EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY Flashcards
What is eyewitness testimony?
- A witnesses verbal account or identification of elements in a crime
- recall EPISODIC MEMORIES which are personally experienced events containing specific details, time place, what happened
Why is eyewitness evidence important?
- Support cases
- misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions. More than 70% of cases
- Innocence project help those who have been wrongfully convicted, particularly those on death row
Factors effecting encoding of events..
-Exposure duration, crime seriousness, violence, weapon presence, perpetrator characteristics
What is video camera analogy?
- recording what we see like a camera
- retrieving this information should be like receiving a memory tape
- but the image we see is not what we perceive, encode or remember
What is bottom-up processing?
-Data driven processing which begins with the image that falls on the retina, info is then transmitted up to higher levels in the visual system until the object is perceived
What is top-down processing?
- Sensory information is processed in light of prior knowledge, concept and expectations
What are schemas?
- A framework of knowledge that helps us to make sense of familiar situations. They guide expectations and help us organize new info
- We have them for people, roles, places and objects
- Common schemas called scripts help us know how to act appropriately
What is schema theory?
- We remember items better if they fit in with our schemas
- They can also lead us to believe factors that were not there but that fit with the schemas.
What is the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve?
- That we forget over time
- Inverse relationship between memory and the retention interval
What was the Ebbinghaus study?
Participants were required to recall nonsense syllables as time between memorizing and recall increased, recall ability recreased
What was the Schmolck et all study?
- Participants had to recall how they heard about the OJ Simpson verdict 3 days, 15 months and 32 months
- Found that distortion increased overtime despite reporting high confidence
What factors effect the retrieval of memory?
- How similar the retrieval situation is to the original encoding conditions
- Memory trace is no longer stored in the memory
- memory trace is stored but it cannot be accessed
What did Goddon & Baddeley find in their study?
-Reinstating the physical context in which participants encoded a list of words helped participants to remember
What are the types of retrieval?
Recall-bringing to mind information in response to a cue.
-Typically remembered better
Recognition- Participants must judge whether info encountered have been previously encountered
-More likely to encounter errors
What are some bad interviewing stratagies?
- Interrupting the witness
- Over-talking police
- use of closed questions
- leading or suggestive questions
- these interrupt witness concentration, discourage elaboration, restrict the information reported
What is confirmatory bias?
- Wright & Alison
- closed questions and rapid fire yes/no questions
- police having preconceived beliefs concerning the event meaning they may focus on certain aspects they believe to be relevant
What is the cognitive interview?
- Trying to reinstate the mental state
- encouraged to recall the context of the event, feeling thoughts, what they saw
- Reinstating the context where it was encoded
- free recall
- remember everything you know
- aims to increase retrieval cues
- may sometimes be asked to recall information in reverse order which aims to reduce the change of ‘filling in’ of info by scripts
- May be asked to give the account from another perspective
What is Fisher and Geiselman’s enhanced cognitive interview
- Considers that social dynamic and communication factors may affect retrieval in an interview
- Incorporate communication and cognitive techniques
- witness in control of the interview
- reduced intimidation
What was Geiselmans et al’s study about cognitive interview?
Participants saw a staged event during a lecture
2 days later interviewed using either cognitive interview or comparison interview.
-CI group produced more correct information
What was fisher’s study about the effectiveness of the enhanced cognitive interview?
Used real witnesses, found ECI elicited 47% more information with high corroboration rates
Is the cognitive interview used?
Clarke found little evidence of it taking place
- some techniques were used
- time consuming
- difficult to explain to the witness
