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Memory may be reconstructive, but that doesn't mean it's unreliable

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Memory may be reconstructive, but that doesn't mean it's unreliable

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Often, eyewitnesses know the offender and therefore don't need to refer to their schemas.

RapreCrisis - 90% of rapists are known to their victims - the eyewitness' ability to identify the assailant is like to be reliable.

Yuille and Cutshall - when research is conducted with eyewitnesses to real life crimes, rather than laboratory-based crimes , their accuracy is much higher.

It memory was reconstructive you would have expected eyewitness recollections to have faded over time and to have been susceptible to leading questions - this was not the case.

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Schemas are used to help us process information- however they may distort our memory of an event. - Our schemas may become incorporated into our recall therefore leading to inaccurate recall.

Yarmey (1993) - 240 students looked at videos of 30 males and classified them as 'good' or 'bad' guys. - All agreed which proved that their were similarities in their 'good/bad guy' schemas.

Any preconceived ideas about the facial features of criminals may influence decision making when looking at suspects of a crime - eyewitnesses may not select the actual criminal, but the person who looks most like a criminal.

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Loftus (1979)- showed participants pictures of a man stealing a large bight red purse from a woman's bag.

Participants were then given false information, one supporting that the purse was brown.

Participants were wrong about smaller details however 98% correctly remembered that the purse was red.

Suggests that eyewitness recollection of key details may be resistant to distortion from post-event information.

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Information 'suggested' after the event often becomes incorporated into the original memory.

Loftus and Zanni (1975) - 7% of those asked 'Did you see a broken headlight?' reported seeing one, where as 17% of those asked ' Did you see the broken headlight' responded yes.

Clearly demonstrates that subtle changes in the wording used in questions can influence the recollection of a memory. - therefore those being interviewed may have distorted memories.

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Ethical, Social and Economic Complications

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Ethical, Social and Economic Complications

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In the UK, there are safeguards that are ‘built in’ to the Justice System.

The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE)offered a code of practice that needs to be adhered to with regard to the conduct of identification attempts.

Unreliable EWT has big costs in terms of retrials and compensation to those wrongly convicted. In the UK estimates indicated about £124 billion per year(Institute for Economics & Peace 2013).

However, perhaps the biggest implication for unreliable EWT is not financial, but rather the risk society faces as the real offender has been allowed to remain free.

Huff et al(1986) reported that nearly 60% of 500 cases of wrongful convictions were due to eyewitness identification errors. This suggests that too much reliance on eyewitness testimony has major ethical implications.

Greene(1990) reports that when mock juries were asked to make decisions about the verdict of an offender based on EWT, some jurors mentioned their knowledge of mis-identification mistakes, which they’d learnt from the news etc, therefore making them more sceptical about the testimonies of eyewitnesses.

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Geiselman, Fisher, MacKinnon & Holland(1985) said effective interviewing techniques are based on

Memory traces - usually complex & contain various kinds of information

Effectiveness of retrieval cue - depends on its information overlap with information stored in the memory trace; this is the encoding specificity principle

Various retrieval cues may permit access to any given memory trace; if one is ineffective, find another one e.g if you can’t think of someone's name, form an image of that person

Geiselman et al(1985) used this information to produce the cognitive interview.

Eyewitness recreates context existing at the time of the crime, including environmental & internal information

Eyewitness reports everything they can remember about the incident even if it’s fragmented

Details of the incident can be reported in various orders

Eyewitness reports the event from various perspectives; an approach Anderson & Pichert(1978) found effective

Geiselman et al(1985) found eyewitnesses produced 40% more correct statements with the cognitive interview than standard police interviews.

Fisher et al(1987) devised an enhanced cognitive interview which included minimising distractions, tailor language to the individual, reduce eyewitness anxiety, avoid judgement or personal comments & allow them to speak slowly. They also found the enhanced cognitive interview was more effective than the original cognitive interview; an average of 57.5 correct statements were produced compared to 39.6 with the basic interview.

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Children as eyewitnesses can be unreliable because they are prone to fantasy and their memories may be especially affected by the suggestions made by others.

Pozzulo and Lindsay(1998) - A meta-analysis got data from many studies, between them, had tested over 2000 participants. They found that children under the age of 5 were less likely than older children or adults to make correct identifications when the target was present. Children aged 5-13 years did not differ significantly from adults in the target-present condition, but were more likely  to make a choice(which was inevitably wrong)in the target-absent condition. It was thought that this was due to children being more sensitive about doing what they were asked to do - they feel they can’t say no and have to give some answer; in this case, a false positive.

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Davies et al(1989) reviewed the literature children used as witnesses and came to the conclusions that children between the ages of 6 and 7, and 10 and 11, are fairly accurate in their memories of an event. They don’t usually ‘make things up’ and they do not deliberately lie when giving testimony. Also their memory for important details is not significantly altered by adult suggestion after the event.

Anastasi and Rhodes(2006) found that all age groups are most accurate when recognising an offender from their own age group. This may mean that if the child witness had observed children committing staged crimes, perhaps they would be more reliable in their identification.

Dodson & Krueger(2006) showed a video to young & older adults, who later completed a questionnaire that misleadingly referred to events that weren't in the video. Older adults were more likely to produce false memories triggered by misleading suggestions. The adults tend to be very confident about the correctness of their false memory. Whereas younger adults seemed rather uncertain about their false memories.

Jacoby, Bishara, Hessels & Toth(2005) presented misleading information to young & older adults. On a subsequent recall test, older adults had a 43% chance of producing false memories. Unlike younger adults who had a 4% chance.

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Cahill and McGaugh (1995) - Hormones associated with emotion may enhance the storage of memories.

MacLeod et al (1986) - investigated real life eyewitness reports of 379 physical assaults, and compared them to crime where no physical injury occurred. They found that there was no overall difference in accuracy between the two types of crime, suggesting that levels of emotion do not make a difference to recall.

When we experience emotionally shocking events, we create accurate and long-lasting memories (flashbulb memories).
This suggests that memories that were surrounded by emotion are often more reliable.

Brown and Kulik (1977) - used the term flashbulb memories to describe vivid memories that occur at times of heightened emotion and are immune to decay. They were called this because it seems as if the mind has ‘taken a picture’ of the event. For example, they noticed that people were able to describe exactly what they were doing when they heard of JFK’s assassination.

Odiniot et al (2009) - Interviewed 14 witnesses to an armed robbery and  found that 84% of information recalled was correct, and that the witnesses who reported a higher level of emotional impact had the most accurate recall.

Christianson and Hubinette (1993) - Witnesses to real bank robberies who had been threatened had better recall than onlookers who were not involved.

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Eyewitnesses may not be reliable because the crimes they witness are emotionally traumatising

Freud said that these memories were put into the unconscious mind - (Repression - an ego defence mechanism)

Deffenbacher et al (2004) - meta-analysis on the studies of eyewitness recall and found that high stress reduced the amount of accuracy.

Highly emotional memories may feel more accurate, when they are not. Eyewitnesses may be overconfident in their evidence and this confidence may influence the judges decision.

Nolan and Markham (1998) - Confident witnesses were more likely to be seen as accurate compared to un-sure witnesses, even though accuracy may not differ between the two.

Talarico and Rubin (2003)- made 54 students to recall their memories of the 9/11 attacks the day after the event and to recall a past birthday party. They were tested 1,6 or 32 weeks later; the memories did not differ. However they rated the 9/11 memory more vivid and had greater confidence in it.

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Eyewitness testimonies are reliable - Green
Eyewitness testimonies aren't reliable - Red