Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

 MEMORY IN THE COURTROOM: 
THE EYEWITNESS OF TRIAL 
For Calvin Willis, the inadequate memories of two people cost him more than two 
decades of his life. Willis was the victim of mistaken identity when a young rape 
victim picked out his photo as the perpetrator of the rape. On that basis, he was tried, 
convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. Twenty-one years later, DNA testing showed 
that Willis was innocent, and the victim’s identifi cation wrong (Corsello, 2005). 
Unfortunately, Willis is not the only victim to whom apologies have had to be 
made; many cases of mistaken identity have led to unjustifi ed legal actions. Research 
on eyewitness identifi cation of suspects, as well as on memory for other details of 
crimes, has shown that eyewitnesses are apt to make signifi cant errors when they try 
to recall details of criminal activity—even if they are highly confi dent about their 
recollections (Thompson, 2000; Wells, Olson, & Charman, 2002; Zaragoza, Belli, & 
Payment, 2007). 
One reason is the impact of the weapons used in crimes. When a criminal per-
petrator displays a gun or knife, it acts like a perceptual magnet, attracting the eyes 
of the witnesses. As a consequence, witnesses pay less attention to other details of 
the crime and are less able to recall what actually occurred (Steblay et al., 2003; 
Zaitsu, 2007; Pickel, 2009). 
One reason eyewitnesses are prone to memory-related errors is that the specifi c 
wording of questions posed to them by police offi cers or attorneys can affect the 
way they recall information, as a number of experiments illustrate. For example, 
in one experiment the participants were shown a fi lm of two cars crashing into 
each other. Some were then asked the question, “About how fast were the cars 
going when they smashed into each other?” On average, they estimated the speed 
to be 40.8 miles per hour. In contrast, when another group of participants was 
asked, “About how fast were the cars going when they contacted each other?” the 
average estimated speed was only 31.8 miles per hour (Loftus & Palmer, 1974; see 
Figure 4). 
Study Alert
A key fact about memory is 
that it is a constructive pro-
cess in which memories 
are infl uenced by the 
meaning given to what is 
being recalled.
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