This lecture slide concerns the accuracy report of eye witness testimony. How accurate are eye-witness testimonials? And how can we interview witness so that their reports can be more accurate? It identifies the 'Cognitive Interview Model' which is a interview approach for increasing accuracy of reports while minimizes false information. One of the main mistake of interviewers are asking misleading questions. For instance, 'did you see the gun?' as opposed to 'did you see 'a' gun?' First part was misleading because it implies that a gun was witnessed when in fact there may not have been a gun present. Add your comments and questions below.

1. Eyewitness
Testimony
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2. The Role of Memory
 Eyewitness testimony relies on storing and
recalling information
 Storing memories requires several steps
including attention, encoding, short term
memory, and long term memory
 Not all memories pass successfully through
these stages and problems may occur at each
stage
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3. The Stages of Memory
Encoding
Storage
Retrieval
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4. Types of Eyewitness Memory
 There are two types of memory retrieval
that eyewitnesses perform:
1. Recall Memory
Reporting details of previously witnessed
event/person
2. Recognition Memory:
Reporting whether what is currently being
viewed/heard is the same as the previously
witnessed person/event of interest
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5. James Buckhout
 Wanted to promote legal change - wrong
people were being sent to jail
 1974 demonstration of the fallibility of
memory involving a staged robbery aired on a
local TV station
 Generalizability issues?
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6. Elizabeth Loftus on the Fallibility
of Memory
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hER-
5mdIoN0
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7. Examining Eyewitness Issues
 Eyewitness issues can be studied using a
variety of methods:
 Laboratory simulations
 Archival data
 Naturalistic environments
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8. The Misinformation Effect
 Occurs when a witness is provided with
inaccurate information about an event
after it is witnessed and incorporates
the „misinformation‟ in their later recall
(Loftus, 1975)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RLvSG
YxDIs&feature=fvw
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9. Examples of Misinformation
Manipulations
 Explicit
 Did the person carrying the hammer
walk or run out of the store? (when a
screwdriver was present instead of a
hammer)
 Implicit
 Did you see the hammer? (when no
hammer was present)
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10. Designing a Misinformation Study
 Two groups of participants watch a
videotape of a staged crime
 Erroneous information about the crime is
presented to one group of participants
 Participants are asked a set of neutral
questions and must respond based on what
they saw on video
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11. Misinformation Studies: Results
 Participants who are given
misinformation provide different reports
than those who receive no misleading
information
 Subtle differences in phrasing of the
question (e.g., using „smashed‟ instead of
„hit‟), may bias witness responses (Loftus
& Palmer, 1974)
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12. Explaining the Misinformation
Effect
 Although there is debate as to why the
misinformation effect occurs, what we
do know is that it does occur
 Misinformation effect cold be used to
explain some “recovered” memories
of childhood sexual abuse
 Raises serious questions about
reliability of eyewitness testimony
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13. Archival Research
 Witnesses/victims of events where it is clear
that a crime is being committed remember far
more detail and are more accurate
 Eyewitnesses are more accurate than results of
laboratory studies suggest
 Criticism: Maybe these cases are closed
because these witnesses are better in their
recollection
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14. Naturalistic Research
 Must have enough physical evidence & as
many witnesses as possible
 John Yuille (1982) – Gun store robbery
 20 witnesses
 Police interview of witnesses at scene
 Psychologist interview 5-6 months later
 Able to study factors of time and reliability
 Tried Loftus‟ misinformation effect
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15. Naturalistic Research – Yuille
Study Con’t
Accuracy of Eyewitnesses (Mean %)
Police Interview Psychologist Interview
Type of Detail
Action Detail 82 82
Person Descriptions 76 73
Object Descriptions 89 85
Total 82 81
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16. Naturalistic Research – Yuille
Study Con’t (bank robberies)
Accuracy of Eyewitnesses (Mean %)
Police Interview Psychologist Interview
Type of Detail
Action Detail 99 83
Person Descriptions 84 80
Object Descriptions 90 82
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17. Conclusions from Yuille Studies
 Could not affect with deception
 High recall & accuracy even with delays
 Possible confounds:
 Mediacoverage
 Maybe something about the nature of crime
 Remarkable memory
 Repeating story so many times
 Extremely valuable research!
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18. Facilitating Eyewitness Recall
 Methods used in the investigative process to
aid eyewitness recall include:
 Hypnosis
 Cognitive Interview
 Enhanced Cognitive Interview
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19. Hypnosis
 Can be used to facilitate retrieval of
memories. However, memories may or
may not be accurate
 About 10% of the population cannot be
hypnotized and 5-10% are highly
suggestible (Hilgard, 1965)
 Information obtained under hypnosis is
not usually admissible in court
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20. Cognitive Interview Components
(Geiselman et al., 1986)
Cognitive Reinstate the context
reinstatement surrounding the incident.
Report everything Report all details including those
believed to be insignificant.
Recall event in Go through the incident in
different orders different sequences.
Change Take the perspective of someone
perspectives else witnessing the event.
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21. Enhanced Cognitive Interview
 The following components were added to
the original Cognitive Interview (Fisher &
Geiselman, 1992):
 Rapport building
 Supportive interviewer behaviour
 Transfer of control
 Focused retrieval
 Witness compatible questioning
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22. Cognitive Interview: Results
 Both types of cognitive interviews elicit
more information than “standard police
interviews”, without an increase in
inaccurate information
 It still remains unclear as to which
components of the cognitive interview
elicit this increase in accurate information
(Kebbell & Wagstaff, 1998)
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23. Lineup Procedures
 Witnesses are frequently asked to identify
a culprit from a lineup
 Lineups contain the suspect who is placed
among a set of individuals who are
known to be innocent for the crime in
question, called foils or distractors
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24. R v. Virag
 Man went on rampage in England and attacked
citizens and police officers
 Suspect was put in a line-up
 8/17 picked suspect
 5/17 picked a foil
 4/17 made no identification
 Found guilty and sentenced to 10 years-
pardoned after 5
 Led to the Royal Commission of Inquiry
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25. Types of Lineups
 To accurately assess the rate at which real
witnesses will correctly identify culprits two
types of lineups are needed in research:
 Target-present lineups
 Lineup contains the culprit
 Target-absent lineups
 Lineup contains an innocent suspect
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26. Accurate Identification Decisions
 Comparisons Between Lineup Types:
Type of Guilty Correct Decision
Lineup Culprit
Present
Target- Yes Correctly identify culprit
Present
Target- No Correctly reject all lineup members
Absent
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27. Types of Lineup Judgments
 Two types of judgments may be used in
lineup procedures:
 Relative judgment
Comparing lineup members to one another
and choosing the one who looks most like
culprit
 Absolute judgment
Each member of the lineup is compared to
the witness‟ memory
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28. Lineup Procedures
 Walk-By
Conducted in natural environment, the witness is
escorted to an area the suspect is likely to be. May be
useful if no photo of the suspect is available
 Showup
Only the suspect is shown to the witness. Has been
criticized as biased because the witness knows the
person the police suspect
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29. Lineup Procedures (continued)
 Simultaneous lineup
 Present all lineup members at the same time
to the witness. Encourages witnesses to make
a relative judgement
 Sequential lineup
 Members are presented one at a time, must
decide if it is or is not the criminal before
seeing another photo/person. Encourages
witnesses to make absolute judgements
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30. Lineup Procedure Effectiveness
 Sequential lineups reduce the likelihood that
an incorrect identification will be made with a
target-absent lineup (Lindsay & Wells, 1985)
 However, recent research suggests that the
superiority of sequential over simultaneous
lineups may be the product of methodological
factors (McQuinston-Surrett et al., 2006,
2009)
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31. Fair Lineups
 It is important that a lineup remain fair, that
characteristics of the suspect do not stand out
from those of foils:
 Gender and race should always be
matched across lineup members
 Features that the witness mentioned in the
culprit‟s description should be matched
across lineup members (unless doing so
would cause the suspect to stand out)
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35. Biased Lineups
 Biased lineups imply who the police
suspect, thereby suggesting who the witness
should identify
 There are many types of biases that increase
false identification:
 Foil bias
 Instruction bias
 Clothing bias
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36. Perpetrator described as a white male
approximately 6’2” tall, dark hair at ear length and
no facial hair. What’s wrong with this lineup?
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37. Talk about sticking out like a
sore thumb!
www.psychologytoday.com/files/u107/lineup.jpg
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38. Effects of Alcohol on Recall
(Yuille et al.)
 Immediate Accuracy
 Alcohol condition: 85 – 99%
 Control condition: 88 – 99%
 Delayed Accuracy
 Alcohol condition: 83 – 99%
 Control condition: 87 – 98%
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39. Effects of Alcohol on
Recognition (Yuille et al.)
Target Present Target Absent
Condition
Correct Incorrect Correct Incorrect
Alcohol 90% 9% 62% 37%
Control 86% 13% 76% 23%
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40. Effects of Marijuana on Recall
(Yuille et al.)
 Immediate Accuracy
 Marijuana condition: 83 %
 Control condition: 85-87%
 Delayed
 Slight increasein recall
 Motivation factors
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41. Effects of Marijuana on
Recognition
 Just like in the alcohol study, mistakes were
most likely to occur in the target absent line-up
 3 X more likely to make a false identification
in the target absent condition than in the
placebo condition
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