NCJ Number
231454
Journal
Journal of Forensics Psychology Practice Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Dated: May-June 2010 Pages: 238-251
Date Published
May 2010
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This research examines expert witnesses and the reliability of their testimony about eyewitness memory.
Abstract
Based on the past three decades of diverse and extensive research on eyewitness memory issues, the courts are increasingly being asked to accept psychologists as experts on eyewitness performance. This article examines a sample of this body of research and questions its helpfulness to triers of fact. The majority of eyewitness research has been conducted in the laboratory rather than in the field, thereby examining laboratory witnesses, not actual eyewitnesses. Although there is some consensus among some eyewitness experts that certain factors related to laboratory witness performance are robust enough to be discussed in court or applied to the criminal justice system, we suggest that much more research needs to be conducted to assess the generalizability of laboratory witness research to most realms of the eyewitness context. As some research demonstrates that actual eyewitnesses behave differently than laboratory eyewitnesses, we suggest that psychologists who are required to consider eyewitness issues in the criminal justice system make an effort to differentiate between the findings of laboratory studies and the findings of field studies. References (Published Abstract)