Talk:Eyewitness testimony

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 January 2020 and 25 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kaity Sherksnas.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:05, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Convict?
Is it possible to convict someone based on nothing but eyewitness testimony, or is it mandatory to have something tangible additionally (e.g. DNA proof, CCTV footage, weapon or body found, etc). Since humans often lie, it would be a great outrage to convict people based on nothing but testimony. 91.83.16.218 (talk) 22:24, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Can a camera be an eye-witness?
In Los Angeles: I was just convicted of making an illegal right turn on a red light (didn't come to a complete stop first), based on an automated video record. I asked to cross-examine an eye-witness. I was told the eye-witness was any one of several hundred policemen whose job it is to look at videos. I demanded to examine the only first party eye-witness to the "crime", that is the camera. This was denied, on the basis that a camera is a robot, and can't talk or think. See where constitutionally guaranteed rights are headed? The fine was $439, a not inconsiderable sum. The nature of what constitutes an eye-witness should be covered in this article by an expert. 75.83.150.171 (talk) 15:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Review
The lead section of the article is well developed. It does a good job of summarizing the key points of the article. However, it is a little unclear of what role forensics has in supporting psychologists in devaluing eyewitness reports. One more sentence should be added to further describe what form of forensics helps support psychologists claims. Also, Elizabeth Loftus is credited in the article as being a leading expert on eyewitness reports and an entire subsection is devoted to her so you may consider mentioning her in the introduction. The article is clearly outlined and its structure is clear. It does a good job of first reviewing the reliability of testimony, next looking into errors in testimony, and lastly discussing ways to improve eyewitness accounts. Under the top research heading the paragraph describes the roles of systematic variables and estimator variables, respectively. However, in the following presentation estimator variables are described before systematic variables. This only requires a minor adjustment but would contribute to the structure of the article. The article does an excellent job of providing even balance to all information that it covers. All information in the article is covered thoroughly and evenly. The article is presented neutrally, it fairly presents evidence that calls into question the validity and accuracy of eyewitness accounts. The article is thoroughly cited with multiple in-links to other wikipedia pages. Only citation 12 appears that it needs to have further information attached to it. The article has no warning signs attached to it and has no language problems in the lead section. The article contains no uncited information and refers to no unnamed groups of people. All aspects of the article are covered and coverage is evenly distributed. The article was very well written and little editing was needed. Only quotations were changed to place brackets, [ ], around beginning words to prevent the quotations from beginning with a lower case letter. Commas were also added to sentences before quotations came into use. Only these small changes were needed for the article. 12.188.210.142 (talk) 01:15, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review
The lead section is clear, concise, and all the key points are included in this section. The structure is very good and there are several headings and subheading that enable the reader to access what information he or she needs. The language and flow of the article is very professional and unbiased. The research section almost overtakes the article, but don’t cut anything out of it because it is very necessary. I only suggest that the other sections could use more information. Coverage is fairly neutral, but I would like to see some information on people who back up traditional thoughts on eyewitness testimony, if there are any. By doing this, the article will be even more neutral than it already is. The reference section is large and there are multiple references from credible sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TuesdayF (talk • contribs) 17:14, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

This is an excellent and well-written article. It explains what eyewitness testimony is very well to the audience. I love the research portion of this article, it provides great detail and helps the audience understand this more. Since it is so large, it might be a good thing to add some more information and sources to the other sections. This is a very professional and unbiased article and it was very interesing to read. Great job! Maddie1013 (talk) 23:52, 19 October 2012 (UTC)Maddie1013

You may consider adding more links, such as to hindsight bias. It seems that in the section on Loftus, you are bringing in information about some estimator variables. It might improve flow and help readability if you got rid of the Loftus section and divided up that information into the two sections on types of variables. Instead of a Loftus section, perhaps include a section labeled Misinformation Effect (which is what her research demonstrated). Excellent job! 69.160.138.33 (talk) 22:00, 24 October 2012 (UTC)dguyla

There are lots of good changes here -- but be careful not to swing the article too far in one direction. That is, it is very important to add caveats about eyewitness testimony, but note that this does not mean such testimony is *always* wrong. Children are more suggestible, but that does not mean they are always poor witnesses. Elizareader (talk) 12:50, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Weapon focus
Add a brief section acknowledging the role of weapon focus in decreasing the accuracy of eyewitness testimony and linking the two topics. Meadair (talk) 17:51, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Tone and Balance
I think this article could be written in a more neutral tone. As someone who does believe there is serious issues with eyewitness testimony, I felt this article supported my beliefs. I feel that an eyewitness testimony being unreliable was overrepresented. Kaity Sherksnas (talk) 19:10, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Human Cognition SP23
— Assignment last updated by Annann789 (talk) 20:25, 13 April 2023 (UTC)