Discuss Factors Affecting the Accuracy of Eyewitness Testimony.
1231 Words
Feb 12th, 2013
5 Pages
Discuss factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
There are factors that affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony such as emotions, fundamental attribution bias, face recognition in other races, leading questions and many more. An example of the affect factors such as leading questions can have on eyewitness testimonies is the Loftus and Palmed study (1974).
It's has been proposed that we store a series of incomplete memory fragments in our mind. When we need to recall a memory we unknowingly fill in the blanks to reconstruct a memory that can be fraught with inaccuracies. Our memory is shaped by our own beliefs of what has happened in the past which may not be an accurate depiction of events. When we have a …show more content…
There are factors that affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony such as emotions, fundamental attribution bias, face recognition in other races, leading questions and many more. An example of the affect factors such as leading questions can have on eyewitness testimonies is the Loftus and Palmed study (1974).
It's has been proposed that we store a series of incomplete memory fragments in our mind. When we need to recall a memory we unknowingly fill in the blanks to reconstruct a memory that can be fraught with inaccuracies. Our memory is shaped by our own beliefs of what has happened in the past which may not be an accurate depiction of events. When we have a …show more content…
Ellis et al (1975) research supported this. They found only 12.5% accuracy in choosing the correct face from a set of reconstructions. A problem that arises with configural processing is that even if some of the individual features have a good likeness to the criminal the composition of the facial feature as a whole will have a different