Edgewood High School, El Corral, 2015

Description:	r3y klayLin ThummeL 6 kCaeLa LaughlinWho stole the cupcakes?Students in Mr. Winklers Psychology class were surprised when an unknown visitor stopped by: oure on the stand at a trial, the courtroom isquiet and still—all eyes on you. The defendantscase rests on you and what you saw, it rests on aneyewitness testimony. Heres the thing though, youfeel like you remember what happened, but its stillonly your word on what you think happened. So iseyewitness testimony really all that _--—-—---—-______-——.reliable? This was just the sort of The experiment is fun. Itsinquiry that Mr. Winkler pushed his been set up in manyhappened to me when I wasin college. - Mr. WinklerPsychology class to think about in the psychology lecture hallsform of a surprising and unexpected across tne country and itexperiment.The experiment was testing eyewitness memories. I had a studentcover his face and wear certainarticles of clothing, which we picked ahead of timeso that we knew the exact color they were, and hadhim go to my other classroom to prepare to comeinto the psychology classroom to steal the cupcakeswhich I had told the class I was making, Winklersaid. The experiment, which was set up so that thestudents were unaware of what was going to happen,brought about a multitude of different results, including thefinding that much of what the students said they saw, was faroff course with what the perpetrator actually looked like.The people on one side of the room had a better testimonythan the people on the other side of the room. I had multiplepeople saying he was wearing gray when he was actuallywearing green, Mr. Winkler said. His findingswere quite typical for many eyewitness accounts.This point was introduced in Mr. Winklerslesson; however, how he taught this lesson wasmore than just a lecture.The experiment is fun. Its been set up inmany psychology lecture halls across the countryand it happened to me when I was in college,Mr. Winkler said, explaining how a similar experiment wasconducted in one of his classes and how it affected his viewson the subject. The whole point of the experiment was thateyewitness testimony is not always good. So if you ever go totrial, and someone has an eyewitness against you, you mightwant pull up the fact to your lawyer that eyewitnesstestimonies are usually flawed, Mr. Winkler said.Whitney Scherschel-SlackerEmily Jones -ImaginativeWhat type of student are you?
Source:	http://cdm17129.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/hs-edgewood/id/7657
Collection:	Edgewood High School

Further information on this record can be found at its source.