Lecture 5 part 1 Flashcards
Eyewitness memory
- Use of our memory when one becomes a victim, witness, or bystander to a crime
- Often asked to provide description of perpetrator and make identification from a lineup
Recall memory
- Reporting details of previously encountered event
- Descriptions used to narrow down the suspect pool, ascertain what happen
Recognition memory
Determining whether previously seen item or person is the one being viewed
Why care about memory errors in justice system
- May impede utility of an investigation
- Police may apprehend innocent suspect
- Misidentification leading cause of wrongful convition
- Eyewitness evidence highly persuasive and relied upon in court
Studying eyewitness issues in lab studies
- Takes place in lab
- controlled environment
- Easy to conduct
- Lack ecological validity
- Most common study method
Studying eyewitness issues in field studies
- Real world setting
- Harder to conduct
- More applicable to the real world
- Less common study method
Exposure phase of lab study
- Participants exposed to an event (crime)
- Unaware that they will witness crime
- Unaware they will later have to describe and identify
Description phase of lab study
Asked to describe crime and perpetrator
Delay phase of lab study
Minutes, hours, days
Identification phase of lab study
Identify from lineup
Phases of lab study
- Exposure
- Description
- Delay
- Identification
Estimator variable
- Present at time of crime
- Cannot be changed
- Legal system does not have control
- Influence on memory has to be estimated
System variable
- Can be manipulated to increase or decrease accuracy
- Legal system has control
Independent variables in eyewitness studies
- Estimator variable
- System variable
Event recall
- Amount of information
- Type of information
- Accuracy
Perpetrator recall
- Amount of information
- Type of information
- Accuracy
Recognition of perpetrator
Accuracy of decision (identification in lineup)
Open ended recall
- Free narrative
- Witness asked to recall everything they remember
- Interviewer does not ask questions
Direct question recall
Witnesses are asked series of specific questions about crime or perpetrator
Dependent variables in eyewitness studies
- Event recall
- Perpetrator recall
- Recognition of perpetrator
Misinformation effect
Phenomenon by which a witness is presented with inaccurate information and they are more likely to incorporate that into a recall task
Misinformation acceptance hypothesis
Witness guesses what the officer wants the response to be
Source misattribution hypothesis
Remember information correctly but not remember the source correctly
Memory impairment hypothesis
Original memory replaced with new, incorrect information
Misinformation effect most effective when
- Dealing with peripheral details
- Provided after a delay
- Provided just before test
- Comes from high status source
