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57-601: An observer is one who engages in observation or in watching an experiment. Observer may also refer to: Observation The scientific method requires observations of natural phenomena to formulate and test hypotheses . It consists of the following steps: Observations play a role in the second and fifth steps of the scientific method. However, the need for reproducibility requires that observations by different observers can be comparable. Human sense impressions are subjective and qualitative , making them difficult to record or compare. The use of measurement

114-420: A 12-week period, unless the information stood out as being extremely unusual. The use of schemas has been shown to increase the accuracy of recall of schema-consistent information but this comes at the cost of decreased recall of schema-inconsistent information. Elizabeth Loftus is one of the leading psychologists in the field of eyewitness testimony. She provided extensive research on this topic, revolutionizing

171-434: A better approach to questioning witnesses. A prime example of this is in the initial questioning process conducted by authorities. As an official investigation launches, police ask many questions ranging from race to weight of the perpetrator. All the information collected can be used to pull photographs of prime suspects or lead to a line up. If police suggest their own opinions, whether verbal or non-verbal, it can encourage

228-458: A complex, unconscious process of abstraction , in which certain details of the incoming sense data are noticed and remembered, and the rest is forgotten. What is kept and what is thrown away depends on an internal model or representation of the world, called by psychologists a schema , that is built up over our entire lives. The data is fitted into this schema. Later when events are remembered, memory gaps may even be filled by "plausible" data

285-453: A complicated Native American story and had them repeat it over a series of intervals. With each repetition, the stories were altered. Even when participants recalled accurate information, they filled in gaps with information that would fit their personal experiences. His work showed long-term memory to be adaptable. Bartlett viewed schemas as a major cause of this occurrence. People attempt to place past events into existing representations of

342-470: A crime has occurred. This distortion is known as the post-event misinformation effect (Loftus and Palmer, 1974). After a crime occurs, and an eyewitness comes forward, law enforcement tries to gather as much information as they can, in order to avoid any influence that may come from the environment, such as the media. Many times, when the crime is surrounded by much publicity, an eyewitness may experience source misattribution . Source misattribution occurs when

399-444: A mock robbery, produced by Buckhout. In the video, viewers watched a man in a hat run up behind a woman, knock her over, and take her purse. The perpetrator's face was only visible for about 3.5 seconds. The clip was followed by the announcer asking participants at home for cooperation in identifying the man who stole the purse. There was a lineup of six male suspects, each having a number associated with him. The people at home could call

456-403: A number on their screen to report which suspect they believed was the perpetrator. The perpetrator was suspect number 2. Callers also had the option of reporting that they did not believe the perpetrator was in the lineup. Approximately equal contingents of participants chose suspects 1, 2, or 5, while the largest group of participants, about 25 percent, said they believed the perpetrator was not in

513-479: A result of this, many countries, and states within the United States, are now attempting to make changes in how eyewitness testimony is presented in court. Eyewitness testimony is a specialized focus within cognitive psychology . Psychologists have probed the reliability of eyewitness testimony since the beginning of the 20th century. One prominent pioneer was Hugo Münsterberg , whose controversial book On

570-427: A state of shock. Once the initial surprise wears off, an individual can be left wondering what exactly happened. The problem with witnesses trying to recall such specific information is that short-term memory only keeps items in the brain for about 10 to 15 seconds. This means that if someone is not repeating everything they just witnessed over and over again to convert it over into their working or long-term memory, there

627-405: A suspect with blonde hair will most likely change their answers upon learning two other people reported the suspect had brown hair; “People may agree with another person because of normative pressures to conform even when they believe the response is in error.” (Gabbert, Wright, Memon, & Skagerberg, 2012). In the event of witnessing a crime happening quickly, one can be susceptible to being in

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684-460: A weapon, it reduces their attention to other details, and thus, diminishes the reliability of their memory of the incident. The presence of a weapon impacts some details of the crime committed, such as what the assailant is wearing or other surrounding visual markers. The use of lineups shows its production isn't as impacted, with certain studies showing no effect, while others having less accuracy. The first controlled experiment on weapons focus (I)

741-435: A witness is mistaken about where or when they have the memory from. If a witness identification of the source of their retrieved memory turns out to be mistaken, then the witness will be considered unreliable. While some witnesses see the entirety of a crime happen in front of them, others only witness part of a crime. These latter witnesses are more likely to experience confirmation bias . Witness expectations are to blame for

798-402: A witness to change their mind or lead to guessing. Studies conducted by Crombag (1996) discovered that in an incident involving a crew attempting to return to the airport but were unable to maintain flight and crashed into an 11-story apartment building. Though no cameras caught the moment of impact on film, many news stations covered the tragedy with footage taken after impact. Ten months after

855-664: Is a good chance they can only remember the basic facts of the situation. Perceived or elapsed time can be altered during sudden or surprising events and influence eyewitness testimony. Among children, suggestibility can be very high. Suggestibility is the term used when a witness accepts information after the actual event and incorporates it into the memory of the event itself. Children's developmental level (generally correlated with age) causes them to be more easily influenced by leading questions, misinformation, and other post-event details. Compared to older children, preschool-age children are more likely to fall victim to suggestions without

912-508: Is not normally possible to check the air pressure in an automobile tire without letting out some of the air, thereby changing the pressure. However, in most fields of science, it is possible to reduce the effects of observation to insignificance by using better instruments. Considered as a physical process itself, all forms of observation (human or instrumental) involve amplification and are thus thermodynamically irreversible processes , increasing entropy . In some specific fields of science,

969-520: Is offered as testimony in a trial in the United States. Research has shown that mock juries are often unable to distinguish between a false and accurate eyewitness testimony. "Jurors" often appear to correlate the confidence level of the witness with the accuracy of their testimony. An overview of this research by Laub and Bornstein shows this to be an inaccurate gauge of accuracy. Research on eyewitness testimony looks at systematic variables or estimator variables. Estimator variables are characteristics of

1026-432: Is often thought to weaken memories, it is also involved in strengthening them, and in updating them with new information. Schacter and Loftus (2013) cited that "Reconsolidation may be a mechanism for updating memories with current information to keep them relevant. In so doing, however, this updating mechanism may also contribute to changes and distortions in memory over time as a consequence of memory reactivation." Many of

1083-479: Is overshadowed by the conditions for observations”. The surprise or shock over the fact that a crime is happening puts the visceral experience of the event large, front and center of attention for a witness or a victim. However, this also has the effect of making it difficult for them to pay close attention to every material detail of the event; that is, their ability to remember any particular thing that potentially could be remembered will likely be diminished, because

1140-421: Is personal, not because of some intangible and hypothetical persisting ‘self ’, which receives and maintains innumerable traces, restimulating them whenever it needs; but because the mechanism of adult human memory demands an organisation of ‘schemata’ depending upon an interplay of appetites, instincts, interests and ideas peculiar to any given subject. Thus if, as in some pathological cases, these active sources of

1197-585: Is the account a bystander or victim gives in the courtroom, describing what that person observed that occurred during the specific incident under investigation. Ideally this recollection of events is detailed; however, this is not always the case. This recollection is used as evidence to show what happened from a witness' point of view. Memory recall has been considered a credible source in the past, but has recently come under attack as forensics can now support psychologists in their claim that memories and individual perceptions can be unreliable, manipulated, and biased. As

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1254-576: Is the discovery of x-rays . It can also result in erroneous scientific support for widely held cultural myths, on the other hand, as in the scientific racism that supported ideas of racial superiority in the early 20th century. Correct scientific technique emphasizes careful recording of observations, separating experimental observations from the conclusions drawn from them, and techniques such as blind or double blind experiments , to minimize observational bias. Modern scientific instruments can extensively process "observations" before they are presented to

1311-435: Is unable to give verbal indication to the eyewitness. Instructions can be key for eyewitness identifications. Proper instructions, such as telling them it is okay to not identify anyone, should be given before eyewitnesses try to identify an individual. Composing the lineup is straight forward. If the suspect is in the lineup, the goal is to make he/she blend in with the people next to them. All people chosen to participate in

1368-426: The cognitive interview . The approach focuses on making witness aware of all events surrounding a crime without generating false memories or inventing details. In this tactic, the interviewer builds a rapport with the witness before asking any questions. They then allow the witness to provide an open ended account of the situation. The interviewer then asks follow up questions to clarify the witness' account, reminding

1425-405: The 1970s and '80s, Bob Buckhout showed, inter alia, that eyewitness conditions can, within ethical and other constraints, be simulated on university campuses, and that large numbers of people can be mistaken. In his study, "Nearly 2,000 witnesses can be wrong", Buckhout performed an experiment with 2,145 at-home viewers of a popular news broadcast. The television network played a 13-second clip of

1482-559: The U.S. in many European countries, as well as Australia, New Zealand, and Israel. While some analysis of police interviewing technique reveals this change towards CI interviewing is not put into effect by many officials in the US and the U.K., it is still considered to be the most effective means of decreasing error in eyewitness testimony. Over the last decade, the Innocence Project has been gaining notoriety for its work within

1539-482: The Witness Stand (1908) demonstrated the fallibility of eyewitness accounts, but met with fierce criticism, particularly in legal circles. His ideas did, however, gain popularity with the public. Decades later, DNA testing would clear individuals convicted on the basis of errant eyewitness testimony. Studies by Scheck, Neufel, and Dwyer showed that many DNA-based exonerations involved eyewitness evidence. In

1596-400: The ability to focus solely on the facts of what happened. In addition, a recent meta-analysis found that older adults (over age 65) tend to be more susceptible to memory distortion brought about by misleading post-event information, compared to young adults. Source monitoring refers to the hypothetical cognitive processes by which people identify the sources of their recollections. "Most of

1653-471: The ability to observe carefully, completely, accurately and objectively is handicapped by a number of factors constituent to the incident: Sounds, noises, stress or anxiety induced by the situation, and other distractions; all play a huge role in what our mind is perceiving, processing, and remembering. The mechanisms by which flaws enter eyewitness testimony are varied and can be quite subtle. A person's memory can be influenced by things seen or heard after

1710-462: The distortion that may come from confirmation bias. For example, Lindholm and Christianson (1998) found that witnesses of a mock crime, who did not witness the whole crime, nevertheless testified to what they expected would have happened. These expectations are normally similar across individuals, due to the details of the environment. The responsibility to evaluate the credibility of eyewitness testimony falls on each individual juror, when such evidence

1767-406: The early studies of memory demonstrated how memories can fail to be accurate records of experiences. Because jurors and judges do not have access to the original event, it is important to know whether a testimony is based on actual experience or not. In a 1932 study, Frederic Bartlett demonstrated how serial reproduction of a story distorted accuracy in recalling information. He told participants

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1824-450: The effect of supporting the researcher's conclusions. This is a form of bias that is difficult to quantify. Some scientific journals have begun to set detailed standards for what types of image processing are allowed in research results. Computerized instruments often keep a copy of the "raw data" from sensors before processing, which is the ultimate defense against processing bias, and similarly, scientific standards require preservation of

1881-435: The event, the researchers interviewed people about the crash. According to theories about flashbulb memory , the intense shock of the event should have made the memory of the event incredibly accurate. This same logic is often applied to those who witness a criminal act. To test this assumption, participants were asked questions that planted false information about the event. Fifty-five percent of subjects reported having watched

1938-425: The field with her bold stance that challenges the credibility of eyewitness testimony in court. She suggests that memory is not reliable and goes to great lengths to provide support for her arguments. She mainly focuses on the integration of misinformation with the original memory, forming a new memory. Some of her most convincing experiments support this claim: When an eyewitness of a crime focuses their attention on

1995-427: The human senses, and particularly with computerized instruments, there is sometimes a question as to where in the data processing chain "observing" ends and "drawing conclusions" begins. This has recently become an issue with digitally enhanced images published as experimental data in papers in scientific journals . The images are enhanced to bring out features that the researcher wants to emphasize, but this also has

2052-509: The influence of what others may have reported about the events of the crime. There are many things a witness might claim or believe to remember, but they may fail to recognize the source of that information. Every time a witness reflects on an event, it is only natural that the memory can begin to fade or be changed due to reconsolidation. Reconsolidation is where reactivated memories enter a transient state of instability in which they are prone to disruption or change. While memory reconsolidation

2109-405: The judicial system providing help in exonerating those who have been wrongfully accused of various crimes. To do their part, the following are specific ways that they have suggested eyewitness identification can be more reliable. A blind administrator lineup setting is where the person administering the lineup, i.e. an officer, does not know who the suspect actually is. By doing this, the officer

2166-433: The lineup should look like the initial descriptions of eyewitnesses. Confidence statements are statements provided by the eyewitness that will tell how confident they were in the choices they made in the lineup. The lineup procedure should be documented by any means available. Most commonly video surveillance is used during the procedure. In some instances it may be helpful to have written documents providing descriptions of

2223-440: The lineup. Even police precincts called in and reported the wrong man as the one they believed committed the crime. A key purpose of this experiment was aimed toward proving the need for better systems of getting suspect descriptions from eyewitnesses. The question at hand is: What is there about an event that makes it so easy for eyewitness testimonies to be misremembered? As it pertains to witnessing crime in real time, “uniqueness

2280-619: The matter confirm eyewitness testimony consistently changes over time and based on the type of questioning. The approach investigators and lawyers take in their questioning has repeatedly shown to alter eyewitness response. One study showed changing certain words and phrases resulted in an increase in overall estimations of witnesses. Law enforcement, legal professions, and psychologists have worked together in attempts to make eyewitness testimony more reliable and accurate. Geiselman, Fisher, MacKinnon, and Holland saw much improvement in eyewitness memory with an interview procedure they referred to as

2337-433: The mind makes up to fit the model; this is called reconstructive memory . How much attention the various perceived data are given depends on an internal value system, which judges how important it is to the individual. Thus two people can view the same event and come away with entirely different perceptions of it, even disagreeing about simple facts. This is why eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Several of

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2394-404: The moment of impact on television, and recalled the moment the plane broke out in flames-even though it was impossible for them to have seen either of these occurrences. One researcher remarked, "[V]ery critical sense would have made our subjects realize that the implanted information could not possibly be true. We are still at a loss as to why so few of them realized this." A survey of research on

2451-456: The more important ways observations can be affected by human psychology are given below. Human observations are biased toward confirming the observer's conscious and unconscious expectations and view of the world; we " see what we expect to see ". In psychology, this is called confirmation bias . Since the object of scientific research is the discovery of new phenomena, this bias can and has caused new discoveries to be overlooked; one example

2508-560: The observation is counted. Measurement reduces an observation to a number that can be recorded, and two observations which result in the same number are equal within the resolution of the process. Human senses are limited and subject to errors in perception, such as optical illusions . Scientific instruments were developed to aid human abilities of observation, such as weighing scales , clocks , telescopes , microscopes , thermometers , cameras , and tape recorders , and also translate into perceptible form events that are unobservable by

2565-537: The original unenhanced "raw" versions of images used as research data. In Cosmology the origins of observation are related with the origins of evolutions in our cosmos. Process philosophy is the changing relationships of our senses , minds and experiences to ourselves . "Observe always that everything is the result of a change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and to make new ones like them." Eyewitness testimony Eyewitness testimony

2622-603: The procedure. Experts debate what changes need to occur in the legal process in response to research on inaccuracy of eyewitness testimony. It has been suggested that the jury be given a checklist to evaluate eyewitness testimony when given in court. R. J. Shafer offers this checklist for evaluating eyewitness testimony: In 2011, the New Jersey Supreme Court created new rules for the admissibility of eyewitness testimony in court. The new rules require judges to explain to jurors any influences that may heighten

2679-411: The results of observation differ depending on factors that are not important in everyday observation. These are usually illustrated with apparent " paradoxes " in which an event appears different when observed from two different points of view, seeming to violate "common sense". The human senses do not function like a video camcorder , impartially recording all observations. Human perception occurs by

2736-470: The scene of the crime, they are more likely to confer with each other about their own perspectives. This can lead to memory conformity . Memory conformity is when one reports another person's experience as their own. In some cases this can be a positive phenomenon, if enough people saw the right thing and were able to report it accurately. However, most memory conformity comes from wanting one's personal experience to match that of others. Individuals who identify

2793-409: The senses, such as indicator dyes , voltmeters , spectrometers , infrared cameras , oscilloscopes , interferometers , Geiger counters , and radio receivers . One problem encountered throughout scientific fields is that the observation may affect the process being observed, resulting in a different outcome than if the process was unobserved. This is called the observer effect . For example, it

2850-401: The time, source monitoring attributions are performed very rapidly and without phenomenal awareness of decision making. Sometimes, however, these rapid, nonreflective processes fail to identify one or more dimensions of source." Applied to an eyewitness' memory of a crime, there are automatic consolidations taking place. There were events that occurred before and after the crime. They also have

2907-509: The witness it is acceptable to be unsure and move on. This approach guides the witness over a rigid protocol. When implemented correctly, the CI showed more accuracy and efficiency without additional incorrect information being generated. Currently, this is the U.S. Department of Justice's suggested method for law enforcement officials to use in obtaining information from witnesses. Programs training officers in this method have been developed outside

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2964-496: The witness, event, testimony, or testimony evaluators. Systematic variables are variables that are, or have the possibility of, being controlled by the criminal justice system. Both sets of variables can be manipulated and studied during research, but only system variables can be controlled in actual procedure. When a crime occurs with multiple witnesses, the first reaction of a witness is usually to ask another to confirm what they just saw. If multiple witnesses are required to stay at

3021-425: The world, making the memory more coherent. Instead of remembering precise details about commonplace occurrences, a schema is developed. A schema is a generalization formed mentally based on experience. The common use of these schemas suggests that memory is not an identical reproduction of experience, but a combination of actual events with already existing schemas. Bartlett summarized this issue, explaining [M]emory

3078-406: The ‘schemata’ get cut off from one another, the peculiar personal attributes of what is remembered fail to appear. Further research of schemas shows memories that are inconsistent with a schema decay faster than those that match up with a schema. Tuckey and Brewer found pieces of information that were inconsistent with a typical robbery decayed much faster than those that were schema consistent over

3135-406: Was conducted by Elizabeth Loftus. Participants were shown slides of individuals in a fast-food restaurant, either (c) handing a check to the cashier or (g) pointing a gun at the cashier. Following this, participants were given a short retention interval, after which they completed a questionnaire, and were then shown a fair-perpetrator 12-person lineup. In the first experiment, the participant's memory

3192-406: Was developed to allow recording and comparison of observations made at different times and places, by different people. The measurement consists of using observation to compare the phenomenon being observed to a standard unit . The standard unit can be an artifact, process, or definition which can be duplicated or shared by all observers. In measurement, the number of standard units which is equal to

3249-492: Was slightly worse. In the second, the assailant was correctly identified slightly less often in the weapon condition. The questionnaire and line-up results of experiment II showed those in the g group with worse memory, compared to the control-conditioned group. As early as 1900, psychologists like Alfred Binet recorded how the phrasing of questioning during an investigation could alter witness response. Binet believed people were highly susceptible to suggestion, and called for

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