Eyewitness essay

Question 1

What is the definition of eyewitness misidentification?

Answer 1

Eyewitness misidentification refers to situations in which an individual wrongly identifies someone as the perpetrator of a crime, typically based on their memory of the event.

Question 2

Why is eyewitness misidentification a significant concern?

Answer 2

It is a significant concern within the criminal justice system because incorrect eyewitness identifications can lead to wrongful convictions of innocent individuals.

Question 3

What are the three factors that can lead to eyewitness misidentification?

Answer 3

1. Stress.
2. Cross-race bias.
3. Mugshot identification bias.

Question 4

What are three factors that can address the issue of eyewitness misidentification?

Answer 4

1. Calm classical music.
2. Facial feature training.
3. Sequential mugshot presentation.

Question 5

What are some triggers of stress and where can this occur?

Answer 5

Frightening or difficult events can trigger a stress response from a witness. This can occur during the experience of a crime or in the following police interviews.

Question 6

How does stress affect memory?

Answer 6

High levels of stress can impair memory encoding and retrieval processes, leading to memory distortions and fragmented encoding of details. Researchers suggest this can occur because the amygdala will take over in very stressful situations, leaving the parts of the brain that help store memories with less energy to do so.

Question 7

Describe Morgan et al’s (2004) experiment?

Answer 7

Participants were exposed to both high and low stress interrogations, then 24 hours later, questioned on their memory of the interrogators. Regardless of the method of assessment, Morgan et al. (2004) found the accuracy of eyewitness responses was higher for the low-level stress condition than the accuracy of eyewitness responses for the high-level stress condition.

Question 8

How does Morgan et al’s experiment link to eyewitness testimonies?

Answer 8

• Testimonies may be subject to error.
• Witness may forget key details about perpetrator.

Question 9

What can reduce stress in police interviews?

Answer 9

Calm classical music.

Question 10

Why does calm classical music have an effect on stress?

Answer 10

It lowers stress because it also helps to reduce heart rate and blood pressure.

Question 11

What is cross-racial identification?

Answer 11

The eyewitness identifying someone of a different race to their own.

Question 12

How is cross-racial identification said to affect eyewitness testimonies?

Answer 12

• Poorer eyewitness recall.
• Individuals are more likely to misidentify a perpetrator when they are a different race than when they are the same race.

Question 13

Why does cross-racial identification occur?

Answer 13

• When people have a lack of experience with cross-race faces.
• When people group others into categories rather than individuals and fail to look past these categories.

Question 14

Describe Hourihan et al’s experiment.

Answer 14

• Conducted an experiment on Caucasian and Asian participants.
• They were asked to identify which Caucasian and Asian faces they had previously studied.
• Both Caucasian and Asian participants were better able to identify own-race faces than cross-race faces.

Question 15

How does Hourihan et al’s experiment link to eyewitness testimonies?

Answer 15

• Make wrong decision.

Question 16

How can cross-racial misidentification be prevented?

Answer 16

Facial feature training.

Question 17

When are mugshots used?

Answer 17

Most criminal investigations use mugshots as a method to help the witness identify the perpetrator, and most adopt a repeated lineup approach.

Question 18

What is mugshot bias?

Answer 18

Mugshot bias is the suggestion that viewing mugshot photographs increases misidentification because the witness is prone to remember the person from the previous photograph rather than from the incident.

Question 19

Why does mugshot bias occur?

Answer 19

Often this occurs because the decision is made on a feeling of familiarity to a face, with little thought into the context or source of this feeling.

Question 20

Describe Hinz and Pezdeks experiment.

Answer 20

• Conducted an experiment into the effect of an intervening lineup identification on a subsequent lineup.
• Found that being exposed to an innocent suspect in an intervening lineup, whether that suspect is identified or not, increases the likelihood of the witness misidentifying the innocent suspect in the following lineup.

Question 21

How can mugshot bias affect eyewitness testimonies?

Answer 21

Increases the chance of eyewitness misidentification.

Question 22

How can mugshot bias be reduced?

Answer 22

Sequential presentation of suspects rather than simultaneous presentation.

Question 23

What are the three researchers studied in this essay?

Answer 23

1. Morgan.
2. Hourihan.
3. Hinz and Pezdek.