Psychological Views of Eyewitness Testimonies

This paper will discuss recent psychological views pertaining to the use of eyewitness testimonies in court trials. Studies in the past have shown that "eyewitness testimony is particularly persuasive for juries, even though eyewitnesses may be inaccurate reporters of events" (Scrivner & Safer, 1988, p. 371). This conflict between eyewitness credibility and eyewitness accuracy has led to a controversy over whether or not such testimonies should be allowed in court. From this perspective, recent studies have sought to show the extent to which eyewitness reports may be considered accurate, as well as the conditions under which accuracy may be improved.

For example, Scrivner and Safer (1988) conducted a study in which a group of subjects were shown a videotape of a violent crime and then tested on their ability to recall details about the crime. The researchers noted that memory is often negatively impacted by violent, shocking, or traumatic occurrences (Scrivner & Safer, 1988, p. 371). Nevertheless, the researchers also found that the subjects' memories of the violent event tended to improve with each subsequent recall attempt (Scrivner & Safer, 1988, p. 376). In fact, Scrivner and Safer found that subsequent attempts often led to a state of "hypermnesia," in which the subjects exhibited an unusual ability to vividly remember specific details about the crime. This study also demonstrated that the use of emotional cues or context cues had little or no effect on the abil

Related Essays

Children as Witnesses in Court .... Their approach is a social-psychological one, rather .... we are presented with many views of the .... Witness testimony, including eyewitness testimony, has always been .... (2023 8 )

Causes of the First World War .... this context, the testimony of an eyewitness to an .... does not necessarily conflict with the views of Keohane. .... violence to the most subtle psychological ties by .... (8109 32 )

felt strongly that they had accurately pointed out the perpetrator following the lineup. The results of this study showed that pre-lineup confidence had little or nothing to do with whether or not the eyewitness would be able to accurately identify a criminal in a lineup. on the other hand, the study also showed that post-lineup confidence was a very strong indicator of accuracy (Cutler & Penrod, 1989, p. 652). From this, it can be seen that an eyewitness' sense of confidence after a lineup is a far stronger indication of accuracy than a sense of confidence prior to a lineup. Thus, Cutler and Penrod point out that pre-lineup confidence "should not be considered in determining whether or not to subject a witness to a lineup test . . . [and] it certainly should not be used in the evaluation of eyewitness identification accuracy" (Cutler & Penrod, 1989, p. 652). This sharply contrasts previous thinking on this topic, as exemplified in the Supreme Court ruling that "a witness's confidence should be used as a predictor of accuracy" (Cutler & Penrod, 1989, p. 650). In an effort to explain this phenomenon, Cutler and Penrod indicated that pre-lineup confidence may be based on "anticipated task difficulty," whereas post-lineup confi

Category: Government - P