The study of eyewitness testimony can be traced back over 100 years. This article outlines how it all began and examines the most commonly researched areas of investigation.
In 1896 Albert Von Schrenk-Notzing testified at the trial of a man accused of murdering three women. Drawing on research into memory and suggestibility he argued that pre-trial publicity meant that witnesses could not distinguish between what they actually saw and what had been reported in the press.
The formal study of eyewitness testimony is usually examined within a framework of cognitive processing, which put simply refers to the different ways in which we make sense of the world around us.
We do this by employing the mental skills at our disposal such as thinking, perception, memory, awareness, reasoning and judgment. Although cognitive processes can only be inferred and cannot be seen directly, they all have very important practical implications within a legal context.
Given that the way we think, perceive, reason and judge can be less than perfect its easy to understand why the factors influencing these processes are studied by psychologists’; not least because...
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