NCJ Number
225065
Journal
Forensic Examiner Volume: 16 Issue: 3 Dated: Fall 2007 Pages: 20-27
Date Published
2007
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This study addresses the effects of the following circumstances on eyewitness memory: stimulus complexity, the assailant’s gender, the respondent’s gender, the presence of weapons, assailant’s clothing and physical characteristics, peripheral sources of hazard, and seeling perpetrators in lineups.
Abstract
As expected based on pervious research findings, levels of eyewitness performance in person description, weapon description, and person identification were generally low. Eyewitness memory, even under idealized conditions, was highly unreliable for both perpetrator characteristics and other aspects of the crime scene, including weapons and peripheral sources of hazard. Study participants were 149 women with a mean age of 19.86 years old, along with 49 men with a mean age of 21.10 years. In order to evaluate witness performance, the aid of senior, experienced Fresno Police field training efficacies were enlisted in order to produce a realistic police interview focused on the scenes. Each respondent viewed only one scene (simple or complex) with a male or female perpetrator either armed or holding a power tool. Respondents were exposed to the scene for only 5 seconds. The interview solicited information from each witness on the perpetrator’s dress, physical characteristics, weapon type if any, and the presence of other sources of hazard at the scene. Scores were subjected to analysis of variance against four independent variables: the complexity of the scene; the gender of the perpetrators; whether or not the perpetrator was actually armed or carried the power screwdriver; and the gender of the witness. A second study used a sample of 47 college students (31 females). It was conducted in order to examine standard lineup identification under the conditions provided by the same scenes previously described. 1 figure and 31 references