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Forensic Psych > Eyewitness Testimony > Flashcards

Eyewitness Testimony Flashcards

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1
Q

Eyewitness testimony is an…

A

extremely powerful type of testimony

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2
Q

In cases with only eyewitness evidence against the defendant, juries vote to convict __% of the time

A

74%

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3
Q

Judges are supposed to assess the reliability of eyewitness on what 5 factors?

A
  1. Opportunity to observe
  2. Attention
  3. Accuracy of initial description
  4. Delay between crime and identification
  5. Confidence
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4
Q

5 factors to assess reliability: Opportunity to Observe

A

Did they get the chance to see what happened?

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5
Q

5 factors to assess reliability: Attention

A

o Did they see their face?
o Were they actually paying attention?
o Or did it occur In their peripheral vision?

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6
Q

5 factors to assess reliability: Accuracy

A

Do details of description match what the eyewitness reported?

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7
Q

5 factors to assess reliability: Delay between crime and identification

A

o How much time has elapsed between when they claimed to have seen this and the description they are giving now (details fade over time)
o Important to consider when it is all memory based

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8
Q

5 factors to assess reliability: Confidence

A

o Would trust a witness who has extreme confidence in what they are saying
o Important to jurors (almost always say they trust the testimony of eyewitness because they seemed so confident)

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9
Q

Statistics on percent of jurors voting “guilty” with eyewitness testimony

No eyewitness:
Credible eyewitness:
Discredited eyewitness:

A

No eyewitness: 13%
Credible eyewitness: 50%
Discredited eyewitness: 27%

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10
Q

What are the basic facts of the Ronald Cotton Case?
What was Contton’s sentence? What happened after 11 years? Who was the actual rapist?

A

1984
22-year-old victim raped at home in Burlington, NC
Jennifer Thompson expressed extreme confidence in being able to identify suspect
At the trial, victim pointed out Cotton, said she was completely certain

o Despite little physical evidence, inability of second victim to ID him, Cotton sentenced to life + 54 years in prison
o 11 years later, after appeal, retrial, 2nd conviction, Cotton exonerated by DNA
o Actual rapist was a prisoner, Bobby Poole, who confessed earlier

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11
Q

Eyewitness testimony - mistaken identity
What percent are wrongful convictions?

A

75%

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12
Q

Compared to other causes, how many are wrongful convictions?

A

More than all other causes combined

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13
Q

What is the average rate of correct suspect ID

A

42%

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14
Q

What are influences on the reliability of eyewitnesses?
Who is associated with this?

A

Estimator variables
System

Gary Wells

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15
Q

What are estimator variables? (7)

A

Vision
Opportunity
Lighting
Drugs
Duration of events
Time since events
Emotional state

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16
Q

Confidence of eyewitnesses:

o Expressed confidence at trial influences ______
o But not a good way to judge actual ___________ of recall (weak correlation)
o Over time, eyewitnesses become more _________, but their memory _____ over time
o The whole system of eyewitness stages is g_____ to make eyewitnesses more _________

A

o Expressed confidence at trial influences jurors
o But not a good way to judge actual reliability of recall (weak correlation)
o Over time, eyewitnesses become more confident, but their memory fades over time
o The whole system of eyewitness stages is geared to make eyewitnesses more confident

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17
Q

Increased confidence is linked to?

A

Rehearsal
Cognitive dissonance
Confirmations

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18
Q

What does rehearsal refer to? (3)

A

Review
Repeated interviews
Testimony

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19
Q

What does cognitive dissonance refer to?

A

The idea that people find it hard to hold two contradictory beliefs

To reduce this, we tend to change our beliefs about one of those things so it is more consistent

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20
Q

What does confirmation refer to?

A

Feedback

police officers will offer nonverbally that the witness is selecting the ‘correct’ person, give them positive feedback about their choice and “confirm” that the witness did the right thing

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21
Q

Confirmation makes eyewitness MUCH more _________ in aspects of c________, to t______, good view of s______, a________ to detail of face and had plenty of time.

A

confident
certainty
testify
suspect
attention

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22
Q

Eyewitness testimony - Selective Attention
What is it?

A

Problems due to nature of memory itself

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23
Q

Eyewitness testimony - Selective Attention

More likely to get stored as m______ when we are paying _________, only a fraction will get _______, or get stored in ____-____ memory

A

memories
attention
encoded
long-term

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24
Q

What is a factor affecting elective attention?

A

Distinctiveness

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25
Q

What is distinctiveness? (3)

A

Something that stands out
Tend to be more memorable
Will naturally focus attention

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26
Q

What case is an example of distinctiveness?

What was he convicted of? What year?
How was it distinctiveness?
How and when was he exonerated?

A

Marvin Anderson, 1982

Convicted of rape
Employee ID picture (in color) in B/W photo lineup
Exonerated by DNA tests in 2001

27
Q

Eyewitness Testimony - Emotion and Stress

Linked to e_______ memory

F________ memories
I_______ memories

A

enhances

Flashbulb
Inspired

28
Q

What does flashbulb memories refer to?

A

Brain ‘takes a picture’

Vivid (but accurate and highly recallable)
Emotionally charged memories

29
Q

What does inspired memory refer to?

A

Remembering fewer details when under higher levels of stress

30
Q

What is an example of inspired memory?

A

Witness of violent crimes remembers fewer details than witness of nonviolent crimes

31
Q

What does narrowing of attention refer to?

A

“tunnel vision”
More memory for central details but less for peripheral (background details)

32
Q

What does weapon focus refer to?

A

Emotion significance

33
Q

What does “Narrowing of attention” refer to?

A

Okay recall for ACCIDENTS, low recall of details from BACKGROUND

34
Q

Eyewitness Testimony - Encoding

What is Inattentional Blindness

A

temporary tunnel vision to what you intensely focused on

35
Q

What is an example of inattentional blindness

A

1995 incident: Boston officer chasing a shooting suspect failed to notice a fight as he ran by and was convicted of perjury when he denied seeing it

Ken Conley

36
Q

What are the 3 different types of Retrieval?

A

Replay of memory
Reconstruction of memories
Review/Rehearsal

37
Q

Replay of memory is like a…

A

recording (but does not actually work this way)

38
Q

Reconstruction of memories is like a…

A

jigsaw puzzle

39
Q

Retrieval - What are the 3 different sublevels of Review/rehearsal

A

Levelling
Sharpening
Assimilation

40
Q

Review/rehearsal refers to… (2)

A

Re-thinking, re-telling

41
Q

Review/rehearsal - levelling refers to…

A

Loose, trivial details, inconsistencies
Focusing on important on elements of the story and leaving out trivial details which don’t feel as important

42
Q

Review/rehearsal - sharpening refers to…

A

Emphasizing

43
Q

Review/rehearsal - assimilation refers to… (2)

A

Expectancies
“fill in the blanks”

44
Q

Eyewitness Testimony IMPROVEMENTS…

A

Witness interviews
Lineups
Other safeguards

45
Q

How can witness interviews be improved?

Conduct i_________ as soon as possible after c____.
Use o___-_____questions instead of l______.
Discourage d_________ with other w________.

A

Conduct interviews as soon as possible after crime
Use open-ended questions instead of leading
Discourage discussion with other witnesses

46
Q

How can lineups be improved?

B___d a____________
I_________
Reduce d__________
C__________ statements BEFORE f______ or c___________
S_________ lineups

A

Blind administration
Instruction
Reduce distinctiveness
Confidence statements BEFORE feedback or confirmation
Sequential lineups

47
Q

What other safeguards can be improved in eyewitness testimony?

E_____ testimony about e___________ memory in c____
C______ for suspect being i_________

A

Expert testimony about eyewitness memory in court
Counsel for suspect being identified

48
Q

Eyewitness Testimony – Children as Witnesses

o Many of the same _______ as a_____, but magnified
o L______, c________ skills

A

o Many of the same issues as adults, but magnifies
o Language, cognitive skills

49
Q

At what age can children know the difference between “truth” and “lying”

A

3 years old

50
Q

Children are considered what below a certain age?

A

“Presumptively incompetent”

51
Q

Until the the age of _, there are problems distinguishing ____ from ________ events (source memory problem)

A

6
real
imagined

52
Q

When is the greatest concern for children?

A

When they are victims

53
Q

What are the 2 obligations for children as victims?

A
  1. Take children’s reports seriously
  2. Be aware of their limitations
54
Q

Children as eyewitnesses Case Example

o 7 defendants indicted for sexual abuse of children
o Began with one accusation; escalated to 384 children
o Children initially denied abuse; testimony changed during later questioning by parents, “experts”
o Accusations increasingly bizarre
o No corroborating evidence
o Longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history
o 7 years and $15 million dollars prosecuting a case that led to no convictions

A

The McMartin Preschool case (1984)

55
Q

What are issues in child testimony? (6)

A

Therapeutic vs. forensic interviewing
Suggestive or leading questions
Repetitive questions
Hypothetical questions
Social influence
Anatomical dolls and diagrams

56
Q

Why is social influence an issue in child testimony? (2)

A

Need for approval
More pressure to select someone

57
Q

What are the assumptions related to anatomical dolls and diagrams? (2)

A

The child will reveal details of abuse by less threatening “re-enactment”
Abused child will display “inappropriate” sexual behavior via dolls

58
Q

What are issues surrounding dolls and diagrams?

A

Confirmatory bias
Unstandardized
Representational shift
“Pretend” or “play game”

59
Q

Do dolls add any useful information?

A

No, no evidence supporting this

60
Q

What do Recovered Memories refer to?

A

Delayed recall of traumatic events (often abuse) occurring in childhood

They are still stored in some type of way, but not able to access them until later on

61
Q

What are legal issued related to recovered memories?

A

The RELIABILITY of claims (Daubert)

62
Q

What are scientific issues of recovered memories? (4)

A

Prevalence
(rare - most memories of trauma are continuous)
Explanation
(repression often proposed as mechanism, dissociative disorder)
Not accurate
Pseudo-memories

63
Q

o Convicted of 1969
o Murder in 1991
o Eileen Franklin
o Eileen didn’t recall murder until hypnotized in therapy
o Memories matched news accounts better than actual crime details
o DNA tests cleared Franklin of 2nd crime
o In Eileen’s account of the crime, her story and details were actually a pretty good match to the news stories of the murder of Susan Nason (details which had been released to the press). Her story didn’t always match the details which the police had which police had record of.

A

Case of Recovered Memories
George Franklin

Forensic Psych (8 decks)

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