Eyewitness memory is still not common sense: comparing jurors, judges and law enforcement to eyewitness experts

Abstract

Knowledge of factors affecting eyewitness accuracy was examined in a sample of jurors, judges and law enforcement professionals. Participants completed a survey in which they were asked to agree or disagree with 30 statements about eyewitness issues, and their responses were compared to a sample of eyewitness experts who completed the same survey. Participant responses differed significantly from responses of eyewitness experts. Jurors disagreed with the experts on 87% of the issues, while judges and law enforcement disagreed with the experts on 60% of the issues. The findings show a large deficiency in knowledge of eyewitness memory amongst jurors, judges and law enforcement personnel, indicating that the legal system may benefit from expert assistance in the evaluation of eyewitness evidence. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Memory development: implications for adults recalling childhood experiences in the courtroom

“…These views can be at odds [8][9][10][11][12] with what has been revealed by the scientific study of memory and its development. For example, many jurors and legal professionals (e.g., judges, lawyers, police) in North America 8 and Europe (e.g., Sweden 13 and Norway 14 ) are naïve when it comes to understanding how memories are formed, how they become distorted over time, and how stress and emotion affect remembering [15][16] . Jurors are similarly naïve when it comes to understanding whether children can remember events that happen only once, events that are traumatic, or which factors can affect the accuracy of memories across childhood (e.g., suggestibility, repeated questioning) 17 .…”

The thin blue line-up: Comparing eyewitness performance by police and civilians.

“…Based on some early research findings on observation skills (Ainsworth, 1981; Tickner & Poulton, 1975) and face recognition abilities (Malpass, 1981;Woodhead et al, 1979), authors in the 1980s asserted that the expert opinion should be that police officers are no better as eyewitnesses than civilians (e.g., Deffenbacher & Loftus, 1982; Kassin, Ellsworth, & Smith, 1989;Noon & Hollin, 1987). Despite the fact that more recent evidence has revealed that police officers may actually provide superior incident reports, authors in recent years have simply adopted that assertion from the 1980s (see e.g., Benton et al, 2006; Houston, Hope, Memon, & Read, 2013; Kassin, Tubb, Hosch, & Memon, 2001;Odinot et al, 2015). Some authors have even claimed that experts agree that there is a research basis for the statement that police officers are no more accurate as eyewitnesses than the average person.…”

“…This argument involves two assumptions: a) that police officers are indeed aware of these issues and b) that this awareness leads to improved performance. From survey research among police personnel, we know that many if not most police officers are acutely unaware of how memory works and how lineup variables affect decisions (see e.g., Benton et al, 2006;Odinot, Boon, & Wolters, 2015). For example, Odinot and colleagues found that half of the police officers in their sample still believed that memory works like a video camera.…”

“…In The Netherlands, a distinction between police officers and civilians has even been incorporated in the law: a single statement by a civilian eyewitness is not sufficient to convict, but a single statement by a police officer is. 1 Many people, including jurors and judges, believe that police officers are better eyewitnesses than civilians (e.g., Benton, Ross, Bradshaw, Thomas, & Bradshaw, 2006;Deffenbacher & Loftus, 1982;Noon & Hollin, 1987;Yarmey, 1986;Yarmey & Jones, 1983).…”

Can the Spacing Effect Improve the Effectiveness of a Math Intervention Course for Engineering Students?

“…In general, research shows that most people do not understand how human memory works. Most laypeople disagree with expert characterizations of forgetting 7 , and apparently do not appreciate that the majority of encoded information is rapidly forgotten if nothing is done to prevent it. Furthermore, people do not know how to prevent forgetting, or, in other words, how to achieve long-term retention of information.…”