MYERS Ch.15 Quiz

A police interrogator questioning an eyewitness to a robbery hopes to learn whether the assailant was wearing a bright green hat similar to one seen in another robbery. According to research, which of the following questions will elicit the most detailed, undistorted recall from the eyewitness?

"How was the robber dressed?"

While _____ of researchers on eyewitness testimony agree that an eyewitness's confidence can be influenced by factors that are unrelated to identification accuracy, _____ of jurors also agreed.

95%; 50%

What effect does rehearsing answers to questions before taking the witness stand have on testimony?

It makes the witness more confident even when they are inaccurate

Whose eyewitness testimony is probably the most reliable?

Millie's report given immediately after a grocery store robbery. She was simply asked to tell the police what she saw.

In an experiment conducted with the help of BBC Television, Wiseman (1998) reported that viewers saw the defendant played by either an attractive or an unattractive actor. How did the viewers react?

More viewers "convicted" the unattractive defendant

Who is most likely to make an accurate identification?

Phil who makes his identification in less than 15 seconds

Researchers and jurors are most likely to disagree on which of the following issues? A. An eyewitness's testimony about an event can be affected by how the questions about the event are worded. B. Police instructions can affect an eyewitness's willingness to make an identification. C. An eyewitness's perception and memory of an event may be impacted by his/her expectations. D. Eye witnesses are more accurate when identifying members of their own race than members of other races.

Police instructions can affect an eyewitness's willingness to make an identification.

Which of the following factors has been shown to influence either the likelihood of conviction or the severity of punishment? A. poverty B. attractiveness C. similarity to the jurors D. both attractiveness and similarity to the jurors

both attractiveness and similarity to the jurors

According to the text, simulated juries

can help us formulate theories that we can then use to interpret the more complex world.

Wells and his colleagues (2006) reported that it is the _______ eyewitnesses whom jurors find to be most believable.

confident

Research suggests that jury deliberations can be influenced by all of the following processes EXCEPT A. group polarization. B. minority influence. C. deindividuation. D. informational influence.

deindividuation.

A study of more than 3,500 criminal cases and some 4,000 civil cases found that _______ the judge agreed with the jury's decision.

four out of five times

Jurors exhibit a tendency to treat racial outgroups

less favorably

You have just been appointed to serve as a new county judge. You are concerned about the effect inadmissible evidence may have on the jury in an upcoming trial of a case involving rape. You anticipate that the defense attorney will seek to introduce evidence regarding the victim's prior sexual history. To minimize the impact of such evidence on the jury, you should

remind the jury before the trial that the victim's previous sexual history is irrelevant.

Amato (1979) found that when people play the role of juror, they are more sympathetic to a defendant who

shares their political views.

The tendency for witnesses to incorporate misleading information into their memories is especially strong when

suggestive questions are repeated.

When Fisher and his colleagues (1994) trained detectives to use the "cognitive interview" procedure for questioning eyewitnesses,

the amount of information elicited from eyewitnesses increased 50 percent.

Evidence from social science research clearly indicates that

the death penalty is not a significant deterrent to crime.

After hearing a television report falsely indicating that drugs may have contributed to a recent auto accident, several eyewitnesses of the accident begin to remember the driver as traveling at a faster rate of speed than was actually the case. This provides an example of

the misinformation effect.

Researchers have found that eyewitnesses' accuracy can improve when

they are presented with a sequence of individual people, one by one, instead of being presented with a group of photos or a lineup.

In Wells and Bradfield's study (1999), participants were asked to identify a gunman they had seen on video. After making a false identification but receiving confirming feedback, ___ percent rated their initial certainty as very high.

58

In Wells and Bradfield's study (1999), participants were asked if feedback from the experimenter had influenced their certainty regarding their identification of the gunman. What percentage of the participants denied any influence of the feedback?

58%

When presented with circumstantial evidence and no eyewitnesses to a robbery-murder case, Elizabeth Loftus found that 18% of her participants voted to convict the suspect. Presented with the same information plus one eyewitness, _____ of participants voted to

72%

Research experiments by Wells and others (1979) show that incorrect eyewitnesses are believed _____ of the time.

80 percent

Which of the following statements is TRUE? A. Retelling events accurately makes people less resistant to the misinformation effect. B. Rehearsing answers before taking the witness stand decreases the confidence of those who are wrong. C. Retelling events commits people to their recollections, accurate or not. D. Retelling has no effect on memory.

Retelling events commits people to their recollections, accurate or not.

An eyewitness gains confidence from which of the following sources?

being asked the same question repeatedly

Stan was initially uncertain about the man he identified as the burglar in a police lineup. His confidence increased, however, after

being asked the same question repeatedly.

After hours of interrogation by police officers, John, who was innocent of the crime, confessed to stealing from the grocery store. This is an example of a(n)

compliant confession.

In order to promote accurate recall, the "cognitive interview" procedure for questioning eyewitnesses begins with

guiding eyewitnesses to visualize the scene.

Hastie, Penrod, and Pennington (1983) showed participants reenactments of an actual murder case, and asked them to deliberate until they agreed on a verdict. After deliberation, their initial leanings

had grown stronger

Sam is a baby-faced, 30-year-old doctor. According to your text, which of the following crimes would Sam mostly likely be found guilty of in a court of law?

harassment

In a police lineup, the lineup interviewer's feedback

has a large effect on the witness's confidence.

A prosecuting attorney learns that a crucial eyewitness to a grocery store robbery correctly remembers trivial details of the crime scene. If the prosecutor hopes to convince the jury that the eyewitness is credible, research suggests

he should make the jury aware of the witness's ability to remember trivial details

Which of the following factors is NOT likely to lead to a lighter sentence for the person convicted? A. high status B. baby-faced features C. height D. physical attractiveness

height

When Amato (1979) had Australian students read evidence concerning a left- or right-wing person accused of a politically motivated burglary, they judged him less guilty if

his political views were similar to their own.

Someone accused of a crime is judged more sympathetically

if he or she appears similar to the one who judges.

Arthur is asked to imagine childhood events such as having the school nurse give him a vaccination. Afterwards, Arthur is convinced that the imagined event actually occurred. This is an example of

imagination inflation.

The majority of judges express _______ in the ability of mock jury studies to predict the actual behavior of jurors.

serious doubt

52) In researching over 1,700 defendants appearing in Texas misdemeanor cases, Downs and Lyons (1991) found that the judges _______ less attractive defendants.

set greater fines for

According to the text, what factor helps explain why in acquaintance rape trials, men more often than women judge the defendant not guilty?

similarity

To minimize the effects of inadmissible testimony, Myers suggests that judges are best advised to

videotape the testimony and cut out the inadmissible parts.

Jurors think that an eyewitness who can recall trivial details such as how many pictures were hanging in the room probably

was paying better attention than one who recalls no details

Research suggests that jurors in the minority will be most persuasive when they are all of the following EXCEPT A. consistent. B. self-confident. C. persistent. D. well-educated.

well-educated.

Which of the following statements is TRUE? A. Most people will admit that pretrial publicity has influenced their ability to be impartial. B. The effect of pretrial publicity on jury members can be removed by a judge's instructions to disregard such publicity. C. A judge's orders to ignore inadmissible testimony can boomerang—adding to the impact of the testimony. D. Getting jurors to publicly pledge their impartiality eliminates the effect of pretrial publicity.

A judge's orders to ignore inadmissible testimony can boomerang—adding to the impact of the testimony.

Eyewitness testimony can be distorted or biased by which of the following? A. suggestive questions B. an eyewitness's own retelling of events C. whether the person is an eyewitness for the defendant or the plaintiff D. All of the above

All of the above

Which of the following has been suggested as a strategy for reducing misidentifications in police lineups? A. Give eyewitnesses a "blank" lineup that contains no suspects and screen out those who make false identifications. B. Minimize false identifications with instructions that acknowledge that the offender may not be in the lineup. C. Include one suspect and several known innocent people in the lineup rather than a group of several suspects. D. All of the above

All of the above

Which of the following is NOT a recommended strategy for increasing the accuracy of eyewitnesses and jurors? A. Train police interviewers to elicit unbiased accounts. B. Educate jurors about the limitations of eyewitness testimony. C. Ask witnesses to scan a lineup of several suspects or mug shots simultaneously rather than one at a time. D. Use scripted and neutral questions during lineups so there are no subtle demands of identification.

Ask witnesses to scan a lineup of several suspects or mug shots simultaneously rather than one at a time.

Bill is a trained police interviewer. He has been asked to question Miss Muffled about an automobile accident she has just witnessed. Which of the following questions is Bill unlikely to ask Miss Muffled?

Did the red Mustang stop at the traffic light?

Which of the following statements is TRUE? A. Eyewitnesses are often more confident than correct. B. Confident eyewitnesses are more accurate than uncertain eyewitnesses. C. Both the gender and race of eyewitnesses have been shown to correlate with their degree of accuracy. D. Eyewitnesses who pay attention to details are most likely to pay attention to the culprit's face.

Eyewitnesses are often more confident than correct.

Which of the following statements about eyewitness testimony is FALSE? A. Eyewitnesses' certainty about what they have seen is closely related to their accuracy. B. Confident witnesses are more believable to jurors than those lacking confidence. C. Incorrect witnesses are virtually as confident as correct witnesses. D. Eyewitness testimony is powerful to juries.

Eyewitnesses' certainty about what they have seen is closely related to their accuracy.

Which is NOT a way to increase jurors' understanding in court? A. The judge should explain clearly the basic concepts when instructing the jury rather than using legal terminology. B. The judge should clarify statistical information, when it is used, so that jury members understand the implications of the information. C. Give jurors access to transcripts rather than have them rely on their memories. D. Give jurors a chance to excuse themselves when they don't understand things that are happening in court.

Give jurors a chance to excuse themselves when they don't understand things that are happening in court.

Which of the following is recommended for increasing eyewitness accuracy and lineups? A. The detective should ask a series of yes-no questions rather than letting eyewitnesses offer unprompted recollections. B. Have eyewitnesses judge each suspect individually, indicating yes or no to each one. C. Ask eyewitnesses to carefully describe the suspect verbally before asking them to make a lineup choice. D. Provide eyewitnesses with feedback about the accuracy of their choices.

Have eyewitnesses judge each suspect individually, indicating yes or no to each one.

Which is NOT true in relation to jurors in court? A. Jurors are best persuaded when attorneys present evidence as a story of what happened. B. Many people don't understand the judicial instructions they are to follow. C. Jurors are reminded to avoid premature conclusions. D. Premature opinions of jurors don't influence how they interpret information.

Premature opinions of jurors don't influence how they interpret information.

A prosecuting attorney is uncertain whether her eyewitness will seem credible to the jury. The eyewitness's testimony could help win a conviction, but the witness might be discredited by the defense attorney. What advice should the prosecutor accept?

Put the eyewitness on the stand, since even a discredited eyewitness is more convincing than no eyewitness at all.

Of the following eyewitnesses to a crime, who would probably appear most believable to a jury?

Randy, a radio announcer who appears very confident about what he saw

Which statement is TRUE? A. Videotapes of actual juries indicate that juries are relatively unbiased. B. Studies of ad hoc, simulated juries say little about the dynamics of actual juries. C. A single person who favors a verdict that the other 11 jurors oppose wins the others over in 30% of all criminal trials, except for murder trials. D. So-called death qualified juries tend to be less lenient than non-"death-qualified" juries.

So-called death qualified juries tend to be less lenient than non-"death-qualified" juries.

Which statement is true? A. States with the death penalty have lower homicide rates. B. States with the death penalty do not have lower homicide rates. C. When states abolish the death penalty homicide rates increase. D. Homicide rates have dropped when states initiate the death penalty

States with the death penalty do not have lower homicide rates

Which of the following is TRUE? A. States with the death penalty have lower homicide rates B. Homicide rates drop when states initiate the death penalty C. When committing a crime of passion, most people pause to calculate the consequences D. The death penalty is applied in some states more than others

The death penalty is applied in some states more than others

What is meant by the "two-thirds-majority" scheme?

The jury verdict is usually the alternative favored by at least two-thirds of the jurors at the outset.

Which statement is TRUE? A. Confident eyewitnesses are more accurate than are uncertain eyewitnesses. B. Eyewitnesses who remember many details are more accurate than those who don't. C. Jurors are relatively skilled in distinguishing between accurate and inaccurate eyewitnesses. D. The majority of convicted individuals later exonerated were victims of mistaken eyewitnesses.

The majority of convicted individuals later exonerated were victims of mistaken eyewitnesses.

Who among the following is likely to receive the most severe sentence for drunk driving? A. Kim, a good looking real estate agent B. Tim, an unattractive auto mechanic with long hair C. Ken, a clean-cut businessman D. Carol, an attractive single mother

Tim, an unattractive auto mechanic with long hair

Why is it important that interrogators be blind to which person in a lineup is the actual suspect of the crime?

To avoid the post-identification feedback effect

Which of the following is FALSE? A. People may distort their own eyewitness recollections by adjusting their stories to suit their audiences. B. Trained psychologists can distinguish false memories from real memories. C. Witnesses are especially likely to incorporate misleading information into their memories when they believe the questioner to be well informed. D. Both adults and children may fall victim to the misinformation effect.

Trained psychologists can distinguish false memories from real memories.

Which of the following statements is TRUE? A. When evidence is not highly incriminating, deliberating jurors become more lenient. B. If one person on a 12-person jury is consistent, persistent, and confident he or she will swing the majority 35% of the time. C. Due to the nature of jury deliberation, group polarization is highly unlikely. D. Individuals tend to recall trial information better than the overall jury does.

When evidence is not highly incriminating, deliberating jurors become more lenient.

Jurors are best persuaded when

attorneys present evidence in a narrative fashion.

112) Which of the following is FALSE? A. In the United States, Blacks are undervalued as victims B. In the United States, a Black man who kills a White man is more likely to be sentenced to death than a White man who kills a Black man C. When a defendant's race fits a crime stereotype mock jurors offer more negative verdicts D. Whites who espouse nonprejudiced views are less likely to demonstrate racial bias in trials where race issues are not blatant

Whites who espouse nonprejudiced views are less likely to demonstrate racial bias in trials where race issues are not blatant

An attorney will be defending James S., who is accused of raping a 22-year-old woman. Who among the following jurors is likely to be least sympathetic to his client's case?

Wilma, a 42-year-old mother of two who tends to be authoritarian

Sunstein, Schkade, and Ellman (2004) found evidence that group polarization tendencies were exhibited in all the following areas except A. disability discrimination. B. affirmative action. C. review of environmental regulations. D. acquaintance rape.

acquaintance rape.

Research suggests that jurors in the minority will be most persuasive when they

are consistent and self-confident.

Research on the memories of young children indicates that they

are especially susceptible to misinformation.

Research indicates that six-member juries

are less likely to embody a community's diversity.

Research indicates that eyewitnesses who remember trivial details of a crime scene

are less likely to have paid attention to the culprit's face.

Research on false memories in children find that children

cannot reliably separate real from false memories.

In what we now know to be a mistake, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in 1972 that among the factors to be considered in determining an eyewitness's accuracy is "the level of _______ demonstrated by the witness."

certainty

If a witness fails to detect that an innocent person entering a scene differs from another person existing in the scene _____ is likely to occur.

change blindness

The new police interview technique that improves information gathering is called

cognitive interview.

After the study by Morgan and his team, they found soldiers, during a mock training session on survival, could

correctly identify their high-stress interrogator 30 percent of the time.

Research on the effects of group deliberation by a jury suggests that

deliberation cancels out some of the biases that contaminate individual judgments.

Research on the effects of group deliberation by a jury suggests all of the following EXCEPT that A. jurors exert normative pressure. B. jurors share information. C. deliberation does not cancel out certain biases. D. deliberation can draw attention away from jurors' previous prejudgments of the evidence.

deliberation does not cancel out certain biases.

When testimony is biased by the misinformation effect, eyewitnesses are more likely to

deny the accuracy of their memories, even when they are correct

Joe is a defense attorney in case with one eyewitness for the prosecution. Joe's best chance of winning the case will come if he can

discredit the witness and find another eyewitness to contradict him/her.

Jurors have difficulty "erasing" the impact of inadmissible evidence

especially when the inadmissible evidence has an emotional impact.

At the University of Washington, Loftus (1979) found that eyewitnesses in a hypothetical robbery-murder case were influential

even when their testimony was discredited.

Research on jury selection has found that

evidence is a more potent determinant of verdicts than individual characteristics of jurors.

Racially mixed mock juries have been found to

express more leniency.

Studies of eyewitness testimony indicate that

eyewitnesses who are shown to have poor eyesight have little effect on the jurors' judgment.

People are most at risk for having highly confident, yet ultimately incorrect, recollections when recalling

faces of another race.

Support for capital punishment in the United States has _______ since 1994.

fallen

Research suggests that minorities are most likely to sway the majority when the minority

favors acquittal.

Sheppard and Vidmar (1980) had some students serve as witnesses to a fight, while others took the roles of lawyers and judges. When they had been interviewed by the defense lawyer, the witnesses

gave testimony that was favorable to the defendant.

When jurors or some judges hearing a case are of like-minded people, they tend to go to extremes when making a decision as a group. This is an example of

group polarization.

Dunning and Perretta (2002) found that those eyewitnesses who made their identifications _______ were nearly 90 percent accurate.

in less than 10-12 seconds

Wells, Ferguson, and Lindsay (1981) had eyewitnesses to a staged theft rehearse their answers to questions before taking the witness stand. Doing so

increased the confidence of those who were wrong.

Studies have identified the post-identification feedback effect, and suggest that in order to avoid it,

interrogators should be kept ignorant of who is the suspect.

City police found that Mr. Caldwell, an eyewitness to a murder in a local bank, correctly remembered many trivial details of the crime scene, including the specific time on the clock and the paintings on the wall. Research findings suggest that Mr. Caldwell's recall of trivial details means

it is less likely that he can also correctly identify the murderer.

Research shows that when a judge rules evidence to be inadmissible and admonishes the jury to ignore it,

jurors have a hard time ignoring the evidence and its influence on their deliberations

Jury researcher Michael Saks (1998) reported that

larger juries more accurately recall trial testimony.

Which one of the following is an indicator that can suggest accuracy in lineup identification? A. being an older eyewitness B. taking a long time to make an ID C. being very confident about an ID D. making a very quick identification

making a very quick identification

In order to close the gap between real courtroom processes and laboratory studies, researchers use _______ as participants and have them view _______.

members of real jury pools; enactments of actual trials

Studies of the misinformation effect provide a dramatic demonstration of

memory construction.

The process of witnessing an event, receiving misleading information about it, and then incorporating the misleading information into one's memory of the event is referred to as the _______ effect.

misinformation

After hearing evidence in a murder trial, ten jurors believed that the evidence was insufficient to convict the 25-year-old Black defendant. According to the group polarization hypothesis, after the jurors deliberated, they would be

more convinced that the evidence was insufficient to convict.

Death-qualified jurors are

more likely to convict in criminal cases.

Which is NOT one of the confidence boosters for eyewitnesses found by Wells and Bradfield? A. learning that another witness has identified the same person B. being asked the same question repeatedly C. preparing for cross-examination D. not getting feedback confirmation after identification of a suspect

not getting feedback confirmation after identification of a suspect

Studies have reported that Blacks are _____ as defendants or _____ as victims, or both.

overpunished; undervalued

In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court in a split decision

overturned a lower court ruling that death-qualified jurors are a biased sample.

All of the following are good procedures to follow when dealing with the lineup process EXCEPT A. make the witness give a "yes" or "no" judgment in response to a sequence of suspects. B. let the witness view suspects one at a time. C. police questions should be spontaneous, not scripted. D. don't let police say any confidence-inflating post-lineup comments.

police questions should be spontaneous, not scripted.

Ellsworth and Mauro (1998) reported that gender seems to be linked with verdicts only in

rape and battered woman cases.

Nearly all the states in the U.S. now have _______ statutes that prohibit or limit testimony concerning a rape victim's prior sexual activity.

rape shield

As a result of the judge's warning that the jury disregard evidence ruled inadmissible, the stricken evidence may have an even greater impact on the jury's decision than if it had not been ruled out. This is probably due to _______ in the jurors.

reactance

In the process known as the misinformation effect, individuals

receive wrong information about an event and then incorporate that information into their memory of the event.

When Efran (1974) gave students a description of a case of students cheating and showed them a photograph of either an attractive or unattractive person accused of the crime, he found that attractive defendants were

recommended for least punishment.

Young children's susceptibility to the misinformation effect raises the distinct possibility that

some people have been falsely accused in sex abuse cases.

Loftus (1979) found that when an eyewitness who had testified against the defendant in a hypothetical robbery-murder case was discredited because of having poor vision

the majority of jurors still voted for conviction.

Irene Blair and her colleagues (2004) reported that over a two-decade period, Black males convicted of murdering a White defendant were doubly likely to be sentenced to death if

they had more stereotypically Afrocentric features

Jurors who are told by the judge to "disregard that witness's testimony" will be more likely to comply with that order when

they have been pretrained briefly about legal procedures.

If convicted, _______ people strike people as more dangerous, especially if they are sexual offenders.

unattractive

Survey researchers sometimes assist defense attorneys by using "scientific jury selection" to eliminate individuals likely to be unsympathetic. Results indicated that in the first nine important trials in which the defense relied on such methods, it

won seven.