Summary of Eyewitness Testimony and Improving Memory

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Summary of Eyewitness Testimony and Improving Memory

Eyewitness Testimony

Eyewitness Testimony refers to an account given by people of an event they have witnessed.  For example they may be required to give a description at a trail of a robbery or a road accident someone has seen. This includes identification of perpetrators, details of the crime scene etc. EWT can be influenced by lots of things, including leading questions, anxiety and age.

The Reconstructive Nature of Memory is where we tend to encode only the ‘bare bones’ of an event. When we then recall information, we unconsciously ‘flesh out’ these bare bones using common sense and logic.

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Anxiety – witnessing a crime may make us anxious. Giving evidence as an eyewitness may make us anxious. High levels of anxiety have been found impair our ability to store and retrieve memories.

Age – memories and the way that we use them change as we age. These three things influence child’s testimony: suggestibility, language ability and memory processes.

Cognitive Interview is one way to help people remember something accurately. It is based on two principles: Organisation and Context-dependency.

Organisation – the way that memory is organised means that memories can be accessed in various ways. A series ...

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