{"id":1211,"date":"2014-05-02T12:38:38","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T16:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/?p=1211"},"modified":"2017-06-27T15:37:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-27T19:37:00","slug":"are-eyewitness-accounts-trustworthy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/2014\/05\/02\/are-eyewitness-accounts-trustworthy\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Eyewitness Accounts Trustworthy?!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"EyewitnessBBC\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ever wonder how accurate eyewitness accounts actually are?\u00a0 Picture yourself sitting in a room conversing with police officers about a crime that you witnessed earlier that day.\u00a0 Will you be able to remember every detail of the event and people involved?\u00a0 Was all of your attention focused on the crime and no other factors?\u00a0 How can we be sure that every memory of the event is even true?\u00a0 Eyewitness accounts in general have been a topic of concern for these very reasons.\u00a0 Many defendants are proven guilty based on eyewitness accounts; some of which consist of distorted\/untrue statements. \u00a0To read more about this topic, click here<\/a>. \u00a0 Due to these issues, there is a growing interest in researching eyewitness testimonies in psychology, especially in the cognitive field.<\/p>\n

Memory in general is far from being perfect.\u00a0 Errors are very common in memory.\u00a0 There are different types of errors that can occur, one category being when introducing information to memory. Occasionally memories aren\u2019t even formed because information fails to be encoded and stored. \u00a0Errors can also be made when trying to retrieve information from memory.\u00a0 A widely known example of this is the concept of forgetting, where information in memory fades over time.\u00a0 Can you recall every detail and event that occurred on last Tuesday?\u00a0 Probably not, which demonstrates how quickly information can be forgotten, making it more important to have testimonies given very soon after the crime and to not wait many days.\u00a0 As the elapsed time between the event and recall increases, the probability of forgetting increases with it.\u00a0 Memories can also change by having details be added or removed, all happening unconsciously. \u00a0We, as humans, don\u2019t have total control on what we remember and what information we forget. Because of these flaws in our memory, eyewitness accounts are proving to be less accurate.<\/p>\n

Errors commonly occur in times of high stress because people don\u2019t have to ability to pay full attention to everything occurring.\u00a0 We can choose what to pay attention to, but the more items we try to focus on, the less likely all of the information will be stored in memory.\u00a0 In cases like this, such as crime scenes, it is not specific details that are always stored, rather a summary of the situation.<\/p>\n

Eyewitness testimonies are never going to be completely removed from our judicial system because they play crucial roles and are occasionally the only source of information about the event that is accessible to the police and jury.\u00a0 Thus why psychologists have grown interested in finding the most reliable type of eyewitness testimony, either being written or spoken.\u00a0 When taking an eyewitness account, police can either ask for a written report or can conduct a personal dialogue about the series of events.<\/p>\n

\"images\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking and writing put different demands on the cognitive system.\u00a0 The type of account that requires fewer demands allows the eyewitnesses to fully distribute their resources to the memory task.\u00a0 There are different lines of research that show superiority for speaking.\u00a0 An advantage is that it is faster, allowing for quicker recall and lessening the amount of time information is stored in memory; therefore limiting the amount of forgetting.\u00a0 Another advantage is the use of body language and tone fluctuations when in an interview.\u00a0 These factors can give away hints about their confidence in the information they are recalling.\u00a0 In previous research it has been found that spoken accounts are more accurate, but display more falsehoods (Kellogg, 2007).\u00a0 However, writing allows for self pacing and censoring over formerly produced information.\u00a0 Therefore leading to fewer errors than speaking (Horowitz & Newman, 1964).\u00a0 Writing also has the ability to be more efficient when there is numerous eyewitnesses because they can all give their accounts simultaneously, consequently reducing the rate of forgetting.<\/p>\n

In 2014 a group of five psychologists assembled and created a study testing the accuracy of written accounts versus spoken accounts of eyewitnesses.\u00a0 In the study the participants watched a short video of a staged crime between two women.\u00a0 They were told to watch carefully because they had to report on it later.<\/p>\n

The two different conditions that were manipulated in the experiment were the type of account the participant had to give and whether or not an interviewer was present.\u00a0 It is important to see if the presence of an interviewer influences the accuracy of the reports.\u00a0 This is because interviewers have the ability to guide eyewitnesses and prompt them to retrieve more details.\u00a0 The cues that interviewers may give are crucial in the reports witnesses give.<\/p>\n

In the first experiment, participants were told to report everything they could remember as entirely and correctly as possible without guessing.\u00a0 However, in the second experiment, participants were asked to recall everything they remembered.\u00a0 Basically the first group was given stricter instructions, which were supposed to help the participants\u2019 recollections.\u00a0 The experimenters hypothesized that the more specific guidance would aid the participants to recall more relevant information.\u00a0 In both experiments there were general and specific questions asked about the crime and the people involved.\u00a0 The experimenters also hypothesized that the more detailed instructions would be most beneficial on the more demanding task.<\/p>\n

In general for both types of account, it was found that the stricter instructions led to more specified accounts; meaning that directions given to participants play a crucial role in the retrieval of the targeted information. \u00a0Also, for both experiments, the written accounts were more detailed, but the accuracy of every detail is questionable.\u00a0 Contrasting to one of the hypotheses mentioned, the participants who gave oral reports did not benefit from the more detailed instructions, although the written reporters did.\u00a0 One possible explanation for this result is that the participants who had to speak might have had a hard time recalling the instructions, where as the instructions were in front of the writing participants.\u00a0 It was also found that the participants who wrote their reports did better in the absence of an interviewer.\u00a0 This could be due to the absence of the extra stress of someone watching over them. \u00a0In conclusion, there was no significant evidence supporting whether written or spoken accounts are more accurate.\u00a0 So far it has been concluded that both writing and spoken eyewitness accounts appear to be suitable.<\/p>\n

A way to facilitate the most accurate eyewitness recollections needs to be discovered to help make the judicial system trust worthier!<\/p>\n

To read more about Eyewitness Testimonies, try the following links:<\/p>\n

Faulty Eyewitness Testimony<\/a><\/p>\n

Innocent Criminal<\/a><\/p>\n

References<\/p>\n

Horowitz, M. W., & Newman, J. B. (1964). Spoken and written expression: an experimental analysis.\u00a0Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology,<\/em> 68, 640-647.<\/p>\n

Kellogg, R. T. (2007). Are written and spoken recall of text equivalent? American Journal of psychology, <\/i>120,415-428.<\/p>\n

Sauerland, M., Krix, A.C., van Kan, N., Glunz, N. & Sak, A. (2014). Speaking is silver, writing is golden? The role of cognitive and social factors in written versus spoken witness accounts. Memory & Cognition. Retrieved from http:\/\/0-link.springer.com.library.colby.edu\/article\/10.3758\/s13421-014-0401-6\/fulltext.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever wonder how accurate eyewitness accounts actually are?\u00a0 Picture yourself sitting in a room conversing with police officers about a crime that you witnessed earlier that day.\u00a0 Will you be able to remember every detail of the event and people involved?\u00a0 Was all of your attention focused on the crime and no other factors?\u00a0 How […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4840,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80216,80215],"tags":[130349,1033],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4840"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1211"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3709,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211\/revisions\/3709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}