Reliability of EWT

Ronald Cotton (1998)

Was accused of raping Jennifer Thompson after she had given an EWT and he was sentenced to the death penalty, however once she was provided with post event information meant that Ronald cotton couldn’t be the rapist.

Loftus and Palmer (1974)

EWT can be influenced by leading questions, they called this post event misinformation effect, participants saw broken glass when hearing verb ‘smashed’

Braun et al (2002)

Supports Loftus and palmers study as they asked college students to evaluate the advertising of Disney land, misleading information was placed in the advertisements leading to participants guessing they had shook hands with bugs bunny or Ariel when those characters weren’t there at the time.

Loftus and Pickrell (1995)

Implanted false memories in participants about being lost in a shopping mall in childhood, only 68% of true memories were remembered out of 72

Yuille and Cutshall (1986)

Witnesses to a real armed robbery accurately recalled events despite misleading questions, showing that EWT can be more reliable in real life situations

Kramer et al (1990)

Witnesses focused on the weapon rather than the perpetrators facial features, reducing accuracy known as weapon focus effect.

Anastasia and Rhodes (2006)

Younger people were more accurate than older people

Shacter et al (1991)

Older individuals struggled to recall the source of information making them more susceptible to misleading information.

Cutler and Penrod (1989)

Weak correlation (0.2) between confidence and accuracy in EWT

Luus and Wells (1994)

Co-witness feedback influenced witness confidence potentially distorting memory accuracy

Gabbert et al (2003)

Witnesses conformed to each others accounts leading to incorrect recall.

Cohen (1966)

People are better at identifying individuals of their own race, witnesses are 56% more likely to misidentify someone of a different race

New Jersey Supreme Court (2011)

New guidelines for handling EWT in court, including instructions to jurors about potential errors.

Geiselman et al

Cognitive interview improves accuracy without increasing false information

KohnKen et al (1999)

Meta-analysis of 53 studies found a 34% increase in correct information using Cognitive interview.

How much has wrongful convictions cost U.S taxpayers from 1989 and 2012?

$221 million