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Essay On Eyewitness Testimony

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intro
Cognitive psychology is one of the very important areas in psychology. It is concerned with mental processes, such as how people think, learn, perceive and remember. In certain situations, an individual’s memory can seal someone’s faith. If a person has been present to a crime, their perception and their memory are seen as crucial to identifying the person who has committed the crime. Before DNA analysis found its way into courtrooms in 1986, eyewitness testimony was seen as the most persuasive form of evidence. Despite the fact that there have been many advances in technology of forensic science, eyewitness testimony is still the most persuasive form of evidence. People believe an eyewitness 80% of the time. We have troubles identifying an accurate (believed 68% of the time) and inaccurate testimonies (believed 70% of the time).
Even though it is the most persuasive form of evidence, it is not the most accurate form of evidence. A lot research has been done based on the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies, Buckhout has done a study in which he broadcasted a mock crime on the TV newscast, 2145 people have called in to describe the …show more content…

A person would be asked to identify a person in a line up or to choose among the mug shots. In 2000, Smith, Lindsey and Pryke have shown how identifications that are made more quickly are more accurate that those that take longer to make. The results of this study have been confirmed in 2002 by Dunning and Peretta. They have shown that identifications made within 10-12 seconds are the most accurate. IDs made in less than 12 seconds were shown to be 90% accurate, while the IDs made in over 12 seconds were shown to be 50% accurate. It has also been found that there are different strategies that witnesses use to identify the perpetrator, Dunning & Stern (1994) have found the 2 strategies and identified them as automatic recognition and the process of

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This week’s topic was very interesting to learn about how important eyewitnesses can be when a crime and accidents do occur. In the case that was presented in the 60-minute segment of Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson is exactly how legal system can fail us when it comes to the eyewitnesses’ identification testimony and how a person’s perception and memory can be altered. The aspect of psychology and law research from this week’s course material is most relevant to the topic of perception and memory. The memory has different stages the first is encoding the process of entering perception into memory.

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Effects of post identification feedback on eyewitness identification and nonidentification confidence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 334–346. Lindsay, R., & Wells, G. (1985). Improving eyewitness identification from lineups: Simultaneous versus sequential lineup presentations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 556–564.

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Part One is very informational and contains the bulk of the book’s research. The information was presented in a thesis format; Loftus stated a claim and then supported her ideas with research and quotations from experts in the field of law and memory. Part One is helpful for psychologists, attorneys, and interested law people. The major principles concerning the errors in eyewitness testimony are supported by research and are accepted by psychologists (Kassin, Ellsworth, & Smith, 1989). Part One will contribute to the future of psychology by showcasing how the memory works and the different ways it is manipulated and changed: this will allow jurors and lawyers to become more wary when dealing with a traumatized

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Furthermore, there can be several factors at play when a wrongful conviction occurs and each case is unique. Three of the more common and detrimental factors that will be explored in this essay are eyewitness error, the use of jailhouse informants and professional and institutional misconduct. Firstly, eyewitness testimony can be a major contributor to a conviction and is an important factor in wrongful conviction (Campbell & Denov, 2016, p. 227). Witness recall and, frankly, the human emory are not as reliable as previously thought. In fact there has been much research showing the problems with eyewitness testimony such as suggestive police interviewing, unconscious transference, and malleability of confidence (Campbell & Denov, 2016, p.227).

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