Cognitive Flashcards
(8 cards)
Introduction
EWT is when a person witnesses a legally important event and later recalls it to the court
Debate because EWT can be unreliable due to errors and biases
Significant: inaccurate testimony=impact on someone’s life
FOR:
Crimes are emotive experiences
Cahill - Found evidence hormones e.g. adrenaline enhance memory
Shocking experiences hold personal significance so remember
*Trial before jury = £17,000, so need to ensure reliable
Ethical issue: Moral responsibility = pressure for eye witness
AGAINST:
Crimes are emotive experiences
May be emotionally traumatising
Defence mechanism to prevent memory from causing psychological harm
Freud - Distressing crime = Repression
protects + puts memory into unconscious
*However, Freud dream analysis research unreliable as unscientific
Ethical issue: Permissible to convict from a single EWT and no other evidence?
FOR:
Factors affecting EWT
Innocence Project -
Blind administration: officer administering lineup unaware of perpetrator
EWT reliable if rate confidence in EWT then cross examine with others’ EWT
*69% wrongful convictions due to EWT, so does this procedure actually work?
Social imp: How else could protect society if no other evidence apart from EWT?
AGAINST:
Factors affecting EWT
Wells et al - EWT prone to external factors affecting reliability e.g. influence of lineup administrator
Can give false confidence
*However, if too sceptical dangerous for society
Social imp: Over criminalisation of crimes due to race/gender
Black Americans 7x more likely to be wrongly convicted when victim = white
FOR:
Post event information
Loftus - P’s remember purse was red in video of man stealing purse even though told it was brown
Key details less susceptible to be distorted by post event info
AGAINST:
Post event information
Loftus + Palmer - Leading questions + smashed glass classic research
7% said saw broken headlight: “Did you see A broken headlight?”
17% said saw broken headlight: “Did you see THE broken headlight?”
*Reliable research as lab study + repeated measures
Post event info can distort EWT
Conclusion
