FPSY: Eyewitness Testimony

Lecture 5

What is the #1 contributing factor of eyewitness & false convictions?

More than blank of clients → Innocence Project (2024)

60%

blank → National Registry of Exonerations (2024)

27%

______ → Canadian Registry of Wrongful Convictions (2024)

28%

3 Primary Stages

1. encoding

2. storage

3. retrieval

blank can occur at each stage in regards to Memory 101

errors

3 broad types of memories

1. Episodic

2. Semantic

3. Procedural

How do we study eyewitness accuracy?

• Primarily lab simulations/experiments

• Archival studies

event → blank → questioning

time delay

Steps to Eyewitness

event → questioning → lineup

3 General Dependent Variables/Outcomes

1. recall of event/crime

2. recall of offender

3. recognition of offender

Car accident experiment: highest rate of speed = __________

1. Car accident experiment: smashed → blank

66 km/h

1. Car accident experiment: bumped → blank

52 km/h

Car accident experiment: 1 week later

• Asked about the scene

• Broken glass

• “smashed” = _________________

most likely to recall broken glass

2. Car accident experiment: smashed → blank

32% “yes”

2. Car accident experiment: hit → blank

“14%” yes

blank influences eyewitness memory

wording

Causes of the Misinformation Effect

1. misinformation acceptance hypothesis

2. source misattribution hypothesis

3. memory impairment hypothesis

Facilitation and impairment of event memory produced by photograph review – Koutstaal et al., 1999

• Photos of burglarized dorm room

  • Textbooks, clothes, etc.

• Asked specifically about sweatshirts

• Later → ___________________________________

better recall of sweatshirts vs. other items

Psychological Principles

1. mental reinstatement

2. reporting everything

3. reversing order

4. changing perspective

There is a blank in accurate information vs. ‘control’ interviews

increase

Only _____ of descriptors were accurate

• 35% - correct

• 24% - ‘partially correct’

59%

Sophonow Inquiry: Issue w/ Photograph (fail bias)

background, hat

Sophonow Inquiry: Norman Janower’s ID (post-ID feedback; memory decay)

• March 11, 1982

• “tentative” ID

• Told he’d picked “the suspect”

Sophonow Inquiry: John Doerksen ID (unconscious transference)

• Rejected initial lineup

• Later saw Sophonow at police station

• Subsequent lineup → ID

2 General Types of Variables

1. Estimator

2. System

Why do police use photographic lineups?

1. time

2. portability

3. right to counsel

4. witness anxiety

5. static (suspect behaviour)

Target-Present → blank

correct ID

Target-Absent → blank

false ID

Statement related to Absolute judgement

“Is this the person I saw?”

Recent research on improving eyewitness identifications from lineups → blank

questions this

Biased Lineups

1. Foil Bias

2. Clothing Bias

3. Instruction Bias

Example of Foil Bias

suspect has long, brown hair, foils are bald

Example of Clothing Bias

Suspect wearing blue long-sleeve shirt,
 foils wearing black sweater

Example of Instruction Bias

Police fail to mention suspect may not be present

Staged mock crime in a classroom (Buckhout, 1974)

• _________ → identified bystander who had been in class

39%

Holst & Pezdek, 1992

• Ask participants to recall what took place according to prosecution

• __________________________

excluded elements often recalled

More accurate at blank vs. blank identifications

within-race; cross-race

Can people detect eyewitness-identification accuracy within and across situations?– Lindsay et al., 1981 → Phase 1

• Participants witnessed a staged theft

  • Given simultaneous lineup

• Asked confidence

  • Videotaped

• Accurate and inaccurate witnesses

Can people detect eyewitness-identification accuracy within and across situations?– Lindsay et al., 1981 → Phase 2

• Separate group of participants – “mock jurors”

• Shown identifications of group 1

• Asked whether the eyewitness was accurate

Witnesses’ actual accuracy _____________on judgements of accuracy

had no effect

Jurors more likely to believe _________ witnesses

• Phase I indicated very weak relationship → current research

confident

Juror sensitivity to eyewitness identification evidence– Cutler et al., 1990

• Videotaped mock trial

• Manipulated 9 factors known to influence accuracy

  • e.g.,  disguise of culprit, type of lineup, retention interval

• Manipulated 1 factor that doesn’t have a clear relationship

  • confidence

• No factors influenced perception of eyewitness or final verdict, other than confidence

• Fail to consider important factors, but consider one that they maybe shouldn’t

Eyewitness → blank influential

• even when against DNA evidence

incredibly

Relative Influence of DNA & Eyewitness Testimony (Maeder et al., 2017)

• Crown → DNA vs Defence → eyewitness

• Crown → Eyewitness vs Defence → DNA

Eyewitness Evidence: A Guide for Law Enforcemnet

1. blind admission

2. instructed target may be absent

3. fair lineup (no biasaes)

4. witness confidence taken immediately

5. procedure should be video recorded

Misinformation Effect - Investigative Context

1. officer may make assumptions about what occurred

2. did you see the knife

3. more than one witness over each other before ??? and incorrect detail the news