Eyewitness Testimony: Can We Trust It?
The article explains research into eyewitness testimonies and their validity. In a
certain experiment, a number of different people viewed a traffic accident on film and
were questioned individually about what they had seen. When different phrasing was
used, the subjects gave different accounts of what they witnessed. This led researchers to
believe that testimony could be swayed, intentionally or unconsciously, in dissimilar
directions by "leading" or using different phrasing during the questioning of witnesses.
With many innocent people being wrongfully convicted, the study concludes that errors
made by eyewitnesses were the most influential element in these convictions.
I feel that our memories are fallible and can de directly influenced to a certain degree.
I think that the "source" and importance of the information we receive plays a major part
in how and what we remember. Being human, we sometimes confuse the source of the
information with information about the event itself. When we are subjected to "leading"
questions where the information is implied from related items, we sometimes forget that
the "source" of the information is what we concluded from the question, not the event
itself. For instance, in the study, after some time had passed, certain subjects were asked
if they saw any broken glass after the cars "smashed into" one another. As we know,
heavy impact is usually associated with broken glass. Since the term "smashed into " was
implied, it was presumed that glass was present; therefore, making "smashed into" the
source of the information instead of the film.
More often than not, eyewitness testimony is the bread-and-butter of a successful
prosecution case, and can almost always be admitted as evidenc
...