Eyewitness Testimony

11 Pages 2784 Words

tics of the witness has explored areas such as the gender, age, intelligence, race and personality of the eyewitness. We will investigate in more detail recent research of the eyewitness characteristics of age and race.

The hypothesis that an eyewitnesses age may be linked to how they will perform and the accuracy at which they will perform in testifying and whether some age groups are more vulnerable to suggestibility has been investigated by many psychologists. This research is of great importance, as children are increasingly testifying in courts, particularly in relation to family violence and sexual abuse (Leippe, Manion & Romanczyk, 1991; Roebers, Bjorklund, Schneider & Cassel, 2002). Wells & Olsen (2003) state that very young children and the elderly have been found to perform significantly worse than younger adults in eyewitness identification tasks.

In a study examining child eyewitnesses, Davies, Tarrant & Flin (1989 cited in Pozzulo & Warren, 2003) found that younger children of 6 - 7 years of age, recalled fewer descriptions ...