L26 - L27 Eyewitness Testimony Flashcards
Eye witness Testimony
EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY is evidence given by witnesses of a crime typically in the form of a verbal account or personal identification.
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Relies on the ACCURACY of human memory
- Unfortunately, human memory is imperfect, not permanent, and forgetful.
- In 75% of wrongful convictions, EYEWITNESS MISIDENTIFICATION is the leading factor.
- Verdicts are significantly influenced by eyewitnesses.
- Mistaken ID’s happens all the time.
- Even so, nothing holds as much weight with the JURY (Except for a “‘smoking gun’)
- The DANGER of eyewitness testimony is that anyone could be convicted of a crime that you did NOT commit due to false eyewitness testimony.
- People believe that memory is perfect and so they believe the witness. Memories are fallible.
RESEARCH into EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY
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1910s – Psychologists investigate the cognitive process as it relates to legal issues – looking at suggestibility, confessions, hypnosis, memory, etc.
- ALFRED BINET– was the first to advocate for the study of testimony based on eyewitness reports which he believed were strongly affected by suggestive or leading types of questions.
- 1970s – cognitive and social psychologists finally showed renewed interest in eyewitness testimony.
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1974, BUCKHAUSER staged a mock assault in front of 141 unsuspecting onlookers. 7 weeks later, these students were asked to pick out the perpetrator from a group of 6 photos.
- 60% were wrong – and 2/3 of those who were wrong chose an innocent bystander as the attacker.
- In a follow-up, he got an NYC news station to broadcast a staged mugging that was followed by a 6-person line-up.
- of the 2,145 people who called in, 2,000 mistakenly identified the mugger in the line-up.
- These findings have been reaffirmed over time.
Memory
- The capacity and fallibility of human memory were one of the first areas of investigative research in psychology.
EBBINGHAUS – described a three-stage model of memory.
- ACQUISITION – when memories are formed or acquired.
- RETENTION – holding that information in storage.
- RETRIEVAL – the ability to pull that information out of storage and into use.
Contemporary research has moved past this simplistic view of memory, but modern research continues to look into the accuracy of eyewitness testimony is focused on these stages:
- The initial observation of the incident. (ACQUISITION)
- The period between seeing and recalling the incident (RETENTION)
- being able to give testimony or make the identification (RETRIEVAL)
ENCODING (ACQUISITION) – When you acquire information.
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YERKES-DODSON LAW – (Robert Yerkes and John Dodson in 1908) says that performance increases with physiological arousal, but only to a point. When levels of arousal become too high, performance decreases.
- The process is often illustrated graphically as a bell-shaped curve which increases and then decreases with higher levels of arousal.
STORAGE (RETENTION) – Info turns into a memory.
- Retention of ENCODED information.
- EBBINGHAUS showed that EARLY MEMORY LOSS is VERY RAPID.
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LIPTON 1977 illustrated this by showing a film of a crime to an audience who did not know they were going to serve as eyewitnesses.
- Those questioned 1-week later retained 18% less information than those questioned immediately.
RETRIEVAL – The ability to recall memory for later use.
- Language influences the retrieval of stimulus information.
- Participants of an ELIZABETH LOFTUS study were shown a film of a car accident and then asked a series of follow-up questions.
- Some of the participants were asked how fast the cars were going when they “SMASHED” into each other and they reported 41 mph.
- Other participants were asked how fast the cars were going when they “CONTACTED” into each other and they reported 31 mph.
- This suggests that how we ask a question can influence how people answer.
- Thus, questioning procedures should be eliminated as much as possible to limit their effects on eyewitness accuracy.
- Participants of an ELIZABETH LOFTUS study were shown a film of a car accident and then asked a series of follow-up questions.
Yerkes-Dodson Law
An empirical relationship between pressure and performance, originally developed by Robert Yerkes and John Dodson in 1908.
The law dictates that performance increases with physiological arousal, but only to a point. When levels of arousal become too high, performance decreases.
The process is often illustrated graphically as a bell-shaped curve which increases and then decreases with higher levels of arousal.
Witness Accuracy Impediments, Cognitive Interviews, Own-Race Bias
What Negatively Affects Witness Accuracy?
- Disguised perpetrator
- Intoxicated witness
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Interviewer Interruption
- Repeatedly preventing a witness from telling their story (or continually stopping them), can interfere with the individual’s ability to recall accurately.
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COGNITIVE INTERVIEWS are an example of a system variable that can actually aid a witness recall correctly.
- First, have the witness tell you their story.
- The interviewer interrupts as little as possible so the witness can dictate the subject matter and the sequence.
- No interference!
- The interviewer could also ask a witness to mentally reconstruct the content that existed during the incident, and only then would the interviewer can then ask them to provide a detailed account of the incident.
- So the interviewer guides the witnesses’ recall rather than pelting them with questions and interruptions.
- Witnesses can also be asked to focus on specific parts of the event, such as the suspect’s face.
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Cross-Racial Identification
- OWN RACE BIAS – Other races all look the same
Lineups (Double-Blind, Simultaneous, Sequential, Photo)
LINEUP – The suspect is placed in a line with other “fillers” or “distractions” and the witness is asked to identify the suspect.
- People in a lineup should look reasonably similar to each other so there is no “RELATIVE” effect (see down below).
- Size of the lineup matters – should be about 6 people in a live lineup or 7 photos in a photo lineup.
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INSTRUCTION BIAS can be a problem in a lineup. Often the witness is told that the perpetrator is definitely in the lineup. This causes the witness to force themselves to come up with an ID, decreasing the accuracy of their choice, causing FALSE IDENTIFICATION.
- What should happen is that the witness should be told that the believed perpetrator may not be int the lineup at all.
- LINEUP BEST PRACTICES
- Instructions should be standardized.
- The procedure regarding the lineup should be clearly explained to the witness.
- Should have a translator
- The administrator has to be CLEAR that the suspect might NOT be in the lineup
- Once an ID has been made, ask the witness, HOW SURE ARE YOU?
- Use SEQUENTIAL, DOUBLE-BLIND Lineups.
- Use at least 8 Photos in a photo lineup.
- Don’t interfere or lead.
In the 1990s, recommendations were adopted by the justice department:
- Officers should use open-ended questions (Avoid leading questions)
- The administrator of a lineup must indicate the offender might not be in the
- The administrator has to be CLEAR that the suspect might NOT be in the lineup
- Once an ID has been made, ask the witness, HOW SURE ARE YOU?
Types of Presentations and Presentation Bias:
DOUBLE-BLIND LINEUP – The police officer that is moderating the lineup is not aware of who the suspect is or who the fillers are. This prevents the cop from being able to give the witness hints as to who the intended suspect is.
SIMULTANEOUS PRESENTATION – The witness sees all fillers and suspects at the same time. This is the traditional way.
PHOTO – The witness is asked to choose the suspect out of an assortment of pictures.
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Witnesses typically choose the photo of the person who most looks like the perpetrator RELATIVE to the OTHER MEMBERS of the group. So, if the perpetrator was black and the photos have 5 white guys and one black guy, the witness would choose the black guy simply because of his RELATIVE likeness to the perpetrator. This is obviously no good.
- One way to remedy this is to use a sequential presentation.
SEQUENTIAL PRESENTATION – The witness makes decisions about each individual suspect before the next suspect is shown and they do not know how many suspects there are.
- The benefit is that a witness is LESS LIKELY to make a RELATIVE error, such as what happens during a simultaneous presentation.
Leading Causes of Wrongful Convictions (Eyewitness Misidentification, Invalid Forensic Science, False Confessions, Snitches)
EYEWITNESS MISIDENTIFICATION led to 75% of 240+ wrongful convictions in the US which were subsequently overturned by post-conviction DNA evidence
- Leading cause of wrongful convictions
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Invallid or improper forensic science played a role in approximately 50% of wrongful convictions that were later overturned by DNA testing.
- SEROLOGY refers to blood typing and sometimes it’s improperly conducted or inaccurately conveyed in trial testimony.
- False confessions and incriminating statements – lead to wrongful convictions in approximately 25% of cases
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Snitches – jailhouse snitches contribute to wrongful convictions in 15-19% of cases.
- often false because the snitch had something to gain from snitching – so their testimony is unreliable
OWN RACE BIAS – People or less able to recognize faces of a different race than their own.
- About 40% of eyewitness miss identifications involve cross-racial identification.
James Bain (Innocent Man Convicted)
In 1974, 19-year-old JAMES BAIN was wrongfully convicted of burglary and the kidnapping and rape of a 9 yr old boy. Bain was brought to trial and sentenced to life before forensic data could be finished. 35 years later in 2009, Bain was exonerated due to DNA evidence.
Contributing factors:
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Improper photo lineup – The lineup was simultaneous (should have been sequential presentation) with only ONE other person having ‘sideburns’ other than James Bain, who had previously been described as “having sideburns”.
- Was told to “Pick Bain out of the lineup” – should have instead been told that the suspect might not actually be in the lineup.
- Eyewitness misidentification – tried to roughly describe the perpetrator and the victim’s uncle said, “That sounds like Jimmy Bain” and so Bain became the primary suspect.
- Misleading forensic evidence – Bain’s Blood Type did NOT match the evidence, but that was ignored. Also, the DNA analysis had not been completed when the trial took place.
With the help of the “Innocence Project”, who were eventually granted access to post-conviction DNA data, showed that BAin was innocent. He was exonerated and released after spending 35 years in prison.
False Confessions, Misclassification Error, Coercion Error, Contamination Error
About 25% of wrongful convictions overturned by DNA evidence in U.S. have involved some form of FALSE CONFESSIONS.
- AND those are ONLY the cases that were overturned on DNA evidence. Imagine how many others there were that were NOT overturned.
Contributing factors:
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MISCLASSIFICATION ERROR – When police wrongly decide that an innocent person is guilty. Once specific suspects are targeted, police interviews and interrogations are thereafter guided by the presumption of guilt.
- THIS IS ALWAYS THE FIRST FACTOR LEADING TO ALL FALSE CONFESSIONS AND CONVICTIONS!!
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COERCION ERROR – The primary cause of police-induced false confession is psychologically coercive police methods.
- Psycho coercion can be defined in 2 ways:
- Use of techniques that are coercive in psychology and law
- They use techniques to make the suspect feel like he has no choice but to comply, such as deprivations of (food, water, sleep, access to bathroom facilities). Usually, these lead to the same result.
- CONTAMINATION ERROR – When police try to influence a suspects confession (POSTADMISSION NARRATIVE)
FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO FALSE CONFESSIONS:
- LAW ENFORCEMENT INTIMIDATION of the suspect.
- THREAT OF FORCE by law-enforcement during the interrogation
- COMPROMISED REASONING ABILITY of the suspect that’s due to either exhaustion, stress, hunger, substance abuse, mental limitations, limited education, or most likely some combination of those things.
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DEVIOUS INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES
- (Ex: giving untrue statements about the presence of incriminating evidence.)
- SUSPECT’S FEAR that failure to confess will yield in HARSHER PUNISHMENT or just prolong the interrogation.
HOW TO PREVENT FALSE CONFESSIONS
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ELECTRONICALLY RECORD the entire interrogation.
- Provides protection for both the officer conducting the interrogation and the suspect
- Only way to create an OBJECTIVE RECORD of what’s happening.
- Creates a DETERRENT against improper or coercive techniques
- MANDATORY INSTRUCTIONS should be given to the JURY directing them to DISREGARD any confession if they believe is COERCED.
Encoding (Acquisition of memory)
ENCODING – the acquisition of memory – is affected by:
- the number of times you’ve been exposed to something.
- length of exposure to an event.
- How complex was the event?
- How meaningful was the event to the witness?
- Was there stress involved?
- What biases did the witness have?
- What type of crime was committed – violent? Nonviolent?
- People encode not necessarily what is happening in front of them, but rather that which they are paying attention to.
Effect of CRIME TYPE on memory:
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Violent crimes may narrow victims focus
- Draws attention to central details (like the face of a rapist)
- Reducing peripheral detail reliability
- INCREASED VIOLENCE leads to decreases in recall.
- But this is not consistent across all studies. lab studies show poor eyewitness recall but ‘field’ studies show that eyewitness accounts can be accurate.
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WEAPON EFFECT – visual attention to the weapon detracts from the focus on all other details about the perpetrator and the environment.
- Others have found that any ODD or SURPRISING object can draw attention away from the perpetrator and adversely affect memory.
Other factors influencing encoding
- Event complexity & meaningfulness
- Frequency & length of exposure
- Witness’s expectations & prejudices
- STRESS (Yerkes-Dodson Law)
Eyewitness testimony is affected by a number of different variables:
Retention (Storage of Memory), Forgetting Curve
RETENTION – the storage of memory.
- Memory is subject to external influences
- Discussion with other witnesses
- Exposure to media accounts
- Passage of time
Researcher ELIZABETH LOFTUS shows that during the RETENTION stage, witness memory can be subject to many influences such as:
- Talking to other witnesses.
- Seeing media accounts
- Also, memories become LESS ACCURATE over time.
- Every time you access a memory, you change it just a little bit before it is restored to long-term memory
- So, the time interval between Encoding and Retrieving of eyewitness testimony affects the accuracy of retrieval.
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MALPASS & DIVINE 1981 chose a short 3-day interval and a long 5-month interval to test subject ability to describe a face.
- They found that after 3 days there were no false IDs, but after 5 months, the rate of false IDs had risen.
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KRAFKA & PENROD 1985 reported a similar finding with a much shorter time intervals in the hours.
- The longer the delay, the worse the ability to remember.
FORGETTING CURVE (HERMANN EBBINGHAUS) – Also known as an ACCURACY CURVE that refers to STORAGE DECAY Just as there is a LEARNING CURVE, which shows the rate of learning, there is also a FORGETTING CURVE, which shows the rate of forgetting over time.
- Learn something new and we have HIGH levels of accuracy.
- But this decreases over time.
Retrieval
RETRIEVAL – the pulling of memories out of storage for use.
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Memory accuracy is influenced by:
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Situational variables
- Type of Crime
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Individual variables
- Witnesses age
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Social variables
- Status of the interrogator
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Interrogation variables
- Type of questioning used? What was the style of the interrogator?
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Situational variables
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So the question is, can we improve the process?
- We know that hypnosis does NOT help.
- Reinstating the context of the incidence may help.
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Using better recall aids including better lineups are helpful.
- e.g. photofit & identity parades
- Must avoid intentionally leading questioning
- Leading questions can greatly bias the eyewitness recall.
- Even subtle wording changes influence recall.
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Leading questions to an eyewitness:
- …were more likely to influence PERIPHERAL details, which makes sense since those were the details that received the least focus by the eyewitness.
- …can introduce new information activating the wrong schemas – ways that people remember, and so so they actually unintentionally fabricate details in their mind.
- Question structure and wording can influence eyewitness testimony.
- Errors can occur at any of the three stages of memory – Acquisition, Retention, Retrieval.
- Acquisition = Encoding
- Storage = Retension
- Retrieval = getting that information when you need it.
- Information is encoded best when moderately aroused – YERKES-DODSON LAW
- ELIZABETH LOFTUS – “smashed” group was more likely to describe broken glass at the car crash, when in fact, there was none.
Strength and Validity of Evidence, NARBY, CUTLER, & PENROD (1996)
NARBY, CUTLER, & PENROD (1996) – created 3 categories of witness-related evidence that’s based on RELIABILITY and the magnitude of the effect that these factors have on the ability to remember witness-related testimony.
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Reliable & Strong Factors – show consistent effects on eyewitness memory.
- Ex: adult memory is better than child memory
- Ex: Disguises affect the accuracy of memory.
- EX: Length of exposure to the incident.
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Reliable & Moderate Factors – Show effects in some studies & not others
- weapon focus
- There appears to be a correlation between the confidence of the witness about their memory and the accuracy of their memory.
- Ex: Looking at a lineup, if a person says they are 50% sure about their choice in the lineup, they will usually be less accurate than someone who is 100% sure about their choice.
- Weapon focus and seriousness of the crime.
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Weak or Non-influential Factors – have little or no effect on the accuracy of the witness testimony.
- Witness gender, personality
- Intelligence
Witnesses and Juries
- Juries must judge the credibility & truth of the witness testimony
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Arriving at a just result is challenging because:
- WITNESSES may be UNAWARE of inaccuracies in their own memory.
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ELIZABETH LOFTUS – researcher into memory and False memory – She demonstrated the effect of 3rd party introduction of false facts into memory.
- Conducted an experiment where individuals were shown a car with a YIELD sign or a STOP sign and then they asked the participant s questions falsely introducing the term “STOP SIGN” if it was the condition with the YIELD SIGN. They also did the opposite, using the term “YIELD SIGN” when there was a STOP SIGN.
- The results were that the participants reported seeing a FALSE IMAGE, which was created by the FALSELY SUGGESTED TERM, rather than what they actually saw.
- Our brain’s memories are incomplete and filled with GAPS. So our brain fills in those GAPS with whatever the most likely thing that should be there.
- So what is original memory? The problem is that the INTERPRETATION of information occurs at EVERY STEP in the formation of memory. That means there is room for distortion.
- Rarely do we tell a story that is exactly the same as it was the prior time
- it is tailored to the person we are telling it to. And so telling that story adds another layer of distortion. In fact, whenever we use a memory, we change it at least a little bit.
- Even the sincerest memories can be completely wrong.
- Conducted an experiment where individuals were shown a car with a YIELD sign or a STOP sign and then they asked the participant s questions falsely introducing the term “STOP SIGN” if it was the condition with the YIELD SIGN. They also did the opposite, using the term “YIELD SIGN” when there was a STOP SIGN.
Influence of Schemas
SCHEMA – structures in our mind that help us organize and interpret our knowledge and assumptions and provide a framework for future understanding.
- Schemas influence memory storage & retrieval
- Witnesses to crime FILTER the information that they acquire through their SCHEMAS, biasing and DISTORTING the information.
MEMORY DISTORTIONS may result from:
- Past experiences can COLOR the way we see and remember things, especially our perceived STEREOTYPES and our ASSUMPTIONS about what usually occurs – especially our stereotypes & beliefs about crime & criminals.
RECALL (RETRIEVAL) takes place in a different context from where the ACQUISITION of the information took place. That can inhibit your ability to recall the original situation.
ELIZABETH LOFTUS – our TRUTH is actually a SUBJECTIVE INTERPRETATION of reality.
Eyewitness Misidentification (How to Improve ID)
EYEWITNESS MISIDENTIFICATION:
- The LEADING FACTOR in wrongful convictions (contributes to 75% of wrongful convictions in the US that are overturned through post-conviction DNA evidence.
- Eyewitness identifications remain among the most commonly used and compelling evidence brought against criminal defendants.
- Additional eyewitness identification problems include:
- …a standard lineup where the lineup administrator knows who the suspect is. Administrators often provide clues, either unintentional or otherwise, to eyewitnesses about which person to pick from the lineup.
- The Standard Lineup (either Photo or Live) are SIMULTANEOUS, which leads eyewitnesses to choose the lineup member based on how closely they resemble the perpetrator RELATIVE to the other lineup members.
- The witness usually assumes that the perpetrator is actually in the lineup and so they MUST choose one. Instead, they should be told that the perpetrator might NOT actually be in the lineup.
HOW TO IMPROVE EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION:
- Use a DOUBLE-BLIND approach where even the administrator of the lineup does NOT KNOW which member of the lineup is the suspect or even if the suspect is in the lineup at all.
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STANDARDIZED INSTRUCTIONS (preferably read from a script) should be issued by the lineup administrator to the eyewitness. This helps prevent the eyewitness from looking to the lineup administrator for feedback during the identification process.
- One directive MUST BE that the suspect may or may not be present in the lineup so they feel no pressure to choose someone if they are not sure.
- The lineup should NOT draw any unreasonable attention to the suspect’s appearance and the suspect should not be so different from the others in a live lineup that it draws unnecessary attention to him.
- The appearance of the ‘Fillers’ in a live lineup for the non-suspect photos should be selected on the basis of their resemblance to the description that’s provided by the witness, NOT their resemblance to the police suspect.
- After identifying a witness in a lineup, the eyewitness should provide a statement in their own words that articulate their level of confidence in the identification. This is important because the confidence of the witness is highly correlated with the accuracy of their selection.
- Finally, SEQUENTIAL LINEUPS should be used to eliminate judgments RELATIVE to the other lineup members.
