Degree of Detail of Eyewitness Testimony and Mock Juror Judgments

• NCJ Number: 115007
• Journal: Journal of Applied Social Psychology Volume: 18 Issue: 14 Dated: (November 1988) Pages: 1171-1191
• Author(s): B E Bell; E F Loftus
• Date Published: 1988
• Length: 21 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: National Science Foundation; National Institute of Mental Health
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The influence of the degree of detail in eyewitness testimony on two sides of a court case was investigated in two experiments.

Abstract

In the first experiment, subject-jurors read a civil court case involving an automobile-pedestrian accident. The plaintiff and the defendant presented conflicting eyewitness accounts. Juror judgments on the relative credibility of the eyewitnesses on each side and the percentage of negligence of the parties were influenced by the relative degree of detail of the eyewitness testimony on each side. In the second experiment, subject-jurors read a criminal court case involving robbery and murder. The prosecution and defense presented conflicting eyewitness accounts. The degree of detail of the prosecution eyewitness testimony influenced judgments of guilt and judgments of the credibility of the eyewitnesses. An examination of the reasons for verdicts and credibility judgments revealed that some subjects inferred that an eyewitness who gave testimony with a greater degree of detail had a better memory of the details and the offender than an eyewitness who gave testimony with a lesser degree of detail. Implications of these results for the legal system are discussed. 2 tables, 16 references.