why is it that once witnesses state information as a fact or identify a person as the perpetrator, the witnesses are usually unw
illing or unable to change their understanding of the situation, even after they are provided proof that their account is inaccurate? Based on what you learned in the article, explain why jurors should consider eyewitness testimonies carefully during a trial.
I got 100% when I put this. Please don't copy and paste as I don't want my test scores to be thrown <3
Explanation:
Eyewitnesses may present their information in a sense of bias as they refuse to believe that what they saw was incorrect. Additionally, there may be emotional or other senses of bias connected with testimonies. One may remember an incident in which one person was more annoying and recalls an event where they were acting as such. It also may be an issue of pride as one does not like to admit that they are wrong. Jurors should consider eyewitness testimonies carefully during a trial as they do not know the level of bias they may contain or how accurate they may be. They were all confident in their retellings. The roommate experiment and the murder mystery experiment were similar in the sense of both had distorted eyewitness testimonies.
Several studies have been conducted on human memory and on subjects' propensity to remember erroneously events and details that did not occur. Elizabeth Loftus performed experiments in the mid-seventies demonstrating the effect of a third party's introducing false facts into memory.4 Subjects were shown a slide of a car at an intersection with either a yield sign or a stop sign. Experimenters asked participants questions, falsely introducing the term "stop sign" into the question instead of referring to the yield sign participants had actually seen. Similarly, experimenters falsely substituted the term "yield sign" in questions directed to participants who had actually seen the stop sign slide. The results indicated that subjects remembered seeing the false image. In the initial part of the experiment, subjects also viewed a slide showing a car accident. Some subjects were later asked how fast the cars were traveling when they "hit" each other, others were asked how fast the cars were traveling when they "smashed" into each other. Those subjects questioned using the word "smashed" were more likely to report having seen broken glass in the original slide. The introduction of false cues altered participants' memories.
