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How Accurate Are Eyewitnesses

Along with these guidelines there are other strategies that suggest that law enforcement agents should inform the witness that there is a chance that the suspect is not included in the line up. Additionally during line-ups misidentification rates increase about 42% when the witness is not told that the suspect is not included in the line up. (Loftus and Palmer 1974) This guideline helps reduce misidentification in line-ups to prevent the witness from assuming guilt in the suspect that he/she believes closely resembles the perpetrator. Additionally, line-ups should be sequential and law enforcement agents should avoid increasing the confidence of eyewitnesses because as proven in other studies eyewitness confidence can dramatically affect the outcome of a trial. The guidelines suggested in this study help to eliminate faulty eyewitness testimonies, which in turn makes eyewitnesses more creditable.
             According to a study conducted by Johnson (1998) witness problems can hinder criminal trials. In this study 352 participants were shown an unclear surveillance videotape. The videotape showed a person who later shot and killed a security guard. The participants were then asked to identify the man that they had seen on the videotape. This was through the use of a photo spread of five faces that did not include the actual gunman. After the participants picked a suspect, the participants were randomly told that they had either made a correct or incorrect choice or received no feedback. The participants in this study then answered a series of questions. The participants were asked how difficult it was to choose the gunman from the photo, and whether or not the participant had a good view of the gunman. One of the final questions asked how willing the participants would be to testify in court. Even though all of the participants were equally wrong in choosing a photo of the gunman, those that had received positive feedback were the most confident in their decisions.


Essays Related to How Accurate Are Eyewitnesses

1. Eyewitness Memory

Analysis of Eyewitness Memory Journal Articles Eyewitness memory is a valued piece of information when regarding criminal activity, or other types of incidents. Though, some studies show that eyewitness testimonies very in accuracy depending on the person, anxiety level of the situation, or even conversing with other eyewitnesses after the incident. ... Nineteen of the 20 pairs were initially accurate, and therefore was some disagreement. ... These four studies show how eyewitness testimonies can differ, and also, how some studies don't cover all of the facts, especially regarding a...

  • Word Count: 714
  • Approx Pages: 3

2. Psychology of Eyewitness Testimonies

Eyewitness testimony has been a significant discussion in forensic psychology for the past decades. ... Reconstructive memory is a fundamental theory that pursues to demonstrate how memory may be distorted by prior experiences of an individual. ... At the same time, real life cases show that although witnesses know the importance of their recall, their testimonies are not entirely accurate. ... Studies have shown that victims and bystanders tend to pay extra attention to the weapon that is used in a crime, which can later result in an inability to give an accurate recall of the event. ... On t...

  • Word Count: 985
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

3. Eyewitness Identification

What then, if the eyewitness is wrong? ... A better question one may ask is what if eyewitness testimony is simply not consistent. ... To start, we must realize that police lineups are not often documented accurately and therefore leave an opening for many mistakes to occure. ... In an earlier study, Orfield (1987) had found that 76% of police surveyed admitted that police shade the facts in cases regarding probable cause. - With evidence such as this, how then can anyone ever be fully certain that an eyewitness wasn't mistaken or that a police officer isn't shading' the truth ...

  • Word Count: 933
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

4. Eye witness testimony

In other words, instead of remembering an event exactly how it was seen, it will be intermixed with existing knowledge or template and past experiences to form a reconstructed memory. Bartlett conducted many experiments investigating how people tend to remember and recall information. ... This research is important in developing new ways to question eyewitnesses so that there are no wrongly convicted people and that police can gather an accurate account of a crime scene. ... Cognitive interviews rely on all the senses of the witness, asking what they smelt, tasted, heard, and also how the...

  • Word Count: 1854
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

5. To what extent are our memories accurate reconstructions

There is no universally agreed upon paradigm of how the mind, brain or memory work. ... An issue of great controversy in psychological circles is how accurate these retrievals prove to be. ... An area of great controversy in our society is the practice of eyewitness testimonies. ... Factors that influence the accuracy of eyewitness accounts have been of great interest to psychologists. ... Eysenck and Keane (2000) suggested that we have a self-schema that influences how we perceive and recall personal information. ...

  • Word Count: 1705
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

6. Children's Testimonies

Ross et al fifty college students were asked whether they believed a child eyewitness would be more or less likely to render accurate testimony than that of an adult. They asked the college age respondents to consider hypothetical six, eight, twenty one, and seventy four year old eye witnesses, and asked them to rate all eyewitnesses on how accurate their testimony was likely to be. Finally each respondent reported how much weight they would give to the testimony of each eyewitness. ... (Ross et al) From the results it was seen the subjects held a rather negative stereotype of the child e...

  • Word Count: 3085
  • Approx Pages: 12
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

7. Memory and Eye Witness Accounts

The danger of eyewitness testimony is clear; anyone in the world can be accused and convicted of a crime he or she did not commit based solely on the evidence of an eyewitness. ... When people witness a serious automobile accident how effectively can they relay the information they observed? ... How does memory work and why does it so often fail us? ... Are there ways to successfully retrieve accurate information? ... In conclusion, eyewitness accounts are very powerful forms of evidence and are often very rarely accurate. ...

  • Word Count: 1530
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Grade Level: High School

8. War

Unlike the atomic bomb incident, the one in Than Phong has no definite historical proof of what really happened; all that people can rely on is eyewitness accounts. This type of event is the most difficult to get accurate information off because of this. ... This conclusion that I have reached is based on a bunch of eyewitness accounts that were fairly distorted which I have pieced together. ... That's why I chose the Than Phong and Enola Gay incidents to help you realize how important getting the facts straight is. No matter how you put it, history is constantly being made; the questio...

  • Word Count: 748
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

9. How Do The Economic Texts On Slavery Differ From The Narratives On Slavery

How accurate these figures are is an important question. The reader needs to consider how they were constructed and for what purpose. ... This is perhaps an echo of how they were seen at the time: a non-human mode of production. ... They are primary sources, eyewitness accounts of what took place and in this way have a value that the economic texts do not. ... They give the reader a picture of how the master and the slave interacted. ...

  • Word Count: 1309
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Has Bibliography

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