Emotional eyewitnesses and forensic questioning

Eyewitnesses serve a central role in the legal system. Their reports can provide information to legal decision makers that are necessary to achieve justice, but when they make errors they also can (and do) contribute to miscarriages of justice. Several decades of research have examined the various factors that influence eyewitnesses as they experience and report crimes. One factor found to have a substantial influence on eyewitnesses is emotion. Eyewitnesses' emotion at the time of the crime can impair their recall accuracy. Eyewitnesses' emotion at the time of reporting can influence jurors' and legal professionals' perceptions of their credibility. Eyewitnesses can also experience emotions by the very act of being questioned about and reporting on a crime, thereby producing adverse impacts on their accuracy and willingness to disclose information. In this chapter, we review the literature on the influence of emotion on eyewitness accuracy, perceived credibility, and process of disclosure. We discuss the similarities and differences of the effect of emotion for adult and child eyewitnesses. We conclude with recommendations based on the literature - including encouraging emotional expression, training legal professionals, and correcting misconceptions - that can be applied to the legal system to promote more just outcomes.