Eyewitness Testimony

Eyewitness Testimony is a legal term. It refers to an account given by people of

an event they have witnessed.

For example, they may be required to give a description at a trial of a robbery or a road
accident someone has seen. This includes identification of perpetrators, details of the
crime scene etc.

Eyewitness testimony is an important area of research in cognitive psychology and

Juries tend to pay close attention to eyewitness testimony and generally find it a reliable
source of information. However, research into this area has found that eyewitness
testimony can be affected by many psychological factors:

Anxiety / Stress

Reconstructive Memory

Weapon Focus

Leading Question

Clifford and Scott (1978) found that people who saw a film of a violent attack
remembered fewer of the 40 items of information about the event than a control group
who saw a less stressful version. As witnessing a real crime is probably more stressful
than taking part in an experiment, memory accuracy may well be even more affected in
real life.

However, a study by Yuille and Cutshall (1986) contradicts the importance of stress in
influencing eyewitness memory.

They showed that witnesses of a real-life incident (a gun shooting outside a gun shop in
Canada) had remarkable accurate memories of a stressful event involving weapons. A
thief stole guns and money, but was shot six times and died.
 What Are False Memories?

Although memories seem to be a solid, straightforward sum of who people are, strong
evidence suggests that memories are actually quite complex, subject to change, and
often unreliable. Memories can be reconstructed as people age and also as their
worldview changes. They can falsely recall childhood events, and through effective
suggestion, can even create new false memories. They can be tricked into
remembering events that never happened, or change the details of things that really did
happen. Malleable memory can have especially dire consequences in legal settings;
highlighted areas of interest are children as eyewitnesses, sexual abuse, and
misidentification.

What You Don't Remember

A person’s malleable memories can entail the very mundane, such as when you second-

guess whether you really did turn off the stove. Some memories can entail the crucial, with

foggy eyewitness recollections of a crime, perhaps. Research shows that we can be given

false information and convinced to believe that an event actually occurred, even if we don't

remember any such event ever happening. Given that recovered memories may be

genuine, false, or a combination of the two, it is legitimate to question just how much of what

you remember is real and how much is just an illusion.

The theory of Flashbulb memory was first proposed by Brown & Kulik (1977). They

defined flashbulb memory as a highly detailed, exceptionally vivid "snapshot" of the

moment when a surprising and emotionally arousing event happened. They postulated

the special-mechanism hypothesis, which argues for the existence of a special

biological memory mechanism that, when triggered by an event exceeding critical levels

of surprise, creates a permanent record of the details and circumstances surrounding

the experience. This implies that flashbulb memories have different characteristics than

"ordinary memories." They also argued that memories are resistant to forgetting.

Brown and Kulik suggested that there may be a special neural mechanism which

triggers emotional arousal because the event is unexpected or extremely important. At

the time, it was only a hypothesis, but it is supported by modern neuroscience:

emotional events are better remembered than less emotional events—perhaps because

of the critical role of the amygdala. Today the most commonly accepted model of

flashbulb memory is called the importance-driven model. This model emphasizes that

personal consequences determine the intensity of emotional reactions.

Criticism of flashbulb memory theory

know that an event is important until later, so it is unclear how flashbulb memories could

be created at the moment of the event. He suggests that the memories are so vivid

because the event itself is rehearsed and reconsidered after the event. According to

Neisser, what is called a flashbulb memory may simply be a well-rehearsed story. The

flashbulb memories are governed by a storytelling schema following a specific structure,

such as place (where were we?), activity (what were we doing?), informant (who told

us?), and affect (how do we feel about it?).

On 28 January 1986, the seven astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger were

killed in a tragic accident. It was a shocking experience for those who watched the

shuttle launch in person or on television. Neisser and Harsch (1992) investigated

students’ memory accuracy of the incident 24 hours after the accident, and then again

two and a half years later. When filling out the second questionnaire which asked

questions like - where were you when you heard the about the Challenger

disaster? Who were you with? What were you doing? The participants were also asked

how confident they were of these memories.

The researchers found that in a collectivistic culture like China, personal importance and

intensity of emotion played less of a role in predicting FBM, compared with more

individualistic cultures that place greater emphasis on an individual's personal

involvement and emotional experiences. Because focusing on the individual's own

rehearsal of the triggering event compared with participants from other cultures - and

thus a lower chance of developing an FBM. However, it was found that national

importance was equally linked to FBM formation across culture.

Reconstructive Memory

Bartlett ’s theory of reconstructive memory is crucial to an understanding of the reliability

of eyewitness testimony as he suggested that recall is subject to personal interpretation

dependent on our learned or cultural norms and values, and the way we make sense of

our world.

Many people believe that memory works something like a videotape. Storing

information is like recording and remembering is like playing back what was

recorded. With information being retrieved in much the same form as it was encoded.

However, memory does not work in this way. It is a feature of human memory that we

do not store information exactly as it is presented to us. Rather, people extract from

information the gist or underlying meaning.

In other words, people store information in a way that makes the most sense to

them. We make sense of information by trying to fit it into schemas, which are a way of

organizing information.
Schemas are mental 'units' of knowledge that correspond to frequently encountered

people, objects or situations. They allow us to make sense of what we encounter in

order that we can predict what is going to happen and what we should do in any given

situation. These schemas may, in part, be determined by social values and therefore

prejudiced.

Schemas are therefore capable of distorting unfamiliar or unconsciously ‘unacceptable’

information in order to ‘fit in’ with our existing knowledge or schemas. This can,

therefore, result in unreliable eyewitness testimony.

Bartlett tested this theory using a variety of stories to illustrate that memory is an active

process and subject to individual interpretation or construction.

Loftus & Palmer(Eyewitness Testimony)

The aim of the research was to investigate whether the use of leading questions would

affect the estimation of speed.

The researchers refer to the problems of leading questions in eyewitness testimony in

their introduction and argue that some questions are more liable than others to influence

estimates than others. Leading questions are defined by Loftus as a question which

either by form or content suggests to a witness which answer is desired. Previous

inaccurate and that there is a tendency to overestimate the duration of a complex event.

It seems that it is particularly difficult to estimate speed of a moving car (Marshall,

1969). Since previous research had shown that estimation of speed was liable to

distortion Loftus and Palmer hypothesized that people’s memory for details of a

complex event could be distorted if they were asked to estimate how fast the car was

going. Therefore they set up two experiments where participants were shown videos of

traffic accidents and after that they had to answer questions about the accident. The

participants were asked about the speed of the car in different ways. For example,

participants were asked:” About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into

each other?” or they were asked: “About how fast were the cars going when they hit

each other?” This was based on the assumption that ‘hit’ and ‘smashed’ have different

connotations and activate different cognitive schemas about the severity of the accident.

The researchers conducted two experiments. Both experiments had student

participants.

The researchers predicted that using the word ‘smashed’ would result in higher

estimation of speed than using the word ‘hit’. The independent variable was the different

words used in the critical question and the dependent variable was estimation of speed.
45 students participated in the experiment. They were divided into five groups of nine

students. Seven films of traffic accidents were shown and the length of the films ranged

from 5 to 30 seconds. These films were taken from driver’s education films.

When the participants had watched a film they were asked to give an account of the

accident they and seen and then they answered a questionnaire with different questions

on the accident with one question being the critical question where they were asked to

estimate the speed of the cars involved in the accident. There was one critical question

which was the one asking the participant to estimate the speed of the cars involved in

the accident. The participants were asked to estimate the speed of the cars. They were

asked the same question but the critical question included different words. Nine

participants were asked, “About how fast were the cars going when they hit each

other?" The critical word "hit’" was replaced by ‘collided’, ‘bumped’ or ‘smashed’ or’

contacted’ in the other conditions which each had nine participants answering the

question.

The mean estimates of speed were highest in the ‘smashed’ condition (40.8 mph) and

lowest in the ‘contacted’ group (31.8 mph). The researchers calculated a statistical test

and found that their results were significant at p ≤ 0.005.

Table 1 Speed estimates for the Verbs used in Experiment 1

Smashed 40.8

Collided 39.3

Bumped 38.1
 Hit 34.0

Contacted 31.8

The results indicate that the critical word in the question consistently affected the

participants’ answer to the question. The researchers argued that it may be that the

different speed estimates is the result of response-bias, i.e. the participant is uncertain

about the exact speed and therefore a verb like "smashed" biases his or her response

towards a higher estimate. It may also be that the way the question is formed result in a

change in the participant’s mental representation of the accident, i.e. the verb

"smashed" activates a cognitive schema of a severe accident that may change the

participant’s memory of the accident. This distortion of memory is based on

reconstruction so that it is not the actual details of the accident that are remembered but

rather what is in line with a cognitive schema of a severe accident. This interpretation is

in line with Bartlett’s suggestion of reconstructive memory due to schema processing.

using suggestive questions.

Evaluation

The experiment was conducted in a laboratory and the participants were students. Lab

experiments may be problematic in the sense that they do not necessarily reflect how

people remember in real life. There may be a problem of low ecological validity. A

support for this point could be that the films shown in the experiment were made for

teaching purposes and therefore the participants did not experience the same kind of

emotion that they would have experienced if it had been a real accident.

However, a strength of the experimental method is that confounding variables can be

controlled so that it is really the effect of the independent variable that is measured. This

was the case in this experiment and Loftus and Palmer could rightfully claim that they

had established a cause-effect relationship between the independent variable (the

intensity of the critical word) and the dependent variable (estimation of speed). The fact

that the experiment used students as participants has also been criticized because

students are not representative of a general population. In addition, they were most

likely young and inexperienced drivers, so this may have influenced their ability to

estimate the speed of the cars. That being said, most people would have a problem with

estimating the speed of a car...

The aim of the study was to determine whether leading questions would affect memory
of eyewitnesses at a real crime scene. In other words, the aim was the same as Loftus
& Palmer's (1974) study, but in this case, it would be a field study done under
naturalistic conditions.

The crime scene was in Vancouver. A thief entered a gun shop and tied up the owner
before stealing money and guns from the shop. The owner freed himself, and thinking
that the thief had escaped, went outside the shop. But the thief was still there and shot
him twice. Police had been called and there was gunfire - and the thief was eventually
killed. As the incident took place in front of the shop, there were eyewitnesses - 21 were
interviewed by the police.

The researchers chose this incident to study because there was enough witness and
there was forensic evidence available to confirm the stories of the eyewitnesses.

The researchers contacted the eyewitnesses four months after the event. 13 of the
eyewitnesses agreed to be interviewed as part of a study. They gave their account of
the incident, and then they were asked questions. Two leading questions were used.
Half the group was asked if they saw a broken headlight on the getaway car. The other
half was asked if they saw a yellow panel on the car (the panel was actually blue). They
were also asked to rate their stress on the day of the event on a seven-point scale.

It was found that eyewitnesses were actually very reliable. They recalled a large amount
of accurate detail that could be confirmed by the original police reports. They also did
not make errors as a result of the leading questions. 10 out of 13 of them said there was
no broken headlight or yellow quarter panel, or that they had not noticed those particular
details.

The researchers found that the accuracy of the witnesses compared to the original
police reports was between 79% and 84%. It appears that this research contradicts the
study by Loftus & Palmer (1974). It could be that the lack of emotional response to the
video that was shown in their study played a key role in the influence of the leading
questions. The witnesses reported that they didn't remember feeling afraid during the
incident, but they did report having an "adrenaline rush."

Evaluation:
The study was a field study and thus has very strong ecological validity. Note, it is not
a natural experiment. In a natural experiment, the IV (the leading question) would have
to be manipulated by environmental forces beyond the control of the researcher. In this
study, the researchers manipulated the variable. The study does use a purposive
sample - that is, the sample is chosen because they were eyewitnesses to the
crime. Only people that meet that requirement are eligible to be participants in this
study.

There was archival evidence (police records of the original testimonies) to confirm the
accuracy of the memories.

The study is not replicable and also not generalizable since it was a one-off incident.
There was no control of variables, so it is difficult to know the level of rehearsal that was
used by the different eyewitnesses. It could be that those who agreed to be in the study
had spent the most time thinking and reading about the case.

Because the eyewitnesses' safety was threatened, it could be that this is a case of
flashbulb memory, which would mean that it cannot be directly compared to Loftus's
original research.

There was an attempt at deceiving the participants. As consent was given by all
participants, the idea that undue stress or harm would be caused by being asked to
recall the incident is unfounded.

The quantification of the qualitative responses from the participants is problematic and
may be open to researcher bias.

Neisser & Harsch(FB Memory)

The aim of the study was to determine whether flashbulb memories are susceptible to

distortion.
On the morning after the Challenger disaster – less than 24 hours after the event - 106

Emory University students in an introductory psychology course were given a

questionnaire at the end of the class. They were asked to write a description of how

they heard the news. On the back of the questionnaire was a set of questions:

 What time was it?

 How did you hear about it?

 Where were you?

 What were you doing?

 Who told you?

 Who else was there?

 How did you feel about it?*

 How did the person who told you seem to feel about it?*

 What did you do afterwards?

2 ½ years later they were given the questionnaire again. 44 of the original students - 30

women and 14 men - were now seniors at the university. They were not told the

purpose of the study until they arrived. They were given the original questionnaire to fill

in again. This time they were also asked for each response to rate how confident they

were of the accuracy of their memory on a scale from 1 (just guessing) to 5 (absolutely

certain).
They were also asked if they had filled out a questionnaire on this subject before.

Incredibly, only 11 participants or 25% said yes!

Seeing that there were discrepancies, semi-structured interviews were carried out a few

months later in order to determine if the participants would repeat what they had written

a few months earlier or revert to the original memory. The interviews were taped and

transcribed. The interviewer presented a prepared retrieval cue with the hope of

prompting the original memories. Participants whose 1988 recall had been far off the

mark were given a cue based on their original records; for example, the interviewer

might ask “Is it possible that you already knew about the explosion before seeing it on

television?”

At the end of the interview, the participants were shown their original 1986 reports in

their own handwriting.

The researchers were surprised to see the extent of the discrepancies between the

original questionnaire and the follow-up 2 ½ years later. Here is a typical example:

24 hours after the accident: I was in my religion class and some people walked

in and started talking about it. I didn’t know any details except that it had

exploded and the schoolteacher’s students had all been watching which I thought
 was so sad. Then after class, I went to my room and watched the TV program

talking about it and I got all the details from that.

2.5 years later: When I first heard about the explosion I was sitting I my

freshman dorm room with my roommate and we were watching TV. It came on a

news flash and we were both totally shocked. I was really upset and I went

upstairs to talk to a friend of mine and then I called my parents.

In order to come up with a “score,” the researchers looked at the seven “content”

questions – that is, not the two that are about emotion (see asterisks above) – and gave

a point if they matched the original response. The maximum total response was then

seven.
The mean score was 2.95/7.0. Eleven participants scored 0. Twenty-two of them scored

2 or less. Only three participants scored the maximum score of 7. What is interesting is

that in spite of the lack of accuracy, the participants demonstrated a high level of

confidence. The average level of confidence for the questions was 4.17.
For the most part, participants told the same story in the spring as in the fall, when they

were interviewed. Additional cues had little effect on accuracy. When presented with the

original questionnaire, participants were surprised and could not account for the

discrepancies.

Evaluation

The study was a case study. The strength of this method is that it was both

longitudinal and prospective. There was also method triangulation - both

questionnaires and interviews were used. The limitation is that it cannot be replicated.

In addition, there was participant attrition - that is, participants who dropped out of the

study over time.

variables and the study was not done under highly controlled conditions.

The study was naturalistic. Although this is good for ecological validity, it is difficult to

eliminate the role of confounding variables. There was no control over the participants'

behaviour between the first questionnaire and the second. We have no idea how often

this memory was discussed or how often the participants were exposed to media about

the event.

It is possible that the confidence levels were higher than they should have been as a

result of demand characteristics - that is, since the participants were asked to verify

their level of confidence, they could have increased their ratings to please the

researcher or avoid social disapproval for claiming not remember an important day in

their country's history.

As mentioned in the background section above, there are several studies of different

events - like September 11th - which seem to have the same results. This

demonstrates the transferability of the findings of this study to other situations.