Eyewitness testimony is a legal term. It is the detailed account given by a witness in a courtroom, describing what they perceived happened during the specific incident under investigation. This is used as evidence to show what happened from a witness’s point of view. Eyewitness testimony is a crucial area of research in cognitive psychology and human memory; studies into eyewitness testimony have found that it can be affected by many factors. Elizabeth Loftus, a leading researcher in eyewitness
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The Reliability of Eyewitness Testimony SCI 110 Introduction to Physical Science Professor Pages 6 Abstract: Eyewitness testimony and its credibility has always been a staple of controversy in court cases. Let's take a minute to think back the last time you were in a local retail store. Now ask yourself, are you able to describe the person who was ahead of you in the line? How many details can you really remember about that person? Now how accurate do you think that your
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infallible, concrete evidence, however, this type of evidence is not always readily available at a crime scene. It is often necessary to look to other sources, such as an eyewitness, to help settle a trial (Smarlarz & Wells, 2014). This can be problematic due to a number of reasons, the first being that eyewitness testimonies have been increasingly proven, such as through DNA evidence, that the defendant is often misidentified (Innocence Project, 2014). There has been abundant research conducted
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Reliability of Eyewitness Testimony Eyewitness testimonies have played a major role in many wrongful court convictions. There is a great difficulty faced by many eyewitnesses when identifying perpetrators of crimes. Additionally, existing procedural safeguards are insufficient to put off erroneous convictions caused by eyewitness errors. It is therefore important to have a scientific method that can enhance reliability on eyewitness testimony when making a judgement in a court of law.
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itEyewitness Testimony - Evidence given by a witness to a significant event such as a crime or serious accident. - The evidence usually takes forms of personal identification or verbal account of what happened. - Problems can occur at any point in the memory process: 1) Acquisition: Information the person perceives Poor viewing conditions Focus on weapons 2) Storage: Information the person stores in memory Misleading information Source misattribution errors 3) Retrieval: Information
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Eyewitness testimony is a legal term, referring to a person’s interpretation of an event they have seen. Judges have a tendency to pay close attention to eyewitness testimony and find it a trustworthy source of information. Nevertheless, investigation into this area has found that eyewitness testimony can be affected by numerous psychological factor (Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C., 1974). Eyewitness testimony is not as reliable as it may seem at the first glance. It is commonly known that a person
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Eyewitness testimony is largely affected by the way an interviewer asks questions. This type of evidence is often the most important and therefore, must be retrieved correctly. Courts are skeptical of evidence achieved entirely from eyewitness testimony which makes it extremely important to get truthful and corroborated evidence. It is very easy for an interviewer to put false information into the minds of the interviewees which could in fact incarcerate the wrong person. Receiving eyewitness testimony
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Short paper #4 1.) I believe there is only a certain degree of accuracy in eyewitness testimony. According to the Innocence project & eyewitness identification, the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide is eyewitness misidentification. There were over 70% of convictions overturned through DNA testing. There are so many ways to give unintentional suggestion to false identification, for example, verbal and non-verbal cues, relative judgments, feedback and lineup composition. According
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Eyewitness testimony, which relies on the accuracy of human memory, has an enormous impact on the outcome of a trail. For example, In 1984, American College Student Jennifer Thompson was raped at knifepoint by a man who burst into her flat. During her ordeal Jennifer concentrated on every detail of her attacker so she could later accurately recall him. Later that day she worked with police officers to compose an accurate sketch of an assailant. A few days later she identified Ronald Cotton as the
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Introduction Eyewitness evidence can be highly persuasive to jurors. However, eyewitness testimony can be mistaken. Eyewitness’ memory of the event may change drastically between the time one first witness an event and the time one recount it to someone else (Loftus, 1975). At the time of exposure and shortly thereafter, observers have much more information than they can later report and that the availability of this information declines rapidly (Sperling, 1960). Furthermore, Clifford and Scott (1978)
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