Outline and Evaluate Factors Influencing Eye Witness Testimony Essay

The term ‘eye witness testimony’ refers to the of exploration into the accuracy and reliability of storage concerning significant events, it is legally thought to be a reliable bank account of occasions.

However , study into eye witness account has found that this can be affected by many mental factors just like, anxiety and stress, reconstructive memory, selective attention and leading queries. Anxiety and stress could be associated with many factors such as, violence and crime. Clifford and Jeff (1978) found that members who did find a film of a violent function remembered much less of the details than a control group whom saw a significantly less stressful variation. However , Yuile and Cutshall (1986) identified that witnesses of a real event acquired accurate remembrances of so what happened.

The police evaluated witnesses and thirteen of them were interviewed five months later. Remember was located to be accurate, even after a long time period. One weakness of this examine was that the witnesses who also experienced the greatest levels of pressure where actually present at the event, instead of watching used from a film, and this may possibly have helped with the reliability of their memory space recall.

Selective attention can be when the see is able to explain one details, giving them less time to pay attention to various other details. It is also because the observe is more likely to pay attention to a depth with more mental significance, such as a weapon. Loftus et approach. (1987) showed participants several slides of your customer at a cafe. In in version the customer was possessing a gun, inside the other the client held a chequebook.

Individuals who had been proven the version with the weapon present tended to focus on the gun alone and not much else. As a result they were more unlikely to identify the consumer as appose to those who seen the chequebook type. Bartlett (1932) showed that memory is not just a truthful recording of what provides occurred, nevertheless that we make “effort after meaning”.

At this time, Bartlett resulted in we try to fit what we remember with what we really understand and understand. As a result, all of us quite often alter our remembrances so they become more smart to us. He had participants play ‘Chinese Whispers’ and when asked to recall the detail of the story, each person seemed to notify it in their own individual way. With repeating sharing with, the pathways became short, puzzling ideas were rationalised or overlooked altogether and details converted to become more familiar or regular.

For this study Bartlett deducted, “memory is not precise and is altered by existing preconceptions. It appears, therefore , that every of us ‘reconstructs’ our thoughts to adapt our personal beliefs regarding the world. ” This evidently indicates our memories happen to be anything but reliable records of events. They are individual remembrances, which have been formed and created according to our stereotypes, morals, expectations and so forth Loftus and Palmer (1974) tested all their hypothesis the language used in eye observe testimony can modify and change memory. They aimed to show that leading concerns could pose eye experience testimony accounts, as the account could become unbalanced by simple guidelines provided in the question.

To evaluate this, that they asked people to estimate the velocity of motor vehicles using different forms of inquiries. Participants had been shown slides of a car accident involving many cars and asked to spell out what got happened as though they were vision witnesses. These were then asked specific questions, including the issue “About just how fast were the cars going when they (hit/smashed/collided/ bumped/contacted) each other?

The believed speed was affected by the verb utilized. The action-word implied advice about the speed, which in turn affected the participants’ recollection of the crash. Participants who had been asked the “smashed” problem thought just were heading faster than patients who were asked the “hit” question.

When people were asked a week after viewing the film whether they saw any broken goblet at the landscape (there was none ), people inside the smashed group were more likely to say certainly. Therefore , a leading question that encouraged them to remember the vehicles going faster likewise encouraged these to remember that they saw non-existent broken glass. This shows that memory is definitely distorted by questioning approach and data acquired following your event can easily merge with original memory causing inaccurate memory.

Digging in false particulars to a memory of an event is referred to as confabulation. This has significant implications to get the queries used in authorities interviews of eye witnesses. In conclusion, vision witness account can be inspired by a quantity of factors, which includes, anxiety and stress, picky attention, reconstructive memory and leading concerns.

They all possess a large influence on eye see testimony and affected the results in a number of ways.