Eye Witness Eyewitness Misidentification Name Class Date Professor Eyewitness Misidentification Eyewitness identification refers to people who have viewed a crime or some part of the crime. While it would seem someone seeing a crime with their own two eyes would be a credible witness this is just not the case. The memory is a tricky thing constantly changing and adapting as new information is introduced. DNA testing has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that over 100 people have been found to be falsely convicted in large part due to eye witness testimony that was in fact false. Eye witness testimony can easily become contaminated. In cases involving trauma the witness focuses more on the weapon and suggestive practices by police can cause errors in the testimony. Research has shown the human memory is flawed and cannot produce exact recall. Instead, witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime scene; it must be preserved carefully and retrieved methodically, or it can be contaminated (Wells. 2007). In psychology many different research studies have been conducted to learn why the witnesses will select the wrong suspect especially when trauma is involved. High stress situations, such as a murder, armed robbery, or rape can cause eye witnesses testimony to become skewed. Human memory is not a tape recorder and cannot be rewound to give a perfect account of what happened (Morgan, 2004). The brain will fill in areas were the memory is lacking cause the eyewitness misidentification to occur. Weapons focus is another discovered cause of eye witness testimony that is inaccurate. If a weapons is used the witness will focus more on the weapon and less on the face of the suspect causing any identification to be less than accurate because they only get glimpses of the face of the suspect. Next suggestive identification, which mostly occurs in the lineup stage, refers to actions by police of even the witness that result in a misidentification. Research has shown a correlation between the lineup and the misidentification. Psychological factors in eye witness misidentification discovered include relative judgment and malleability of witness certainty. Relative judgment in correlation to the lineup refers to the tendency of the eye witness to compare the potential suspects with their memory of the incident. The witness will then select the person who appears to look like the suspect they viewed. If there is any stress of trauma involved the memory becomes even more susceptible to change. The malleability of witness certainty refers to how certain the witness is when making the identification. The malleability of the witness will depend on their level of confidence they are making the right identification not based on memory but from cues by law enforcement suggesting their selection is correct. These cues can be verbal or nonverbal. Once the witness receivies confirmation they have selected th ...

1. Eye Witness
Eyewitness Misidentification
Name
Class
Date
Professor
Eyewitness Misidentification
Eyewitness identification refers to people who have viewed
a crime or some part of the crime. While it would seem someone
seeing a crime with their own two eyes would be a credible
witness this is just not the case. The memory is a tricky thing
constantly changing and adapting as new information is
introduced. DNA testing has proven beyond a reasonable doubt

2. that over 100 people have been found to be falsely convicted in
large part due to eye witness testimony that was in fact false.
Eye witness testimony can easily become contaminated. In cases
involving trauma the witness focuses more on the weapon and
suggestive practices by police can cause errors in the testimony.
Research has shown the human memory is flawed and cannot
produce exact recall. Instead, witness memory is like any other
evidence at a crime scene; it must be preserved carefully and
retrieved methodically, or it can be contaminated (Wells. 2007).
In psychology many different research studies have been
conducted to learn why the witnesses will select the wrong
suspect especially when trauma is involved. High stress
situations, such as a murder, armed robbery, or rape can cause
eye witnesses testimony to become skewed.
Human memory is not a tape recorder and cannot be
rewound to give a perfect account of what happened (Morgan,
2004). The brain will fill in areas were the memory is lacking
cause the eyewitness misidentification to occur. Weapons focus
is another discovered cause of eye witness testimony that is
inaccurate. If a weapons is used the witness will focus more on
the weapon and less on the face of the suspect causing any
identification to be less than accurate because they only get
glimpses of the face of the suspect. Next suggestive
identification, which mostly occurs in the lineup stage, refers to
actions by police of even the witness that result in a
misidentification.
Research has shown a correlation between the lineup and the
misidentification. Psychological factors in eye witness
misidentification discovered include relative judgment and
malleability of witness certainty. Relative judgment in
correlation to the lineup refers to the tendency of the eye
witness to compare the potential suspects with their memory of
the incident. The witness will then select the person who
appears to look like the suspect they viewed. If there is any
stress of trauma involved the memory becomes even more
susceptible to change.

3. The malleability of witness certainty refers to how certain
the witness is when making the identification. The malleability
of the witness will depend on their level of confidence they are
making the right identification not based on memory but from
cues by law enforcement suggesting their selection is correct.
These cues can be verbal or nonverbal. Once the witness
receivies confirmation they have selected the right suspect they
will become more confident in their selection. Their memory
will adapt to the face of the suspect identified during the lineup.
This includes the physical lineup and the photo lineup.
When people experience trauma it can result in repressed
memories. Repressed memories are the result of trauma.
Encoding and retrieval of the memory can become skewed when
the eye witness is subject to major stress or trauma. It is
traumatic to witness a violent crime. The brain will
unconsciously change the memory in order to cope with what
they have witnessed. The memory is not perfect and too much
stress can result in the natural ability of the memory process
becoming hindered.
The accuracy of eyewitness testimony has been questioned
for many years with strong proof the process can be flawed.
Eyewitness testimony must be paired with other physical
evidence pointing to a particular suspect to prevent false
identifications and innocent suspect going to jail for crimes
they did not commit.

4. References
Morgan. C. (2004). Accuracy of eyewitness memory for persons
encountered during exposure to
highly intense stress. International Journal of Law and
Psychiatry, 27(1): 265-79
Wells, G. (2007). Eyewitness identification: Policy Review. The
Justice Report. Retrieved from
https://www.psychology.iastate.edu/~glwells/The_Justice%20Pr
oject_Eyewitness_Identifi