Eyewitness Testimony I

Question 1

justice system

Answer 1

• flow of processes

- human error is inevitable

Question 2

weapon focus effect

Answer 2

• attention narrows on weapon (or any object pointed at you) and makes it harder to recall the face of the offender

Question 3

witness reliability??

Answer 3

• we tend to recall on the basis of what we expect
• is persuasive but incredibly unreliable
  
  • no reason to doubt a witnesses testimony therefor very persuasive

Question 4

the innocent project statistics

Answer 4

• 337 DNA exonerations to date
• 14 average number of years served
• 140 real perpetrators were found

Question 5

misidentification

Answer 5

• misidentification was the greatest contributing factor to wrongful convictions
• played a role in more than 70% of overturned convictions

Question 6

validity

Answer 6

• that the testing instrument measures what it is meant to be measuring
• identification is valid when it is “made from the witness memory of the offender at the time of the event, and not on the basis of extraneous factors”

Question 7

reliability

Answer 7

• that the results are consistent
• the identification of the accused would be reliable when the accused is consistently identified as the perpetrator of the crime

Question 8

ecological validity

Answer 8

• the extent to which the findings of research are able to be generalisable to real-life settings
• university students do not represent the wider demographic because they typically come from a different socioeconomic background

Question 9

memory

Answer 9

people fill in the gaps within their memory with what they think/expected happened

Question 10

attributional bias

Answer 10

a cognitive bias that refers to the systematic errors made when people evaluate or try to find reasons for their own and others’ behaviours. People constantly make attributions—judgements and assumptions about why people behave in certain ways

Question 11

schemas

Answer 11

• cognitive systems that help us organise and make sense of information
• because of the sheer volume of information we are exposed to we categorise information (e.g. animals, people, furniture)
• sometimes we develop faulty categories - called stereotypes

Question 12

stereotypes

Answer 12

• generalisations about members of social groups

- resistant to new or inconsistent information

Question 13

Allport & Postman (1947)

Answer 13

• showed participants a drawing of serval people on a train with several white people, one white man holding a razor, and one black man
• only the first person saw the drawing and then verbally described it from one participant to the next
• the final description of the drawing had changed to show the black man holding the razor

Question 14

estimator and system variables

Answer 14

two variables that influence recall ability and accuracy

Question 15

system variables

Answer 15

• system variables influence retrieval abilities

- e.g. line up instructions, methods of questioning witnesses

Question 16

estimator variables:

Answer 16

the ability of a witness to accurately observe an event is influenced by the characteristics of the event itself

Question 17

event factors

Answer 17

• lighting conditions
  
  • takes about 15 seconds for our eyes to adjust from a sudden switch of light (e.g. dark to light)
• exposure time (duration of the event)
  
  • the longer an event is observed the more accurate the memory will be
• frequency
  
  • the more time someone is exposed to a stimulus, the more accurate the memory will be
• violence levels
  
  • increased violence reduce recall and accuracy

Question 18

witness factors

Answer 18

characteristics associated with the witness may influence the reliability of eyewitness memory

e. g.,
- alcohol and drugs impair the ability to encode information
- attention more likely to be focused on a weapon if present
- expectations
- expectations are biased that influences how we perceive environmental information;

Question 19

momentary expectations

Answer 19

we see what we expect at the moment - we tend to see & hear what we expect to see and hear

Question 20

cultural expectations

Answer 20

beliefs held by a large number of people within a given culture

Question 21

expectations from past experience

Answer 21

we expect what we have previously experienced

Question 22

personal prejudices

Answer 22

when watching a football game, people see their own team as victims of aggression rather than the initiators of aggression

Question 23

experimental jury vs real

Answer 23

experimental jury get a summary (7~ pages) whereas real jury sit in on the trial - very different experiences

Question 24

race & witnesses

Answer 24

• witnesses are more likely to identify someone from their own race than a different race
• witnesses find it difficult to ID someone from another race

Question 25

perceptual expertise theory

Answer 25

we process features simultaneously when looking at those of our own race (e.g. nose and eyes at once) but individually in people of another race

Question 26

social cognitive theory

Answer 26

• people process and encode other category-specific features (features available to all people in that racial group)
• people encode their own race features identify specific features (features that distinguish one person from another)
• e.g. seeing one race as all looking the same