EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY

Eyewitness Testimony



Eyewitness Testimony

Introduction

The psychology of Eyewitness testimony intended to scientifically assess you to the police and judges in the analysis of the evidence and testimony in order to minimize the possibility of make mistakes. By employing the knowledge generation in two different areas of psychology, those are clinical, cognitive, social, etc. (Rainis and Tiberghien, 1995). The role of psychology is essential in this area; since it is known that the judges and juries tend to overestimate the data over- eyewitness tees and underestimate the data objective evidence (Loftus, Greene and Doyle, 1994). These authors noted that the testimony fails on many occasions. It seems, therefore, be a high credibility of eyewitness testimony and reliability. The explanation of this fact is that attention perception and memory are limited and selective processes you (Rainis and Tiberghien, 1995).

Witnesses usually remember exactly all Event details, which cannot produce two kinds of errors: errors of omission (forgetting some detail on the event) and errors of commission. The knowledge generated from psychology research on memory provides information on the causes of errors that occur in an eyewitness situation (which includes many Sometimes people recognition sessions) also how to prevent the witness committed these errors. The concept of visual evidence, in addition to the identification of, persons involved in the incident or witnessed it, the story of that event and particular situation to the police testimony and before the judge (Diges and Mira, 1983)

Historical Perspective

Early studies from psychology in the area of clinical psychology are intended to inform on the alleged involvement and responsibility in certain crimes. Binet (1905) studied the factors involved on Eyewitness testimony from a close approach to psychology experimental, interest on the testimony of children. But it was possible Munsterberg suggestibility (1908) that, with his work on the witness stand, would be considered the first author to systematically collected contributions made from other fields of research and tried in the area of testimony. It was he who introduced the term psychology of Eyewitness testimony, noting the importance of experimental psychology to assess the quality of the testimony. He said the psychologist's advice was indispensable for judges could determine the accuracy of the witnesses and, therefore, considered that, given the unreliability of visual evidence, it was necessary to take into discipline account the contribution of scientific experimentation.

The importance of studying the factors involved in the visual evidence from cognitive psychology had that it considered that the encoding and retrieval information are performed by a procedure reconstructive took into account the findings to- deterioration of the person. Therefore, at present, the psychology studies focus on the testimony accuracy, reliability and credibility of testimony.

The History to Present on How Eyewitness Testimony Has Impacted Courtroom Testimony

While most jurors are willing to accept an eyewitness' testimony as truthful, a number of factors should be evaluated when weighing the validity and accuracy of a person's testimony. One factor of primary importance is the opportunity to view the suspect or the ...