Is Eyewitness testimony reliable and accurate? Include case studies to back this up.

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Eyewitness Testimony (EWT) essay

Is Eyewitness testimony reliable and accurate? Include case studies to back this up.

EWT refers to evidence supplied by people who witness a specific event or crime, relying on their own memory. Statements often include descriptions given in a criminal trial and subsequent identification by individuals who were present at the crime scene. EWT is likely to dependent on reconstructive memory(Bartlett,1932) which describes how memory is more than a passive recall. It is the active process of building up memory using fragments to fill gaps of an event in memory plus the expectations and assumptions (schema) of that event. This form of EWT is not 100% accurate as it is relying on the schema to fill in these gaps and varies from person to person. Reconstruction is not the only form of distortion in EWT as language; leading questions and post-event information may even distort reconstruction, further leading to memory to use and confabulation.

Loftus and Palmer found that changing the wording of one critical question ("About how fast were the cars going when they (hit/smashed/collided/ bumped/contacted-the five conditions) each other?") posed to eyewitnesses of a car accident had a significant effect on the estimated speed of the vehicles. Loftus and Palmer found that estimated speed was influenced by the verb used. The verb implied information about the speed, which systematically affected the participants' memory of the accident. Those who were asked the question where the verb used was "smashed" thought the cars were going faster than those who were asked the question with "hit" as the verb. The mean estimate when "smashed" was used was 41mph, versus 34mph when "hit" was used. Further research on the effect of language (Loftus & Zanni, 1975) found that the definite article ("the") was more leading than the indefinite article ("a") as only 7% of those asked about a broken headlight said they had seen it, compared to 17% of those asked about the broken headlight, when in fact there was no broken headlight in the film.
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Emotion can also affect the accuracy of memory. It can enhance recall or suppress it. Loftus (1979) was called as an expert witness on the psychology of memory initial of a shop assistant, Melville, had identified a robber Jose Garcia. One of the points she made into memory was research, was about the effects of emotion. Melville was in a state of extreme distress after seeing a colleague was shot, and psychologists have found that arousal of stress have a negative on memory recall- especially the STM.

Although the EWT is useful, Bartlett and Loftus has been ...

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