Eyewitness testimony is an important area of research within cognitive psychology and human memory. Cognitive psychology tells us that, in general people memories are fairly fallible. Juries pay close attention to eyewitness; most of the time the witness is a reliable source of information. Nevertheless, research found that eyewitness testimony can be affected by many psychological reasons; Anxiety, Reconstructive Memory, Weapon Focus, Leading Questions.
Anxiety is an unpleasant emotional state where we fear that something ruthless is about to happen. People become anxious when they are in stressful situations. Anxiety tends to be accompanied by arousal e.g. a pounding heart, shallow breathing. Research of Yerkes-Dodson law (1908) shows that when a person is at an extreme state of arousal or stress sometimes it causes a decrease or inaccuracy in the memory recall. Information is more likely to be accurate when a person is only moderately aroused, making them more focused and far more likely to recall information accurately. There are two researches about the importance of stress being able to influence an eyewitness recall. Clifford & Scott (1978) showed one group of people a film of a violent attack and another group a less violent attack. The results showed that the people who watched the violent attack were unable to remember many of the forty pieces of information contained but the people who watched a less violent film were able to remember more information about the film. Therefore witnessing a real crime is probably more stressful than watching a violent film so the memory accuracy will probably be more affected in real life. However Yuille & Cutshall (1986) research found out that witnesses of a real life crime about a shooting outside a gun shop in Canada showed extremely accurate recall of a very stressful event, when weapons were used in the situation. The witnesses were interviewed by police at the time then five months later the witnesses were interviewed again. Their recall of the event was still found to be accurate and even though researchers put in two misleading questions it had no effect on their memory about the incident but the research shows that the witnesses that experienced levels of stress were actually closer to the event therefore this might have helped the accuracy of the memory recall.
Reconstructive memory is the process of putting information together based on general types of stored knowledge in the absence of a specific memory representation. Bartlett says that the human memory is an active process, according to Bartlett research people organise their memories in a way that fits their previous experience, when we remember events the gaps in our memory are reconstructed based on our schema, a way of organizing information. This allows people to make sense of what they saw and how to deal with the situation. Therefore when people find themselves in a situation they don’t understand or doesn’t fit their social values they change it in order to fit their schema. Therefore schemas can mislead information and result in an unreliable eyewitness testimony. Bartlett research was called War of Ghost from a Native American culture participants were British who shared norms and values would differ greatly from that of a Native American. He expected the participants to change facts to fit their schemas but the outcome was the story changed in several ways when retold. The story became shorter much of the detail was left out other details of the story was changed such as ‘seal hunting’ became ‘fishing’ and the structure of the story was made to fit in to a more ‘westernised’ way of thinking. Therefore people are reconstructing memories to conform their personal beliefs about the world. This clearly indicates that our memories are anything but reliable, ‘photographic’ records of events. They are individual recollections which have been shaped & constructed according to stereotypes, beliefs, expectations.
Weapon Focus is eyewitness concentration on a weapon to the exclusion of other details of a crime. In a crime where a weapon is involved, it is not unusual for a witness to be able to describe the weapon in much more detail than the person holding it because most of the time people concentrate on the weapon than the person identity. Elizabeth Loftus is a researcher in the field of eyewitness testimony who has been investigating this subject for over thirty years. Loftus et al (1987) showed subjects two films. In one, a customer was holding a cheque, and in the other a gun. It was found that the witnesses of the cheque incident recalled the circumstances in far more detail than those who saw the gun. Leading question is a question that tells the witness something that they didn’t previously know. Loftus research shows one way of adding information after an event has taken place is the questions asked by police or lawyers. In a study carried out by Loftus & Palmer (1974) participants where shown a film in which a series of car crashes occurred. When asking the different groups questions on the film questions were altered slightly with each group. Loftus found that each group answered the questions differently. groups that were asked, ‘how far were the cars going when they smashed into each other’, gave a far greater estimate of speed for the car than the group that were asked ‘how fast were the cars going when they hit each other’. Loftus, Miller and Burns research shows that they got the participants to recall a sign post in a piece of film they had seen although there was no sign post in the actual film. Looking at the results of the research by Yuille & Cutshall (1986) using real-life witnesses, it suggests that witness recall does not always alter in response to leading questions. Research shows that experiments carried out with regards to eyewitness memory have been conducted in psychological laboratories. The fact that people are taken out of real-life situations and asked to take part in an artificial task it has raised questions.
However eyewitnesses testimonies are still one of the strongest pieces of evidence used in the court system today and are accepted as fact by a jury. When eyewitness accounts are correct it can help convict many guilty people but often an incorrect eyewitness testimony can lead to wrongful convictions and severely damage a person’s life. Looking at research carried out it would appear that there are many factors that can contribute to an unreliable eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness testimonies can be flawed simply by the natural memory processes that occur when people retain and attempt to retrieve information (Loftus, 1979). Eyewitness testimony can be affected by weapon focus leading questions and perception and memory, to name but a few. When looking at the results of research carried out and the serious implications of the validity of eyewitness testimonies, it is surprising to see that despite the Devlin Report, 1976 and Court of Appeal in Turnbull (1977), convictions are still being obtained on the unsupported evidence of a sole eyewitness. In the courtroom, perhaps, more emphasis should be placed on the pitfalls involved with eyewitness accounts when advocates and/or judges are addressing juries. Since 1976 till the present day police line ups have increased. In conclusion Loftus has shown how language and wording could influence a person’s recall of an incident.
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