Changing Criminal Behaviour Case Study Bert Essay

Changing Criminal Behaviour Case Study Bert - Essay Example In order to fulfil the study's first aim, recall and recognition will be tested in 100 to 150 adult participants. Eyewitness identification accuracy will be observed during this process. Participants will be required to watch a brief video, following this video participants will be required to answer a series of questions pertaining to that video. Another data collection will involve participants completing an online questionnaire which assesses accuracy of recognition and recall. The experiment aims at identifying the misidentification rates of adults and how recognition and recall can lead to false eyewitness testimony and subsequent false identification. In order to fulfil the study's second aim, the literature on the factors which promote and those which inhibit eyewitness accuracy will be reviewed. A list of inhibitors and promotors will be generated and subsequently employed to inform a set of recommendations for the enhancement of eyewitness accuracy. The researcher will organise and maintain a web based questionnaire and online video through Surveymonkey. The researcher will send the website a participants' inclusion and exclusion criteria and specify that all respondents are to be from Australia. A 100-150 participant figure will be requested. Surveymonkey will then inform its relevant participant database of the survey. 3.2. Research plan 3.2.1 Describe the theoretical, empirical and/or conceptual basis, and background evidence, for the research proposal, eg. previous studies, anecdotal evidence, review of literature, prior observation, laboratory or animal studies. NS 1.13 The goal of the proposed research is to examine conditions that may influence eyewitness memory. Wells and Loftus (2003) used a 'memory as trace' (p. 149) metaphor to compare physical evidence and memory. That is, memory for an event can leave a trace in the brain just like physical evidence (e.g., fingerprints, blood, and semen) can in the outside world. As will be discussed at length later, eyewitness identification procedures can be employed to minimize any bias or suggestion that can contaminate a witness memory. In the present studies the effects of certain estimator variables on eyewitness identification will be examined. More specifically, the issue of whether knowledge that one is viewing a crime suspect, compared to learning that one had seen a suspect after-the-fact, and the seriousness of the crime for which the suspect is wanted, will be investigated for their influence on identification accuracy in line-ups in which the suspect is either absent or present. An additional question is whether crime severity enhances memory for an individual, or whether attention needs to be directed towards the individual to influence memory. There is equivocal evidence that crimes of a more serious nature increase motivation to attend to the criminal scenario (Leippe, Wells, & Ostrom, 1978), while others do not support this finding. As eyewitness investigation is relevant to psychologists, the legal system, witnesses, the accused, and society at large, it is