What is eyewitness memory psychology?
Eyewitness memory is a person’s episodic memory for a crime or other dramatic event that he or she has witnessed. It can also refer to an individual’s memory for a face, where they are required to remember the face of their perpetrator, for example.
How does memory affect eyewitness testimony?
Memory doesn’t record our experiences like a video camera. Eyewitness testimony is a potent form of evidence for convicting the accused, but it is subject to unconscious memory distortions and biases even among the most confident of witnesses. So memory can be remarkably accurate or remarkably inaccurate.
Is eyewitness memory accurate?
The same is true of eyewitness memory: memory can be contaminated with the trace of an innocent person, but under proper testing conditions, eyewitness evidence is highly reliable. Subsequent memory tests, including the dramatic one that occurs in court in front of the jury, constitute contaminated evidence.
What factors affect eyewitness memory?
The race of the witness/victim compared to the race of the aggressor is a significant factor in assessing the accuracy of eyewitness identification. Even biological factors, such as age, race, and gender contribute to how our memory recalls certain events and details.
Why is the study of eyewitness memory important?
Loftus stated that eye witness memory was important because it allows an additional point of view and also measures how much of the testimony is reliable. It also measures how much of it can be trusted. He states “Our theories should be able to encompass such socially important forms of memory.
What 4 factors affect the reliability of eyewitnesses?
What factors affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony?
- Memory reconstruction. It is a common misconception that the human memory works like a video recording, allowing people to replay events in their minds just as they occurred.
- Lineup issues.
- Visual characteristics.
- Anxiety and stress.
- Obtaining legal representation.
How do you fix eyewitness misidentification?
Ensure that police put in writing why a suspect is believed to be guilty of a specific crime before placing him or her in a lineup. Use a lineup with several people instead of what is known as a showup only featuring a single suspect. Avoid repetition of a lineup with the same suspect and same eyewitness.
What role does the research of Loftus suggest about EWT?
Loftus’ research suggested that EWT was generally inaccurate and therefore, unreliable. may not represent real life because people don’t take the experiment seriously and/or are not emotionally aroused in the way that they would in a real car accident.