.C, (2012). The Complete Companions: AS Student Book for AQA A Psychology. 3rd ed. United Kingdom: Nelson Thornes Ltd

Mcleod S A (2009). Eyewitness testimony. [ONLINE] Available at: . [Last Accessed 26 October 2012].

Saker D, Class Handouts on Memory in Psychology, (2012)

Compare the American and British approaches to offender profiling.

Offender profiling, sometimes referred to as criminal profiling is the method of trying to determine the likely mentality and demographic information of the offender in a crime. Holmes and Holmes 1996 suggested that there are three goals to offender profiling, firstly looking at social and psychological assessments of the offender, then psychological evaluation of their belongings and finally interviewing suggestions and strategies. Social and psychological assessments give information on the possible offender’s age, race, marital status, religion, personality etc. while psychological evaluations of belongings suggest the offender’s belongings such as souvenirs from the victims or crime scene like James Lloyd the ‘shoe rapist’ who kept shoes from his victims whom he raped. Effective profiles can help police with strategies with interviewing suspects, and in one case a man who needed control gave a confession after being led to believe he was ‘helping’ the investigation.

Coined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the 1970s, a team was set up known as the Behavioural sciences unit (later known as the Investigation Support Unit) due to the sharp increase of serial murders and rape in the USA. The remit of the team was to carry on the work pioneered by James Brussel, and started by building a data base of information based on recorded interviews with convicted sexually orientated serial killers around the USA, such as Charles Mason, David Berkowitz and Emil Kemper. In total 36 convicted serial killers were interviewed, what was noted was the major personality dimensions that might be found in this type of offender and how these offenders personalities differed from those of the normal population. Along with crime scene evidence, the nature of the attacks, forensic evidence and information relating to the victim were also studied. The offenders were classified as either organised or disorganised. The American approach to profiling referred to as the ‘Top Down’ involves 4 stages, Data assimilation, Crime classification, Crime reconstruction and Profile generation. Once the data is entered into the database, it is compared continually against other entries on the basis of certain aspects of the crime. The purpose of this is to detect signature aspects of the crime and similar patterns of ‘motus operandi' (way of working) this will enable detectives to identify crimes that may have been committed by the same offender. If the profile of the offender is classified as organised then it raises eyebrows as organised killers tend to have an above average IQ, normally live with a partner, may experience anger or depression at the time of the attack and follow media coverage of the crime. The characteristics of the scene tend to be pre-meditated murder where a weapon was brought with them, self control was shown and very little evidence was left behind. The disorganised offender has poor social skills. He is unlikely to be able to maintain a stable romantic or sexual relationship and generally lives alone, probably close to the scene of his crimes. He probably has poor personal hygiene. His level of intelligence is likely to be low and if employed his work is likely to be unskilled. He may well be suffering from acute psychological disturbance and could be psychotic.

The British approach also known as ‘Bottom Up’ was a result of work done by Britain’s foremost investigative psychologist David Canter in the 1980’s. Canter’s first profile was of the ‘Railway Rapist’ John Duffy who operated in London and was responsible for numerous rapes and murder of his last three victims. Canter was correct about the area Duffy lived in, his age, and the fact that he had knowledge of the railway system as he worked for British Rail. He also mentioned that Duffy would have probably had a criminal record and be under arrest in the time there were no reported attacks, and it was found that Duffy did in fact rape his wife at knife point so Canter was quite accurate. The bottom up approach focuses on consistencies in offender’s behaviour during the crime for profiling. This means to create a profile using the bottom up approach the police along with criminal psychologist’s will focus on what the criminal has and has not done during the crime, they may find this out from the crime scene or from surviving victims accounts. The crime scene is very important to the bottom up approach as it takes heed to the details of a crime first, believing these to be most important. This differs greatly from the top down approach which focuses on the bigger picture first. As it is crucial on what the criminal was doing during the crime, and the details of the actual crime, a lot of statistical analysis is required in order to piece together the profile, relying on computers for the majority of the profiling procedure and relying on them being accurate and powerful. This method is considered more objective and reliable than the top down approach because of this strong dedicated use of computer analysis.

Looking at both approaches British profilers look at all the facts before they make assumptions about the suspect. Therefore they are approaching the investigation with an open mind whereas US profilers will have an idea of the type of person they are looking for based on theory. They will have preconceptions about who they are looking for. Kocsis et al (2002) suggests that more experienced detectives are not as good at profiling perhaps because they have preconceptions about what they are looking for. With the bottom up approach British profiling treats each crime scene as individual taking the characteristics for each case and examining only those, not comparing them with others. The top down approach could lead to profilers missing important and unique evidence that is individual to that case.

However the bottom up approach is time consuming and expensive to do and may mean it takes longer to identify suspects. The top down approach will narrow down the list of suspects quickly, which could lead to the crime being solved more quickly. The bottom up approach to profiling is carried out by specialist Psychologists with experience in criminal investigation. This may mean they have too many stereotypical views about suspects, which may influence their ability to profile effectively. Kocsis et al (2002) suggests that more experienced detectives are not as good at profiling perhaps because they have preconceptions about what they are looking for. Whereas the top down approach can be used by anyone as it doesn’t rely on the ability or experience of any one individual.

Both the top down and bottom up profiling approaches have helped the police and on many occasions been the sole reason for a criminal’s arrest. Both methods have been shown to gain the results they set out to achieve which shows they are reliable. However both approaches assume that the criminal will show behaviour patterns and characteristics associated with that type of person such as serial killers or rapists. This is showing the offender profiling method to be completely deterministic. Furthermore Holmes (1989) showed that merely 17% of all FBI arrests were contributed by the offender profiling approach. Similarly with Holloway (1997) in England where he discovered that the profiling approach helped with 16% of cases. This still does show a significant contribution to arrests but not as much as would be thought, especially considering the money which is spent on these profiles.

References:

Brain C 2002 Advanced psychology: Applications Issues & Perspectives Nelson Thornes

Class handouts Saker D, Criminal Psychology, Offender Profiling, April 2013

(). OFFENDER PROFILING. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.loreto.herts.sch.uk/Home%20Learning/Psychology/A2/Crime/Offender%20profiling.pdf. [Last Accessed 3/05/2013].

Putwain D, Sammons A, (2003). '6. Offender Profiling'. In: (ed), Psychology and Crime. 1st ed. United Kingdom: Routledge. pp.81-94.

Sammons A (). Typological offender profiling. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.psychlotron.org.uk/newResources/criminological/A2_AQB_crim_typoProfiling.pdf. [Last Accessed 5 May 2013].