PSYC 2400: Eyewitness Testimony and Police Interviews

We started off watching the Deception Video of the students from Carleton (IMD students from 2005!!!)

Contents

1. 1. Eyewitness Testimony
   1. 1.1 Memory Processing
   2. 1.2 Recall vs. Recognition
   3. 1.3 Estimator vs. System Variables
2. 2. Police Line-ups
   1. 2.1 Presentation
   2. 2.2 Content
   3. 2.3 Instructions
   4. 2.4 Administrator Influence
   5. 2.5 Recommendations
3. 3. Police Interviewing
   1. 3.1 Standard Police Interview
   2. 3.2 Cognitive Interview

1. Eyewitness Testimony

1.1 3-Stage Model of Memory Processing

1. Encoding Information: how important the information is to you will affect whether or not you can encode it. Often we don’t appreciate the importance of events as they are happening which can affect what we describe in police interviews (as an eyewitness).
2. Storing: you can store information more easily by rehearsing it.
3. Retrieval (our focus): memory cues (prompts to help you remember something) affect how well you can retrieve information from your mind.
• Example 1: Word-pattern (7 letters, fifth letter i) (_ _ _ _ i _ _) vs. (_ _ _ _ i n g)
• Everyone has trouble with the first one; the number of words you write increase with the second one. Just by providing a better memory cue, you get more results.
• Example 2: “Crime Scene photograph” by providing a pool of images to pick from, your mind ‘recognizes’ images so that you can recall 1-2 more items (the average is 2-5 before the pool). The pool is the memory cue.

1.2 Recall vs. Recognition

1. Recall: recollection of actions, people and circumstances involved in a crime by the witness of that crime.
2. Recognition: recognition of the culprit (offender, not suspect) who committed the crime by the witness of that crime using some sort of line-up procedure.

1.3 Estimator vs. System Variables

Variables that impact your ability to recall or recognize information:

1. Estimator Variables: these are variables not under the control of the Justice System. For example, memory accuracy of witness characteristics may be affected by age (children vs. adults), quality of sight, race (members inside a race group are better at distinguishing other members of the same race), stress, time of day (lighting conditions), and distance from the event.
   • Violence – The Yerkes Dodson Law: inverted U-shape (similar to work stress graph) where you need to have arousal in-between mild and severe arousal to have ideal memory performance.
     Deffenacher (1983)
2. System Variables: these are variables under the control of the Justice System. For example, we know that the Cognitive Interview questions affect how the person responds which affects memory accuracy.
• Misinformation: where you provide misleading information in the retention interval (the time between when you witness an event and when you are asked to recall/recognize it) can reduce our ability to recall memories accurately.
  Sources of misinformation: media, eyewitnesses, police officers, etc. (can be subtle or blatant).
• Misinformation is more likely internalized when it:
  • Deals with peripheral details – anything outside the obvious details of the scenario. You’re likely to misinterpret the events or details you weren’t really paying attention to.
  • Is provided just after a delay – you’re more likely to remember something incorrectly if there’s a delay between when you saw it and when the misinformation was introduced.
  • Is provided just before a test – you’re more likely to remember something incorrectly if the misinformation is provided just before a test, such as a police interview.
  • Comes from a high status source – you’re more likely to interpret misinformation as true from a ‘high status source’. For example you’d believe a police officer over a journalist, or an eyewitness (because they were actually there) over anyone else.
• Possible Reasons for the Misinformation Effect: (read book for more information)
  • Memory Impairment* (exam): the theory that new misinformation that you receive actually replaces the old information that was in memory (a memory override). (Not correct)
  • Source Misattribution: where people remember both items – they’re simply confused about the situation. (Most believed to be correct)
  • Misinformation Acceptance: (experimenter effect) where participants are simply guessing and guess wrong or they’re trying to provide information that they think the experimenter wants to hear.

1.4 Research Methods

Most people use lab studies – similar to the video in class where you’re told you’ll be watching one thing but you actually witness a crime. These have high internal validity but lack external validity because they’re just not realistic.

Field studies – these rare because of ethical and logistical issues; these have low internal validity because it’s tough to control any of the variables. The results for eyewitness testimonies from current field studies have denounced the last 30-40 years of lab studies.

Video – participants see a video of a crime and are asked to recall information; the problem is that the situation wasn’t high in arousal (not very stressful) and normally, you don’t see the offender’s face so well.

2. Police Line-ups

2.1 Presentation

There are 6 types of presentation styles that affect memory recall/recognition:

1. Photo Spread: used in Canada because it’s cost effective – can be culprit-absent or culprit-present photo spreads.
   Culprit-Absent Line-ups/Spreads: these cause serious problems because people misidentify offenders; you choose who most looks like the offender. We want absolute, not relative judgments.
2. ID Parade: not cost effective, difficult to construct (need to have real live people who look like the offender).
3. Show up: where a single photo is shown at a time.
4. Walk Through: not used often; done in a real-life setting (ex. police brings you to the mall and asks if you can identify the offender).
5. Simultaneous Line-up: you are shown members all at once – conducive to relative judgments (bad!).
6. Sequential Line-up: (newer) where each member is shown individually, the witness is told that the culprit may not be present, you don’t know how many photos you’ll see and you have to decide when you see the photo. This reduces your ability to use relative judgment.
   Results: reduces the amount of false identification but doesn’t increase the number of positive identification.

2.2 Line-Up Content

Biased Line-Up: introducing a heavy bias (ex. if the suspect is Latino, showing only 1 Latino guy has heavy bias) which is bad. This is remedied by using similar-looking people.
Further reading: Gary Wells

2.3 Instructions

Reducing False Identifications: where you tell the eyewitness that the culprit may not be in the line-up. (Reduces mistaken identifications but doesn’t increase positive identifications.)

2.4 Administrator Influence

Administrator Influence: where the person administering the line-up/spread has an impact on the eyewitness, whether it be verbal or non-verbal, subtle or blatant.

2.5 Recommendations

Gary Wells’ recommendations for reducing inaccurate eyewitness identifications:

• The line-up members should fit the description of the witness (line-up content)
• Instruction should be provided prior to the line-up that the culprit may be absent.
• Eyewitness confidence in the ID should be recorded immediately before any feedback – even though confidence and accuracy are not correlated at all.
• The officer conducting the line-up should be blind to the identity of the suspect (to prevent verbal and non-verbal cues from affecting the eyewitness).
• Assuming a blind presentation is used, the sequential line-up should be used.
• Police agencies should video tape the entire process from start to finish (this helps protect the witness and the police force).

3. Police Interviewing

The purpose of a police interview:

• To gather accurate information;
• To gather detailed information;
• To gather complete information;

Typically, these are used with people who are cooperative (not necessarily suspects).

3.1 Standard Police Interview (J-FLICC)

Standard Interviews (not really a technique) can include the following techniques:

• Judgmental comments – these reduce the rapport between the officer and witness and make the witness less likely to feel comfortable and willing to share information.
• Frequent interruptions – these disrupt your train of thought and reduce the amount of effort the person puts into their answers.
• Leading questions – where the answer may be implied in the question.
• Inappropriate sequencing – where the interviewer asks questions outside the normal sequence of events (not chronological) or where they switch between what you saw/felt/heard (not modal).
• Closed questions – can be yes/no-type questions; they don’t allow you to elaborate so you give incomplete answers or answers that lack details.
• Confusing questions – where the question confuses the witness.

3.2 Cognitive Interview (Recommended)

There are two types of cognitive interview methods:

1. Original Cognitive Interview: this is based around 4 specific memory-enhancing devices:
   • Context Reinstatement: try to mentally bring the witness back to when they witnessed the crime (ex. close your eyes and visualize) and then asked to recall the event.
   • Report Everything: where you ask the witness to report everything (includes open-ended questions which give the witness control over the interview).
   • Change Perspectives: where you get the witness to describe the scene from another person’s perspective that was there.
   • Reverse Order: where you ask the person to report the events in reverse order or just starting from a different point in time.
   
   Original Cognitive Interviews uses 2 underlying theories:
   1. Encoding Specificity Principles: by overlapping the encoded information with the retrieval cues, you can increase memory recall and recall accuracy. (Related to context reinstatement)
   2. Schema Theory: this describes where events are associated with schemas in your mind that were generated by life experiences; this helps guide how information is encoded and how it’s retrieved. Schemas help us ‘fill in the blanks’ but this can introduce errors because we might remember false memories (i.e. we may add information that we think should be there.)
   
   Results (does it work?): you get 20-35% more effective memory recall as compared to the standard interview and a minimal increase in errors.
2. Enhanced Cognitive Interview: includes memory-enhancing devices but also includes the quality of communication dynamic; based around 5 elements:
   1. Establish Rapport with the witness: if people like you and feel comfortable, they’ll be more invested in trying to give information. (Social skills)
   2. Focus Retrieval
   3. Compatible questions: using questions that are compatible with the person you’re interviewing.
   4. Supportive behaviour: where you show compassion and sympathy.
   5. Transfer control: give the witness control to allow them to provide information.
   
   Results (does it work?): mixed results comparing standard and enhanced interview.

Issues with Cognitive Interviews

• Takes longer to conduct and train (practicality).
• Some components are more useful and accepted in courtrooms (ex. change perspectives is considered hearsay so it’s not allowed in the courtroom).
• Though police officers want to apply it in the field, sometimes it’s tough to use all the techniques.
• Not useful for suspects – only useful for people who want to help. Especially not good for children because they don’t understand what’s being asked of them, they make stuff up and they will be influenced by their desire to please the interviewer.