The semantic structure of accuracy in eyewitness testimony
In two studies, we examined if correct and incorrect statements in eyewitness testimony differed in semantic content. Testimony statements were obtained from participants who watched staged crime films and were interviewed as eyewitnesses. We analyzed the latent semantic representations of these sta...
Saved in:
Published in | Frontiers in psychology Vol. 15; p. 1211987 |
---|---|
Main Authors | , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Switzerland
Frontiers Media S.A
2024
|
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
Cover
Loading…
Summary: | In two studies, we examined if correct and incorrect statements in eyewitness testimony differed in semantic content. Testimony statements were obtained from participants who watched staged crime films and were interviewed as eyewitnesses. We analyzed the latent semantic representations of these statements using LSA and BERT. Study 1 showed that the semantic space of correct statements differed from incorrect statements; correct statements were more closely related to a
semantic representation, whereas incorrect statements were more closely related to a
semantic representation. Study 2 only partially replicated these findings, but a mega-analysis of the two datasets showed different semantic representations for correct and incorrect statements, with incorrect statements more closely related to representations of
and
Given the critical role of eyewitness testimony in the legal context, and the generally low ability of fact-finders to estimate the accuracy of witness statements, our results strongly call for further research on semantic content in correct and incorrect testimony statements. |
---|---|
Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Pietro Pietrini, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy Reviewed by: Cynthia Whissell, Laurentian University, Canada Edited by: Giuseppe Sartori, University of Padua, Italy |
ISSN: | 1664-1078 1664-1078 |
DOI: | 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1211987 |