Eyewitness testimony

• Eyewitness testimony is a legal term referring to the use of eyewitnesses to give evidence in court concerning the identity of someone who has committed a crime.
• Post-event information- may be flawed as it tends to focus on details that cant be estimated. Loftus(1979) showed participants pictures of a man stealing a red purse, participants were often wrong about minor details but 98% were correct about the colour of the purse. It suggests eyewitness recollection of key details is accurate/reliable.
• Post-event information- research has proven its inaccurate. Loftus&Palmer (1974) conducted research to find the interaction between language and memory. Changes to verbs used can influence the recollection of the participant, meaning recollection can be easily distorted.
• Crimes are emotional experiences- experiencing events that are emotionally shocking can lead to an accurate memory (flashbulb memory). Cahill and McGaugh(1995) found that hormones like arousal affect memory. Emotions may enhance the storage of memories surrounding a crime.
• Crimes are emotional experiences- witnessing emotionally traumatising crimes can affect testimonies. Freud believed the ego-defence mechanism repression would be employed during emotional events. It can be called 'motivated forgetting' rather than repression.
• Children as eyewitnesses- child witnesses are reliable. Davies et al(1989) found children between 6-11 are fairly accurate in their memories and don't usually deliberately lie.
• Children as eyewitnesses- children are prone to fantasy, affecting their memory. Pozzulo and Lindsay(1998)draw data from multiple studies and found children under 5 are less likely to make correct identification. There can be wrongful imprisonment due to children incorrectly identifying criminals.
• Conclusion- psychologists can identify if eyewitnesses are reliable, instead methods have been developed to make eyewitness recollection less susceptible to distortion like cognitive interviews and sequential line-ups.