Eyewitness Testimony Reliability in Memory

Ron Cotton Case (this is not a case study!) In 1984 Jennifer Thompson, a 22-year-old college student was raped at knifepoint. She testified that during the crime she made a conscious effort to memorize every detail of the rapist’s face so that she could identify him later. A few days after the attack, she picked the face of Ron Cotton out of a series of police photos.

At Trial Jennifer claimed she was completely confident in her identification of Cotton. Cotton was later convicted on the strength of her eyewitness testimony and received two life sentences.

Appeals Hearing 3 years later at Cotton’s appeals hearing Jennifer was presented with another inmate, Bobby Poole who had bragged in jail that he was the one who had raped her. Upon seeing Poole in court, Jennifer testified, “I have never seen him in my life. I have no idea who he is.”

Statistics on Eyewitness Testimony In the U.S. eyewitness testimony is the #1 cause for wrongful conviction. The U.S. Justice Department claims that as much as 10% of the current prison population is innocent. In England, of cases where the only evidence was eyewitness testimony, 74% resulted in conviction.

With reference to relevant research studies, evaluate the extent to which one cognitive process is reliable.

Leading Questions Can a witness be lead into the correct answer through suggestive questioning?

Accident Study (Loftus & Palmer, 1974) AIM: To investigate the role of leading questions in recall. To see if changing one word in certain critical questions would influence speed estimates.

METHODS 45 students were shown a video of a traffic accident. The first group was asked the following question: About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other? The next group was asked, “About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” In later groups, “hit” was replaced by “collided”, “bumped”, and “contacted”. Which verb do you think got the greatest speed estimate? Which verb would you use as a lawyer?

FINDINGS Verb Used Mean Speed Estimate Smashed Collided Bumped Hit 40.8 Collided 39.3 Bumped 38.1 Hit 34.0 Contacted 31.8

Two possible interpretations of results Different verbs activate different schemas. For example, “smashed” activated a schema of a serious accident, thus distorting the original memory or Participants were led into answers by wording of question by interviewer.

Can witnesses have false memories Elizabeth Loftus, a Cognitive Psychologist, was interested in whether a person’s memory was changed by information presented after the original event.

Accident Study: Pt. 2(Loftus & Palmer) AIM: To determine if memory was, in fact, influenced by presenting new information after the original memory was stored

METHODS 150 student participants saw the video of a car accident. They were then divided into three groups and asked questions about the accident. The first group was also asked the same question about estimation of speed with the word “hit”. The second group was also asked the question about the estimation of speed with the word “smashed”. The last group was not asked about the speed.

One Week Later… This time all the groups were asked whether or not they saw broken glass in the accident film. Note: There was no broken glass in the film. Which group do you think was most likely to see glass?

FINGINGS: Did you see any broken glass? Response Smashed Hit Control Group Yes 16 7 6 No 34 43 44

FINDINGS The word “smashed” activates a schema of a serious accident. Therefore, it is possible to create a false memory using post-event information.

Study Criticisms Other researchers argue that the original trace is actually saved and the secondary record results from a problem of retrieval. The idea behind this is that the primary record is not altered, so given a correct retrieval cue it can be recalled.

Study Criticisms All participants were US students so there may have been a bias. The experiment was controlled and participants were told they would be watching a video so question of ecological validity.

Conflicting Results Yuiille & Cutshall (1986) used Loftus’s technique in interviewing people who had witnessed a real robbery. They found that wording of the question had no effect on recall and those who were most distressed had the most accurate memories.

Memory may be stronger for violent events Researchers have conducted laboratory studies that involved showing participants violent events like attacks or robberies on film. Participants were more likely to remember violent events than neutral events. (Baddeley, 1993)

Bartlett’s Study and Reliability of Memory Bartlett concluded that memory was reconstructive, not reproductive. In other words, we used our imaginations to fill in the semantic gaps. Does this mean the less we know about something (if we don’t already have a schema) the more likely we are to create an idea about it to make sense of it? What does this mean for our memory of different races for which we don’t have as many schemas ?

Facial Recognition and Ethnicity Richard Russell, a law professor, says there is plenty of evidence that people make mistakes when they have to identify faces across ethnic lines. Loftus explains that this is because we are more able to distinguish the features of those we are most familiar with. She thinks it has to do with how we scan faces. Other research suggests that facial recognition is highly fallible regardless of ethnicity.

Freud and Memory Repression Sigmund Freud believed we repress or “forget” certain memories to protect our conscious minds from being aware of things we are not yet ready to deal with. Memories that are likely to be repressed are intensely emotional or anxiety-provoking ones that are repressed into our unconscious, but might show up through symbolism in dreams or therapy.

What happened to Ron Cotton? In 1995 Cotton provided a DNA sample so that it could be run against a sample after the rape. The DNA did not match Cotton, but was later matched to Bobby Poole, who then confessed to the crime. Cotton spent 11 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

DNA Evidence As of 2009, DNA had been used to overturn 235 convictions. Of those, 75% relied on eyewitness testimony for the original conviction.