Eyewitness Memory of a Crime by Yuille & Cutshall - Article Example

 A Critique of “A Case Study of Eyewitness Memory of a Crime” Summary of the Article The entire research is about a study of how witnesses can vary in presentation of facts regarding a similar case. It presents a case or rather an incident whereby there was a shooting and an individual was killed, one other person was seriously injured. This incident occurred in the broad day light where a number of witnesses were interviewed and only thirteen of them agreed to a four to five months research interview after the incident or event. Thus, the article gives a report on the entire results of the research alongside analysis of these results. From the results provided, the witnesses deemed to be accurate with their presentation or rather evidences; there were no big changes when it came to accuracy of evidence presentation or rather recall after a period of five months. However, there are a number of aspects that were found to have errors. These factors included the weight, height, and age and color memory. Thus, the results from this research differ from other studies which are performed in the laboratory on eyewitness memory. Thus, there is a greater need for field study so as to assess the general aspects that come with laboratory experiments. The study sampled thirteen participants from the twenty one witnesses who were interviewed at the incident by police officers. From the thirteen witnesses, three of them were females whose ages ranged from fifteen to thirty two; nine of them had just graduated from high school and three of them were just high school students. Interviews were used as the sole data collection methods in the entire research. Moreover, the interviews were conducted by Canadian Police officers alongside the research authors who requested the witnesses to first describe the entire event using their own terms followed by answering a chain of questions which were meant to amplify the factors of the incident. The interviews were performed after four to five months and took about forty to ninety minutes. All the interview proceedings were recorded and transcribed on an audiotape. In addition, the research methodology employed a scoring procedure which partitioned every statement that was made by the witnesses into single units of information. Thus, the units were adverbs, nouns or verb phrases. These details got scored as unclassifiable, correct or incorrect after tallying. The details of people at the scene included the color of hair and style, color of clothing, age, weight and height estimations. Thus, the account given by every eye witness entailed a response to a specific question from the interviewers and a free account. However, there were no variations between the response to answers and the free account. In addition, the researchers classified every statement made by the witnesses into action details, description of objects or descriptions of persons ate the scene of the event. Accuracy of the details was solely judged basing on full reconstruction of the event and there was an acceptable range for a number of numerical estimations. Critique of the Article To start with, the article does not have a clear research question. The researchers are working on a study whereby no question is echoed in the final report. Instead, the researcher states the task of the study which is to determine and record what the witnesses can recall in a span of four to five months after the occurrence of an incident. Moreover, it examines a number of issues that are emphasized in researches carried out from laboratories. Thus, the entire research attempts to explore experiments to determine the amount and nature of information, in regard to the incident, to which the witnesses can recall accurately. The author of this article justifies the importance of this research through a series of interview questions that would provide substantial evidence to a police body about the crime in picture. In addition, the article states that the Canadian police were involved in the interviews. Thus, apart from just carrying out a research, the researchers’ attempt was to enable the police force to acquire evidence of a crime after a period of four to five months. As much the article lacks a clear sub heading for literature review section, the authors of this report attempts to review a number of literatures about the past researches on eyewitness and crime. Among the literatures reviewed, the article echoes other researchers’ initial work. For instance, a number of initial researches have problems of credibility, seriousness, generalizability and the problem of applicability to the criminal justice departments or rather systems. Initial studies depicts that the judicial systems’ response to such researches have been unsupportive. Thus, accuracy is a major concern in the past researches about eyewitness in crime incidents. In this article, the authors clarify the contributions made to both psychology community and the criminal justice systems. To the psychology community, the article or rather the study tends to explain the possibility of recall in the memory of humans after a specific period of time. Thus, there are a number of aspects that eyewitness recall perfectly after a period of four months whereas other evidences cannot be recalled. To the criminal justice systems, the research has a significant contribution as it attempts to point out or rather elaborate how accurate crime evidence can be gathered over a span of five months. The article points out that the research used estimator variables; characteristics of the witnesses, the incident or rather the event and the testimony of the witnesses. Thus, the authors give a clear account of the age of the witness, social class and even gender. Moreover, reconstructive memory and misinformation effect are variables in the study. Therefore, this research has no clear outline of dependent and independent variables. In addition, the hypothesis being tested is clear; the study tests whether the witness can recall every aspect of the incident. It goes as far as using misleading questions in the interviews so as to determine the accuracy of the results. From the results of the study, the authors specify that more details was obtained after the interviews as compared to what the police gathered during their such for evidence, immediately after the incident. As per the police in the interviews, the details from the witnesses deemed to be accurate when compared to their initial evidence. Thus, there was no grater variation in changes of accuracy after five months; the highest variation in accuracy was a decrease by about 20%. Follow up The hypothesis of the entire study was that there is accuracy in recall of events in a witness’ memory after a given period of time. Thus, to prove or rather support this hypothesis further, a number of studies should be contacted under the same field using different incidents. In addition, the studies should also investigate if recall of details goes along with stress in witnesses. Thus, a researcher, I would include more tragic and stressful incidents in order to investigate whether the ability to recall can be influenced by stress levels. Moreover, these incidents would involve more numbers as compared to previous researches since the more the witnesses, the more the ability to obtain accurate evidence. The authors of this report used a number of variables in their study; details and interviews. Details from the eyewitness are dependent on the police interviews and research interviews. Thus, in future researches, researchers should narrow down and highlight the specific questions being asked in the interviews. This should be alongside the occurrences in the event under study. Hence, as a researcher, I would be more specific on my variables in a way that my research would clarify the independent and dependent variables. This would give the readers an easy time when analyzing the final report. In addition, specification of variables, whether dependent or independent give room for easy comparison, interpretation and discussion of the results after analysis. Apparently, the results from the entire research support the conclusion of the report. There is a possibility of accuracy in recall of the details of an incident after a given period of time. The results presented are sufficient proof since the average accuracy of recall was about 93.36% for the entire group of witnesses. Therefore, as a researcher, I would use single interviews; researcher interviews for this case, in order to determine how accurate the ability of recall can be without the police interviews. Researcher interviews are free from police or rather other external forces which might affect the ability of the individual being interviewed give what he or she recalls. Furthermore, researcher interviews tend to involve details or rather questions which sometimes do not feature in the police interviews. Therefore, the use of researcher interviews is relatively vital as they are more detailed as compared to the police interviews. Furthermore, this research is reliable as presented by the t-test results. This reliability comes in when the accuracy of the two interviews are compared. The police interviews have P0.05. Thus, the sample used by the researchers is representative as it is more than half the selected twenty one witnesses; 13/21. Therefore, these measurements are repeatable for the purposes of further proofs. Thus, as a researcher, I would include tests that would make the entire research more reliable and valid. Reliability and validity of a study creates makes the target community or society to have confidence in the research. Work Cited Yuille, John C., & Cutshall, Judith L. A Case Study of Eyewitness Memory of a Crime. Journal of Applied Psychology. Canada. 1986. Read More