What the Witness Saw

Eyewitness identification is one of the most important areas applied and utilized in psychology. Lawyers, police and judges, the professional state, have to be extremely careful with the miscarriage of justice because of wrongful convictions. The power of identification is strong, however, according to Furham (n.d), Jurors overestimate the importance of eyewitness reports and conviction rates are rising from 20% to 70% on the basis of utilizing only a witness testimony. Many others are unaware of the impact of different factors can physically influence the recollection of events. For example, poor viewing conditions, a brief exposure, expectations and angle of seeing the event can all intervene to create an erroneous invalid account of report. Below list the key requirement areas:

The witness: Factors contribute towards the level according to the age, sex, personality and education, moreover, experience such as event observation. These can all affect the influence towards accuracy of recall. For example, old people may have less good sight and memory than young adults.

Contextual Factors: There are a series of volume of situational factors associated with an event that was witnessed at a point in time. These include, type of crime, how complex, the time duration, actual involvement in the event, the visibility, and how many other people were present. If a witness was stressed, then the likelihood of remembrance would be lesser. If a weapon was present (known as weapon-focus-effect), then the incident situation may most likely to draw and command more attention and eye witness identification declines. 

Social Factors: Constraints on an individual may appear, for example regulations of a courtroom and the status of the interrogator  Various people's expectations can have significantly powerful effect. Another example, may be the use of language texture in court. For instance, Did the car collide? Did the car bump? Did the car contact? Did the car hit? or Did the car smash? The words used are highly influential and when expressed in a statement can affect and determine the level of the situation of the past time. - 'The car bumped into the Vehicle' or 'The car smashed into the other vehicle'. The use of words here, enables memory play backs - a technique - but also trying to understand the extent of the identity event of what happened.

Interrogation Issues: Photo fits, ID and artist sketches are important elements associated with the interrogation methods. For example, on the basis of an evidence provided, when the actual perpetrator of the crime is not present, the police investigators may have a higher level of incorrectly identifying the wrong suspect. What is less promising is when a line up occurs, as eyewitness judgement, contains an element of doubt drawing uncertainty, therefore the confidence level is lower. In order to combat this error, voice recording of the witness confidence is recorded exactly at the same time when disclosing the identification details. 

Experimental Work:  A clip of car crash was experimented and the witnesses were asked to determine the estimation of the speed level when the two car either made 'first contact' or 'smashed'. A series of speed range were provided from 30mph to 40mph. Play on words can also influence respondents results, for example, "Did you see a...." or "Did you see the...". Many witnesses believe until a substantial amount of identity has been provided, only then would the police would conduct a line up. 

As a summary, what has been outlined here, constitutes a series of aspect that needs to be considered. In order to move away from uncertain, the memory needs to be best match on the basis of recollection. Establishing a assertive and positive matter is on the basis of encouraging a range of identification issues - positive and negative, the hindrance,  the relationship and confidence level.

References:

• Furnham, A. (2012) 50 Psychology Ideas You really Need to Know. Icon Books, Cambridge, UK.
• The Justice Report. (nd) Eyewitness Identification: A Policy Review. [Online] Available from: http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/~glwells/The_Justice%20Project_Eyewitness_Identification_%20A_Policy_Review.pdf [Accessed: 13/02/2013].
• Trankell, A. (1972) Reliability of Evidence - Methods for Analyzing and Assessing Witness Statements. [Online] Available from: https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=14777 [Accessed: 13/02/2013].
• Wald, M. L. (nd) For Air Crash Detectives, Seeing Isn't Believing. [Online] Available from: http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~bigopp/witness.html [Accessed: 13/02/2013].