Critical Evaluation Of Eyewitness

Identification decisions are formulated not only by the quality of the witness’s memory, but also by social perception. Other variables that moderate eyewitness memory can be categorized as commonplace variables, however others are specific biases based on the suspect’s characteristics (Brewer & Wells, 2011). Since the advent of DNA testing, 258 people convicted by juries in the United States have been released, with approximately 200 of these cases being the result of mistaken eyewitness identification. With cognitive and social perspectives, this study simply reviewed the variables that produce general impairments of identification accuracy, post-identification indicators of identification accuracy, and variables that naturally result in biases against the suspect without any specific theoretical frame of reference (Brewer & Wells, 2011). Decision confidence latency and phenomenological reports have all been found to discriminate positive decisions, without including lineup rejections (Brewer & Wells, 2011). Highly confident decisions and those coupled with relevant recollection are more likely to be accurate. However it is noted that confidence is not an infallible index of accuracy. Research has made …show more content…
For example, this includes any factors that might bias a suspect even if they are not the perpetrator, as well as more specific variables that influence eyewitness decisions like poor lighting or cross-race situations. Furthermore, investigator feedback is also important to consider because post-identification feedback inflates certainty. What this means is that eyewitness reports will drastically increase in confidence when an investigator makes remarks like “good, you identified the suspect,” even if this is not the target face (Brewer & Wells,