Reliabilty of eye witness testimonies

Main points of argument

• Post event information

• Age

• Race bias

Arguement for Post event information (1)

• Yuile and Cutshall - Witness experiencng a gun robbery recalled correct information after 5 months (not asked leading questions)

Arguement against Post event information (1)

• Loftus and Palmer

• Bartlett (1932) ‘effort after meaning’.

Arguement for Age (1)

• Roebers and Schneider (2010) found that the effect of intelligence on child eye-witnesses was positive (where higher intelligence lead to more reliable recall).

Arguement against Age (1)

• Cohen and Faulkner, 1989

  Memories of both children and the elderly are less reliable than those of adults. Children lack the vocabulary and schemas to understand what they have witnessed and the elderly may be more likely to be misled or use their schematic stereotypes to fill the gaps in their memory of events.

• Ethical: Leading questions, make the memory more harmful to the child

Arguement for Race bias (1)

• Wong (2020) - asked questions to one group on jewellry, clothing and other features (which they remebered better) compared to the other group asked on race

Arguement against Race bias (1)

• Meissner and Brigham (2001) - individuals remembered features of their own race than others