CHAPTER TWO

EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY AND

MEMORY
 Concepts and Definition of Eyewitness Testimony

• EW - accurate recall and recognition of

something or someone that was observed,
often for the first time and often under stress.
• Witnesses to a criminal incident, including
victims themselves.
• Identifying the offender, especially facial and
other physical features. It also involves asking
witnesses or victims to recount events that
transpired before, during, and after the
incident.
 Nature of EW Memory
• The process of memory and EW testimony
• EW testimony relies on storing and recalling
information
• Encoding, Storing and retrieving
• Not all memories are stored and recalled
• And this matter in the court eyewitness
processing
Evaluation of Eyewitness Memories
• Errors in memory can occur at each stage of the
process.
• First, information might not be well encoded.
• Encoding is imperfect, and what we do store in
memory is a selective, inexact replica of what
we actually saw or heard. Second, there are
imperfections in the process of storage.
• Memory traces — the biochemical
representations of experiences in the brain —
appear to deteriorate with time.
The persuasiveness of eyewitness testimony is only a
problem if the witness is mistaken.
Crime witnessed

The witness’s opportunity to view the perpetrator

The witness’s level of attention
The witness’s degree of certainty

The witness’s estimation The witness’s estimation

of view, attention, and of view, attention, and
certainty are same as certainty are inflated
original above original
 Cont.…
• Memory is not perfect under the best of
circumstances, and most crimes do not happen
under the best of circumstances.
• Crimes often happen at night, and the
perpetrators are usually in a hurry.
• Witnesses to crimes and viconctims of crimes
are often terrified and more cerned with their
own safety than with getting a good look at the
criminal.
 Specific biases also influence eyewitness memories

• Cross-Racial Identifications -This tendency is

usually referred to as the cross-race
effect (sometimes called own-race bias).
• Stress and Weapons Focus
• Preexisting Expectations
• Witness Confidence
Nature of EW Memory
 Hypnosis
• In the legal system, its main application has been as
a tool for enhancing the memories of crime victims
and witnesses to crimes.
• It is clear that successfully hypnotized subjects
enter a relaxed, focused state in which they are
highly receptive and responsive to suggestions
made by a hypnotist (Robin et al., 2018).
• People usually recall more information when they
are hypnotized . This phenomenon is called
hypnotic hypermnesia (the opposite of
amnesia).
 Cognitive Interview
• Cognitive interview —involves a subtle
step-by-step procedure designed to relax the
witness and to mentally reinstate the context
surrounding the crime - to improve the
witness’s retrieval of accurate information.
1st – Rapport building
2nd - with eyes closed, the witness attempts to reinstate the
context of the crime mentally.
3rd - probing the images and actions the witness reports
4th - the witness takes different perspectives on the crime
 Examining EW issues
The legal system has a few time-honored
techniques for revealing truth. These techniques
include:
– voir dire (the questioning of potential jurors
during jury selection). Is intended to expose
potentially biased jurors so that attorneys can
dismiss them.
– cross-examination(weakness and deceptions in
testimony), and
– jury deliberation(places fact finding in the hands of
a group of citizens).
Recall of The
Perpetrator
CXS of Human Attention, Perception and Memory
CXS of Human Attention, Perception and Memory
Perpetrator and Victims in EWT

• Many attributes of the perpetrator affects

eyewitness
• Perpetrators can be good at hiding the
violence, publicly presenting as kind, loving,
charming and likeable, but behave in cruel,
violent, undermining and manipulative ways
in private.
Tactics Example

Intimidation and threats • causing fear through threats;

• glares;
• destroying property; and
• hurting pets.

Undermining confidence • damaging self-esteem through

humiliation, ridicule, and shaming; and
• intentional behaviours that make the
victim doubt herself.

Using the children • telling the victim she is a bad mother;

• using access to harass or assault her;
• threatening to take the children away;
• coercing the victim to get pregnant;
• threatening to harm the children or
engaging in risky behavior with them; and
• making the child watch or participate in
the abuse.
Tactics Example

Isolation • preventing the victim from working;

• cutting her off from her friends or
family; and
• physically preventing her from leaving
the house.

Minimisation and denial • saying it was ‘only’ a slap or that the

victim is overreacting;
• blaming alcohol/ stress/unemployment;
• mitigating behaviour by downplaying
the damage and injury;
• providing inconsistent accounts; and
• using loss of control as an excuse.
Recasting the behavior • Excusing behavior as self-defence, rough
play or an accident; and
as non-violent or • by using language like ‘incident’ or
‘fight’ to make the violence appear
acceptable mutual.
Tactics Example

Victim blaming • telling the victim that she asked for it or she provoked
him;
• avoiding or attempting to divide responsibility for
violence;
• accusing the victim of a different form of violence for
example emotional abuse; and
• focusing attention on her ‘inability to cope’ and
‘neglect of her children’ when women have reverted to
substance abuse or have developed anxiety-based
disorders as a result of this violence.
Use of male • expecting sex on demand; • demanding that the victim
does all the cooking and housework; • controlling all the
privilege money; • making all the ‘big decisions’; and • excusing
excessive jealousy and violence.

Sexual abuse • threatening to hurt or kill adult or child victims;

• crying and emotional blackmail;
• stalking the victim; • threatening to kill himself; and
• threatening to make reports to Centrelink, Immigration
and Child Protection if the victim ends the relationship or
reports the abuse.
Interrogational Variables and Misinformation to Source
Monitoring Error

Evidence strongly suggests that events following

the incident (e.g. during the interview) may affect
what is remembered, as does the type of
questioning.
• Skill and competence
• Stereotypical thinking
• Gender
• Religion
• Culture and others
Repressed or False Memory Syndrome

• False memory implies that the memories

involve events which did not take place.
• False memories can arise from misattribution,
suggestion, or bias, and are a normal part of
everyday memory.
• False memories, although inaccurate, are
often just as compelling as true memories.
Interviewing Eyewitness Effectively

Procedures for Interviewing the Witness

A. Preinterview Preparations and Decisions
B. Initial (Preinterview) Contact With the Witness
C. Conducting the Interview
D. Recording Witness Recollections
E. Assessing the Accuracy of Individual Elements
of a Witness’s Statement
F. Maintaining Contact With the Witness