Key Question- Is eye-witness tesimony too unreliable to be used in court as evidence? Flashcards
Four memory theories can be used to suggest why eye-witness testimony is unreliable- what are they?
*Multi-Store Memory Model
*Working Memory Model
*Tulving’s Theory of Long Term Memory
*Reconstructive Memory and Schema Theory
Explain why the Multi-Store Memory Model can show eye-witness testimony’s are unreliable. How can the impact be reduced?
• STM had a duration of 18-30 seconds and a capacity of 3-5 items. A witness can only remember a certain amount of details.
• If an eyewitness does not pay attention to a crime, details may never enter the short-term memory.
• If the eyewitness does not rehearse the events they saw, their testimony may be inaccurate as they will not transfer those details into the long-term memory.
• Some peoples memory’s are much different to others, in a crime situation this could be because of stress or trauma they have gone through and therefore rehearsal can be varied.
• Peterson and Peterson (1959) showed rehearsal was important in retaining trigrams (3 letter combinations) so if eyewitnesses rehearsed events repeatedly they may be able to give a more accurate version of events.
• The impact of inaccurate eye witness testimony could be reduced by engaging in better victim support where they are encouraged to rehearse their recall of the event.
Explain why the Working Memory Model can show eye-witness testimony’s are unreliable. How can the impact be reduced?
• We see from the WMM that dual tasks can overload the memory, this is the same with the speed of the crime in which it happened.
• If an event happens very quickly in front of us, our working memory may become overloaded. This means it won’t remember everything that we see happen. Therefore the eve witness testimony will be inaccurate as only part of the incident is remembered, other parts are forgotten due to an overload of the working memory.
• Evervone processes information at different speeds. This means if we witness an incident, we won’t all take the same amount of information in from the scene.
• The impact of this can be reduced by asking as many witnesses as possible what they saw to piece together a complete image of what happened.
Explain why Tulvings Theory of Long Term Memory can show eye-witness testimony’s are unreliable. How can the impact be reduced?
• Episodic memory (dates) is used to remember and recall via contextual cues from the setting and crime scene. Semantic memory fills in information with a schema to recall details someone has forgotten.
• Episodic recall of a crime is reliant on contextual cues, which are lacking in a police station. This means that eyewitness testimony mav not be an accurate recall of an event, but a reconstruction using information from schemas to fill the gaps - links back with reconstructive memory.
• The impact of inaccurate eye witness testimony could be reduced by interviewing the witness at the scene of the crime or asking questions that use context.
Explain why Bartletts Reconstructive Memory and Schema Theory can show eye-witness testimony’s are unreliable. How can the impact be reduced?
What are the 2 studies you can use to support?
• Use Ronald Cotton or Steve Titus case to support.
• Proposes that memories are reconstructed using pieces of information from the event, but also information from schemas to help recall the event so it is never a true recall of the event. Bartlett came up with 3 strategies that people do when reconstructing memories:
1• Fill in the gaps (confabulate) with information from their schemas.
2• Rationalise things that happened in front of them to help them make sense with schemas and fit with what is familiar.
3• Shortening (omit) details from events that are hard to remember, seem less important or don’t fit with their schemas so memories are shorter.
• Therefore EWT can be very inaccurate.
• To reduce the impact of unreliable eye-witness convictions, EWTs should be used in conjunction with other evidence or multiple eye-witnesses.
What is the additional study by Cohen in 1966 to support?
• “They all look the same” Cross-race Identification Bias.
• Faces are not seen in isolation they are perceived or influenced both by the event itself and by individual schema, social norms and values therefore are stereotyped images.
• Cohen suggested that people find it easier to identify people irom their own race than people trom a different race.
• It is difficult to recognise people out of the context in which you would ordinarily have contact with them.
• Therefore the difference between the actual scene of the crime and an identity parade may be misleading as memory is often cue- or context-dependent.
