Schemas and stereotypes in eyewitness memory accuracy

Eyewitness and Recalling

Shook hands

I shook hands with Bugs Bunny... Describe and evaluate the role of schemas and stereotypes on recalling past events. What implications does this have for the accuracy of eyewitness accounts of events?

I shook hands with Bugs Bunny... Describe and evaluate the role of schemas and stereotypes on recalling past events. What implications does this have for the accuracy of eyewitness accounts of events?

Literature on Schemas

Literature on Schemas and Stereotypes and their role in Eyewitness

I shook hands with Bugs Bunny... Describe and evaluate the role of schemas and stereotypes on recalling past events. What implications does this have for the accuracy of eyewitness accounts of events?

Introduction

To investigate and prosecute crime the criminal justice system heavily depends on eyewitness identification (Wells & Olson, 2003). An eyewitness goes through different psychological procedures prior to the courtroom testimony. It is evident that before coming to the court, an eyewitness goes through different complex processes such as, interaction of memory, perception and judgment, different processes of communication processes, and faces influences from surroundings and society. All these circumstances and factor influence an eyewitness describes of what happened. So it is not surprising that such type of testimony is not flawless (Wells & Turtle, 1987). The current essay is aimed at exploring the definition of schemas and stereotypes and their role in memory processing.

Discussion

Previously different aspects of eyewitness from have been researched including role of schemas and stereotypes. As DNA cannot be used to solve every crimes and several perpetrators are strictly committed eyewitness testimony alone (Huff, Rattner, & Sagarin, 1996). An example is the innocence project which is a national and public policy organization devoted to absolving people wrongfully convicted through DNA testing and to reform the criminal justice system to avoid injustice in future (Gerrie, Belcher, 7 Garry, 2006). The results of a study revealed that while the employees of innocence project considered their first seventy cases, it was surprising for them to know that almost in fifty percent of the cases inaccurate eyewitness testimony was a cause of wrongful convictions (Gerrie, Garry, & loftus, 2005). In psychology studies the concept of eyewitness testimony is not a new concern there have been a great number of researches done in this area since 1900's at different levels. (Wells & Turtle, 1987). There are many factors that cause undermining of eyewitnesses accuracy. These include impaired memory, prejudices, chauvinisms, schemas (Pansky, Koriat, & Goldsmith, 2005), stress (Easterbook, 1959), problems in perceptions, and suggestions made by investigators (Egeth, 1993). In addition to these the age of an eyewitness and presence of weapon are also important aspects to accuracy (Wagstaff, 2003), it is also question whether a witness is competent or not (Charman & Wells, 2008).

Another aspect which has been much debated in the eyewitness research is the concept of identifying criminal suspects from photo arrays or lineups (Wells & Lindsay, 1985). This is thought to be the best method for identification of a perpetrator, and the police rely on this method heavily (Wells & Turtle, 1987). It seems easy to pick out the perpetrator but it is very complex and is not without errors (Wells & Turtle, 1987). As a result most of the eyewitness testimony focuses to develop and evaluate the measures of lineup properties (Tredous, 1999). There has been research focused on fairness of lineup, size of lineup, assessment of individual foils, and the clues of accomplice lineups (Tredous, 1990). Tredous (1999) concluded that certain statistical considerations should be mindfully evaluated while ascertaining and reporting the measures of lineup fairness (Tredous, 1999).

Humans have capability to develop false memories for any events that they see or experiences (Loftus, 1979), some also have capability to implant imaginary details into our memories for any given event (Loftus & Zanni, 1975). Loftus and Zanni proved through their study that suggestive questioning can influence and alter memories. In their study, they showed participants a brief film in which a car accident was shown and there were no broken headlight. The participants were asked two questions with minor changes. The questions were (1)"Did you see a broken headlight?" And (2) "Did you see the broken headlight?" Thus by putting slight variation in the way question was asked Loftus and Zanni found when a question implied a specific event the participants were more likely to answer yes. In the case of their research the broken headlight was the specific question. It was clear from this study that when witness are exposed to subtle post event suggestion it influences them to develop false memories and perceive the events in a wrong way.

Researchers are also of the view that some type of individuals such as police officers can perceive and remember the events in a better and true way because of their specialized training in the field (Stanny & Johnson, 2000). Now the question arises whether this type of training creates better eyewitness under stress? Stanny and Jonson conducted an experimental study. In their study a group of police officers and a group of civilians participated; both were exposed to a stressful incident and/or a neutral one. In the later tests of memories it was found that in stressful situation both the group had less capability to report as compared to a neutral situation

Nemeth & Belli (2006) observed that the most consistent observations in cognitive psychology revolve round the notion that participants falsely remember misinformation to them after some witnessed event (Nemeth & Belli, 2006). These observations are found to be of greater implications in practical settings, in particular regarding the lineup recognition and the confidence in eyewitness testimony (Charman & Wells, 2008). Though there is a greater information on false memory and its implication there is little research on the role that schemas play to assess and remember an event. In 1981, Brewer & Treyens conducted an experimental research study on schema-consistent and schema-inconsistent items. The schema-consistent and schema-inconsistent items were used like books in office and picnic basket in one place and participants were exposed to these items. Afterwards the researcher asked the participants to recall the items freely in the office; results of the study revealed that it was more likely for participants of the study to remember schema consistent items rather then remembering schema-inconsistent items.

Highly stressful situations have a negative impact on the memory of the witness and cause problems in recalling the actual events and even they are unable to recognize faces of the attackers. Morgan (2004) discusses that though generally it is believed that a witness never forgets the face of the attacker in particular those whom they confronted physically and had been in contact with them for a longer period of time, it has been found that victims cannot identify their perpetrator (Morgan, 2004). Payne (2002) concluded that even moderate level of stress leads to the impairment of the memory function. The findings discussed above hold serious implications while we consider eyewitness testimony, and dependence of the law on eyewitness when looking for an assurance of a perpetrator.

Christianson (1993) also concluded that greater level of emotional stress causes memory impairment (Christianson & Hubirette, 1993), and therefore eyewitness should not be considered much reliable (Loftus, 1979). For example, consider a circumstance where an individual is witness to a bank robbery. For a person who has never been confronted with such a violent crime it is not easy to recollect and recall the exact event and to imagine the emotions adjacent to such type of stressful event. It will also be difficult to remember the incidence accurately. So an important factor in eyewitness testimony is the level of stress involved and experienced by the witness at the time of crime occurrence (Christianson & Hubirette, 1993). Many research studies have been conducted on the topic of whether a stressful situation in actual mpede memory or not (Christenson, 1992). Loftus & Burns, 1982, revealed that individual facing and witness to traumatic events cannot retain these events as accurately as can be neutral events. In particular Easterbook hypothesis has been used by researchers while exploring the association between memory and stress. Stress has it affect on cognitive, emotional and physical responses (Christianson & Hubirrette, 1993). The Easterbook Hypothesis assumes that an individual have ability to concentrate or give attention to a limited number of stimuli at one time. When level of stress increases in any situation the focus of attention become the stress-provoking element which results in the incapability to see to the whole situation (Easterbook, 1959). In brief it can be said that stresser is the motivational factor that drives the attention of the witness and they are not able to look away from the stressor (Duffy, 1948).

Conclusion

The author discussed in detail the Schemas and stereotypes and their role in eyewitness. It has been found that human are prone to accept false information and identify formal events in a wrong way due to schemas and stereotypes. It is very important that people have an imagination of a logical event and usually they assume a situation which weakens the eyewitness. In addition stress level involved in a criminal or violent event affects memory and witness of victim can only remember the main stressor event rather than the whole situation in ca clear manner.

In addition research has been conducted on schema-consistent and schema-inconsistent items and it has been found that schemas and stereotypes play a significant role in remembering and recalling an event. These results have implication for the eyewitness testimony and must be considered.