Eyewitness Testimony

Kaitlyn Kennedy

Steele/ Final Paper

November 23, 2014

Comp130

Eyewitness Testimony

        Imagine an intense robbery taking place at a grocery store and there are many customers around witnessing it. Later, they all are called in to discuss the terrible sight they were a part of and to describe the characteristics of the robber. Based off of what they witnessed and said to the law officers, a decision would have to be made on who the “bad guy” is. At the end of the trail, Alex Williams was the one found guilty. According to Psychology Dictionary the definition of eyewitness testimony is “is testable evidence which is typically given under oath in a court of law by an individual who will offer their recollection of a specific event or timeline of events in relation to the case.” Psychologists are trying to help police officers and juries rethink the methods of eyewitness identification. The reliability of eyewitness testimony is a trending topic in today’s society. It has been studied and researched for the past decade by researchers and specialists all over the country. The main focus of this is to discuss what eyewitness testimony is, the main factors that come into play when using the method, the solutions to help enhance identification errors. This topic is interesting because not many people take into consideration how important it is and how and when we use eyewitness testimony in pivotal situations. Many of the results discussed will come as shocking to some individuals.

        To start off with some background, it is mostly all about memory when recalling something that you witnessed, right? People have too much faith in the precision of eyewitnesses and their stories. Human memory has been studied to be very fallible. There are many different types of memory but the main one used with dealing with eyewitness verification is long term memory. Frederic Bartlett came up with this theory called reconstructive memory. One of the main points to understand from this theory is that most people think memory works like a videotape, when you see something it’s like recording information and when you remember things it like hitting the rewind button. However, memory is not like a videotape at all. Everyone doesn’t store information exactly how it was presented to them9. We store things on how it makes the most since to us individually. The technical term is called “schemas”, it’s a unit we use to organize certain information. Bartlett’s reconstructive process goes hand in hand with long term memory because your memory can reconstruct the recollections you have had in past life experiences. When people experience different things in life they tend to form all kinds of features in their mind to help enhance their remembrance. Bartlett’s theory, is very pivotal when trying to understand the eyewitness testimony method. Since all of the features are scattered through the brain, they are not all stored in one place, so this can lead to errors when using eyewitness testimony.

        Other problems with faulty memory include “event factors” and “witness factors.” The factors that relate to the event can include anything from time, speed, thunder, etc. Witness factors are more personal/emotional, such as, strain, fear, depression. Memory tends to gently fade over time, but it can be affected by more things or people that are involved. People are not perfect, everyone seems to forget things over time or can’t recall details of a situation dead on.  All of these factors are significant and need to be taken into consideration when making a critical decision like giving information for witnessing a crime.  

        As I stated earlier that might be surprising, misidentification plays a huge roll in investigation and the prosecution of criminals all over the world. An article written by Erica A. Nichols states, that there are four main factors that can help determine the accuracy of what the individual witnessed which include, the level of stress or anxiety, the presence of a weapon, cross-racial identifications, and reconstructive memory. When something happens in your life that causes stress or strain you are mostly likely to remember it because it made you feel a distinct way. For example, if you’re at a high level a stress, research shows that the accuracy of your memory is very close to the actual event that took place. When a weapon is used or shown in an incident, the individual is most likely to focus more on the weapon rather than the person holding it or other details. For example, two clips were shown of a boy and his family at a restaurant. In one clip the boy was holding a gun at the table, in the other he was holding a checkbook. Individuals that saw the first clip with the gun, were more focused on the weapon more than anything else. Cross-racial identification occurs when the witness and culprit are different races. Some studies have concluded that misidentifications are shown more in other-race rather than the same-race. In other words, witnesses are more prone to identify people of their own race. The phrase “they all look alike” get thrown around a lot when deal with this. Again, reconstructive memory comes in play on how our memory doesn’t work like a videotape, rather it fits information into schemas (Saul McLeod.) Everyone has their own way of storing information that makes the most sense to them personally. So how do we fix this problem?