Eyewitness Memory

An eyewitness is a person who has seen a crime take place. Witnesses can provide testimony and identify suspects. The accuracy of an eyewitness' memory of the incident is important. If the person remembers innacurately, an innocent person could be convicted.

When a witness comes to a police station or to court to give information about the crime, there are many factors that play a role in the ability for him or her to remember exactly what happened.

• Leading Questions
  The questioner, such as a lawyer or a policeman, might ask the eyewitnesswhat are called leading questions.Questioners sometimes ask such questions without even realizing it. Leading quesions are those that could influence the eyewitness' memory. The questionner's wording might make an invalid assumption, effecting the observer's report. Devising questions to be asked an eyewitness should be done with care so that they are not misleading. (Loftus & Palmer, 1974; Loftus, 1983; McEwan &* Yuille, 1981) ( Benjamin, Hopkins, & Nation, 1994.p.274) (Fisher, Geiselman, &Amador, 1989) ( Benjamin, Hopkins, & Nation, 1994.p.277)
• New Mis-Information
  If the witness is informed of something after the crime, her or his memory of the crime may actually be affected by the newly-obtained knowledge. A typical research experiment showed how influential leading questions can be.
  Subjects are shown pictures of a car in an accident that had just passed a stop sign. Then, to half of the observers, the experimentor mentioned that the car had gone through a stop sign, as could be seen from the picture. However, to the other half of the subjects, the experimentor mentioned a yield sign. Later, everyone was asked whether they had seen a stop sign or a yield sign. In one such experiment, only 41 % of the "yield-sign group" (who actually saw a stop sign), chose the correct answer, the stop sign, whereas 75 % TOTAL OR IN THE STOP-SIGN GROUP? reported having seen an a stop sign. (Gruneberg & Herrmann, 1997, p. 118)
• Weapon Fixation
  Although emotional arousal, good or bad, usually improves memory, if the criminal had a gun or some other weapon, the witness' memory is much more likely to be fuzzy. This is because in the moment of fear, the witness seems to focus on the weapon.( Benjamin, Hopkins, & Nation, 1994p.275, 277) (Brigham, Maass, Martinex, &Whittenberger, 1983)
• Time Lapse
  The more time passed, the more difficult it is for the witness to recall things accurately.
• Degree of Involvement
  Whether or not they knew the criminal ahead of time could have an emotional impact and therefore effect their memory. Also, was the person actually the victem of teh crime, or just a passerby.

Eyewitness Identification

When looking for a criminal, the police will often ask the witness for assistance. After giving a verbal description of what the criminal looked like, the witness will be asked to look at a lineup (a row of people) or in a photospread (photographs of people) fitting this description and notify the police if they see one that looks like the criminal. identify using lineups or photospreads to identify a criminal, there are many things to be considered.

• None is an Okay Answer
  In using a lineup or a photospread to identify a suspect, a witness needs to be able to say that none of the people look exactly like the criminal. Often, a witness will be compelled to make a choice, and so they will choose the person who looks closest to the criminal.
• Foils
  In a lineup or a photospread, a foil is a person who is shown to the witness but is known to be innocent (Benjamin, Hopkins, & Nation, 1994.p.276) . It is best if a lineup or photospread contain of only one suspect and if the rest are foils who fit the witness' description. This way, if the witness chooses the person who looks most like the criminal they saw, an innocent suspect is less likely to be convicted.
  
• Cross-racial identification
  When the race of the criminal suspect is different from the witness, it is more difficult for the witness to recognize the criminal. Even if not prejudice, the suspect may mistakenly identify someone because of a common physical feature that they shared with the criminal. A famous example of this is William Bernard Jackson, a ____(race)_____ who was misidentified and ________(what happened to him)______. (Malpass &Kravitz, 1969)( Benjamin, Hopkins, & Nation, 1994p.276) (Loftus, 1984; Tversky & Tuchlin, 1989)( Benjamin, Hopkins, & Nation, 1994p.275)(Brigham &Barkowitz, 1978)( Benjamin, Hopkins, & Nation, 1994p.277)

• Verbal overshadowing effect
  Unfortunately, having the witness describe the criminal's face before eyewitness identification procedures impairs the witness' judgement of the faces. For mug shots, images of the person facing him or her straight-on, it is better for the witness to make a "snap judgement" (Benjamin, Hopkins, & Nation, 1994.p.277). This is called of the verbal overshadowing effect.

Does the witness' degree of confidence reflect accuracy of memory?

How can a witness be sure of what happened? How can the police or the jury judge the accuracy of the memory? Unfortunately, research shows that the confidence of the witness in their memory has no relationship to the actual accuracy. (Benjamin, Hopkins, & Nation, 1994 p.275)(Wells & Murray, 1984) ( Benjamin, Hopkins, & Nation, 1994.p.277)