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Re-evaluating the credibility of eyewitness testimony: the misinformation effect and the overcritical juror

Puddifoot, Katherine

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Abstract

Eyewitnesses are susceptible to recollecting that they experienced an event in a way that is consistent with false information provided to them after the event. The effect is commonly called the misinformation effect. Because jurors tend to find eyewitness testimony compelling and persuasive, it is argued that jurors are likely to give inappropriate credence to eyewitness testimony, judging it to be reliable when it is not. It is argued that jurors should be informed about psychological findings on the misinformation effect, to ensure that they lower the credence that they give to eyewitness testimony to reflect the unreliability of human memory that is demonstrated by the effect. Here I present a new argument, the overcritical juror argument, to support the conclusion that eyewitnesses are likely to make inappropriate credence assignments to eyewitness testimony. Whereas previously authors have argued that jurors will tend to give too much credence to eyewitness testimony, I identify circumstances in which jurors will give too little credence to some pieces of testimony. In my view jurors should be informed by psychological findings relating to the misinformation effect to ensure that they do not lower the credence that they give to eyewitness testimony when they should not.

Citation

Puddifoot, K. (2020). Re-evaluating the credibility of eyewitness testimony: the misinformation effect and the overcritical juror. Episteme, 17(2), 255-279. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2018.42

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 30, 2018
Online Publication Date Dec 26, 2018
Publication Date Jun 30, 2020
Deposit Date Oct 22, 2018
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Episteme
Print ISSN 1742-3600
Electronic ISSN 1750-0117
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 17
Issue 2
Pages 255-279
DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2018.42
Related Public URLs https://birmingham-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=44BIR_PURE_DSpublications%2F051cd0ae-b739-45e2-a7ea-f7cb6782f2cd&context=L&vid=44BIR_VU1&lang=en_US&search_scope=LSCOP_44BIR_RES_PUB&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=loca

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Accepted Journal Article (208 Kb)
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Copyright Statement
COPYRIGHT: © Cambridge University Press 2018
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


Published Journal Article (Advance online version) (316 Kb)
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