i guessed the right answer because it looks right, but i really don't understand the stimulus that well.
why it's "therefore, police officers are advised to.....". why it uses "therefore", i felt that if the confidence and accuracy bear little relation, then it doesn't matter whether they lineup the suspects or not. even though A hears B's statement and his confidence was affected, it doesn't mean A's statement will be less accurate, right?
Test 29 Section 2 #17 Forum
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yoni45
- Posts: 72
- Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2007 2:12 am
Re: Test 29 Section 2 #17
(for the record, I actually found this question in s.4 of PT29, not s.2)mz253 wrote:i guessed the right answer because it looks right, but i really don't understand the stimulus that well.
why it's "therefore, police officers are advised to.....". why it uses "therefore", i felt that if the confidence and accuracy bear little relation, then it doesn't matter whether they lineup the suspects or not. even though A hears B's statement and his confidence was affected, it doesn't mean A's statement will be less accurate, right?
Perhaps not it doesn't always make it less accurate (by virtue of coincidence), however, the question essentially asks what principle (necessarily) underlies the advice given. You can largely treat these questions as Necessary Assumption (you're just looking for an 'assumption' that fits the form of a 'principle').
Now, the conclusion (or advice in this case) is that police officers are advised not to allow lineups where witnesses can hear each other. Why? Well, because apparently, *certain* factors can increase one's confidence without altering the actual accuracy. Which, is a bad thing -- it essentially gives more credence to an identification on the basis of something other than the actual evidence.
There's a thematic shift in this argument however -- it jumps from "certain" factors increasing said confidence on questionable grounds, to disallowing that specific practice where witnesses can hear each other.
What must we assume here? What principle necessarily underlies this reasoning?
The idea that this practice of letting witnesses hear other witnesses in the id process is one of these practices that can affect their confidence without altering the accuracy itself.
If it wasn't one of these practices, the argument's reasoning for advising police to disallow the practice wouldn't hold.
Hope that helped -- let me know if anything? ^_^
