This is the idea that when we witness events that are emotionally shocking we create an accurate and long lasting memory of the event. This suggests that emotions surrounding a crime can actually lead to more rather than less reliable memories.

 

Loftus and Zanni demonstrated the effects of post event information. The found that 7% of those asked ‘did you see a broken headlight?’ reported seeing one, whereas 17% asked ‘did you see the broken headlight?’ reported seeing one. This shows that the subtle changes in the wording of questions can influence the recollection of eyewitnesses.

 

There is evidence to suggest that eye witnesses are not reliable. Eye witnesses may not be reliable because the crimes they witness are unexpected and emotionally traumatising. Freud argued that extremely painful or threatening memories are forced into the unconscious mind. This process, repression, is an ego defence mechanism. To conclude, this research clearly demonstrates that eye witnesses are therefore not reliable. ��p

Pozzulo & Lindsay (1998)

 

There is evidence to suggest that child eye witnesses are not reliable as they are prone to fantasies and their memories may be affected to the suggestions made by others. Line ups do not always include the target individual because suspects could be selected because he/she fits their description given by others. Pozzulo & Lindsay drew data from other studies that between them tested over 2000 participants. Researchers found that children under the age of 5 were less likely than older children or adults to make correct identifications when target was present. It is thought that children are more sensitive about doing what they are asked to do and may feel like they can’t say no. Therefore they feel they have to give an answer, in this case a false positive. To conclude, this shows that child eye witnesses are unreliable.

            Anastasi and Rhodes’ research is in in support of Eyewitnesses are reliable, more specifically, that child witnesses are reliable.

            Their research indicates that eye witnesses are most reliable in recognising an offender when they’re from the same age category. Their research consisted of an experiment that involved taking people into 3 groups based on age, young, middle aged and old. Each participant was shown 24 photos of a mixture of age groups and asked to rate their attractiveness. Later the participants were shown 48 photos, 24 being original photos and 24 as the element of control within the experiment. The study found that young and middle aged had better recall than older participants and all 3 age groups were better at recognising people of their own age.

 

 

Yuille and Cutshall’s research is in support of eyewitness, it is also reliable. 

Their research suggested that eye-witnesses to real crimes have higher degree of accuracy than laboratory-based research. If memory was reconstructed, it would be expected that recollections to fade over time but this was not the case for Yuille and Cutshall’s research.

This research demonstrates that misleading information has less of an impact on real life EWT as opposed to controlled laboratory. ~+��~+���v��C$