Eyewitness Evidence - Essay Example

Regardless of age, gender and stature, eyewitnesses vary in many ways toward their susceptibility, their impressions and more. Determining the optimal procedure requires the framework many police procedures rely on. M. L. Eisen writes in Memory and Suggestibility in the Forensic Interview that, "No matter what the scope or complexity of an event, however, the description of a memory for it can be usefully separated into encoding of the event (its original perception and acquisition), its retention over time is due to some change in the nervous system that can be called memory storage, and its later retrieval in response to some query.

" (Eisen, M.L.; p 4) To this effect, there is a reason the use of restatement of events and redirecting toward a certain moment within the events eye witnesses had experienced will effectively either confirm the events or question the recollections of the witness. This assists investigators, prosecutors and more in assessing validity of eye witness accounts. Eisen continues in his work describing that encouraging witnesses to discuss events prior to the crime or incident in question would also provide insight.

"It might seem odd to consider factors that operate prior to the occurrence of an event as affecting its later retention, but in fact such prior factors can be critical. Even if several people experience "the same" event, they will interpret it differently depending on their prior experiences." (Eisen, M.L.; p 4) This also expands the validity of the recounting of the event in question and can, in fact, assist investigators, prosecutors and the court system in determination as to whether validity and reliability would exist in the recounting.

This can be seen in both children and adults depending upon the framework of the cognitive interview and subsequently in court testimony. Gronlund compares how sequential and simultaneous lineups differ from each other in Sequential Lineup Advantage: Contributions of Distinctiveness and Recollection. Gronlund states that according to Wells and colleagues simultaneous lineups would encourage relative decision strategies whereas sequential lineups encourage absolute decision strategies. "Gronlund considered two problems with the relative judgment data.

First it was possible that the two shortest heights and two tallest heights in the lineups were not distinguishable to an encoding confusion." (Gronlund, S.D.; p 23-37) Gronlund's argument that recollection requires more mental resources than familiarity does, yet in his view, sequential lineups, however, are less resource demanding. This would allow more recollection capacity for the eye witness. Amina Memon and various authors have taken on the task of understanding many components of eye witness testimony including emotion, age of the witness, facial recognition, and post-identification feedback on confidence and memory judgments.

The focus is on both children and adults, including seniors and the differentiations between them. In one abstract of Affecting Memories: Emotional Arousal and Eyewitness Testimony with Lynn Hulse and Kevin Allan, "one theory suggests that emotional arousal impairs memory, another suggests that it enhances