key question Flashcards
1
Q
what is the key question for criminal psychology?
A
are eye witness testimonies too unreliable to trust?
2
Q
what is eye witness testimony?
A
- witness account of a crime/dramatic event
- relies on their memory to identify perpetrators or details of the scene
3
Q
what is the devlin report?
A
- UK committee
- uncovered identification parades where innocent individuals were wrongly convicted
- 43% had led to a suspect being identified and 82% of these led to conviction
3
Q
what is the innocence project?
A
- helps to free people in prison from wrong EWT identification
- shown that confirmation from authority increases witness confidence
- a double blind procedure can be used
- they helped to release 250 people through DNA testing
4
Q
state 3 reasons that this is an important key question
A
- wrong convictions as witnesses may not be accurate in their recall
- lack of support to wrongfully convicted individuals
- expense of overturned convictions
5
Q
state some AO1 statistics that relate to wrongful convictions
A
- 1336 successful appeals for a wrong conviction between June 2019 and March 2020
- 64 successful appeals against convictions in the Court of Appeal Criminal Division
6
Q
when does EWT become more important?
A
if there is no forensic evidence or if it is hard to follow
7
Q
state 4 AO2 factors that relate to this key question
A
- stress/anxiety
- weapon focus
- reconstructive memory
- leading questions
8
Q
why does weapon focus affect EWT?
A
- if a weapon is present, witnesses more likely to focus on this as it is a threat
- so less attention is paid to the rest of the crime eg appearance of perpetrator
- reduces accuracy of recall so leads to misidentification
9
Q
why does stress/anxiety affect EWT?
A
- optimum arousal = optimum performance (link to Yerkes Dodson model)
- if the crime is stressful, performance decreases
- reduces accuracy of recall so leads to misidentification
10
Q
why does reconstructive memory affect EWT?
A
- memory is not a tape recorder
- fragments of info are recorded that are ‘relevant’
- eg simplification, rationalisation and confabaulation due to schemas
- witness may provide false info leading to misidentification
11
Q
why do leading questions affect EWT?
A
- post event info distorts memory
- response bias
- leading questions suggest how they should be answered so witness may assume they forgot and agree
- reduces accuracy so leads to misidentification
12
Q
state 4 AO3 studies which support the AO2 arguments
A
- Loftus and Palmer (leading q and reconstructive memory)
- Valentine and Mesout (stress)
- Yuille and Custhall (leading q)
- Loftus and Messo (weapon focus)
