Eyewitness In Qualitative Research

Words: 908
Pages: 4
Open Document
Describe some of the factors that tend to make recollection unreliable
In cognitive psychology, recollection refers to when someone recalls of a specific event from his episodic memory. However, there are some cases where the recollection of memory is unreliable. It is important to consider such cases because the unreliable recollection results into undesirable consequences in certain situations. For instance, the eyewitness testimony is testable evidence which I given in a court of law by an individual who witnesses a specific event in relation to the criminal cases. According to the innocence project (1992), it was revealed that 75% of cases with wrong convictions were due to the false memory given in eyewitness accounts. Numerous psychological …show more content…
This occurs when an individual engages in social interaction with another person. The desire to construct a shared narrative version of events can lead to major memory distortions. According to Gabbert et al (2003), it was found that the opportunity to construct a shared version of events led to significant levels of distortion in the final recalls. In this experiment, two different versions of video (some details were different). The recollections from participants who watched the video and shared some ideas with participants from another group were unreliable. On the other hand, participants who watched the video in isolation made relatively reliable recollection. This findings suggest that sharing ideas can distort the …show more content…
However, recollection of memory can be influenced at the stage of retrieval. Loftus (1975) was interested in the effects of leading questions. In her experiment, participants were shown a shot clip where two cars crashed each other. Participants were randomly assigned into 5 conditions and they were asked different leading questions. The question was that ‘what is the estimated speed when the car was ‘smashed’ each other?’. The word ‘smashed’ was replaced with other words including ‘hit’, ‘contacted ‘, ‘collided’. It was found that participants estimated the highest speed when they heard the sentence with the word, smashed. In contrast, participants estimated the lowest speed when they heard the word, contacted. These findings showed that recollection of memory can be distorted even at the stage of retrieval. However, the overall criticism on psychological findings on memory is that the experiment is not ecologically valid. In other words, the procedures are different from the real life settings, thus it is difficult to generalise to the real life situations. For example, the participants in Loftus study (1975) might have provided unreliable recollection with leading questions because participants, especially university students, do not often estimate the speed of car. This suggests that the manipulation of variables in the procedures should be more
Show More

Related Documents: Eyewitness In Qualitative Research

Human Behavior Essay

The nurture view however suggests that all behaviour is the result of interactions with the environment – due to the effects learning and the impact of the social and political background into which an individual is born. 2. One piece of research that takes a nature approach to explaining behaviour is Raine’s study. Raine et al. conducted a quasi-expt, in a lab, to investigate the link between murder and brain abnormalities. 41 Ps charged with murder and pleading NGRI were compared to 41…

Words 1769 - Pages 8

Criticalreview Essay

testimony and memory has become one of the most researched areas in Cognitive Psychology. What can be quite disconcerting is that from the research conducted into this…

Words 3773 - Pages 16

Essay on Child Abuse and Forensic Interviewer

Ila Ann Still Capstone Project Week 10 Final Application Assignment May 10, 2014 Professor Cynthia Jackson Several problems exist when it comes to laws, investigations, testimony, training, education, information sharing and the debate between the legal and psycholegal community when it pertains to the cases of child abuse. In 2012, the Federal Bureau of Investigations reported that an estimated 1,214,462 violent crimes occurred (U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2012)…

Words 6197 - Pages 25

Derogatory Terms Essay

of Men and Women’s Language ………………………………………..…… 2 2.2. Language and Power ……………………………………………………………….…..………..…... 3 2.3. Derogatory Terms ……………………………………………………………………………..………… 3 2.4. Categorising Derogatory Terms …………………………………………………………………… 4 3. Research Questions ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5 4. Methodology 4.1. Methodological Design …………………………………………………..…………………………… 5 4.2. Selection of Participants ………………………………………………………..……………………. 5 4.3. The Method ……………………………………………………………………………………………………

Words 2918 - Pages 12

finalpsychology assignment done 2728 Essay

temperament and motivation based on the imbalances of the humours. In modern day psychology he would have come under the biological perspective because of his theory of the four humours. Rene Descartes was a French philosopher who focused much of his research on the nervous system and contributed to psychology, mainly the biological aspect, with his focus on behaviour and the mind, in the mind body issue. Descartes’ first book was written in 1638 but wasn’t published until after his death, he saw human…

Words 2825 - Pages 12

Evaluation Research Design Literature Essay

253 Chapter 6 Evaluation Research Design: Literature Reviews & Synthesis Frequently a research question or hypothesis can be answered through secondary research, i.e., a literature review or synthesis. Both strategies requires the researcher to mine existing data sources; ―pull out‖ relevant data or information; summarize it; logically analyze and/or statistically treat it; and report results. In many instances, the issue, problem, question, etc. which prompted the idea for an evaluation study is…

Words 19309 - Pages 78

Folklore and Urban Legends Essay

........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ new media & society Copyright © 2003 SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi Vol5(1):29–45 [1461–4448(200305)5:1,29–45;030902] ARTICLE Legends on the net: an examination of computermediated communication as a locus of oral culture…

Words 7666 - Pages 31

Essay about Psychology Workbook

I. INTRODUCTION Objective I.1 Define psychology: the science of behavior and mental processes. |Margin Learning Question(s) (if applicable) |Page(s) | |None | | Key Terms Psychology: the science of behavior and mental processes. Exercises 1. Put a check mark…

Words 22851 - Pages 92