1.2 - Memory (Set C - Eye Witness Testimony)

Question 1

Outline the procedure of loftus and palmer’s first experiment?

Answer 1

• 45 students shown 7 films of different traffic accidents
• after watching film they filled out questionnaire, asking to describe the accident and questions about it
• critical question ‘how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?’ - acts as a leading question

one group given the exact question - the other had the word ‘hit’ replaced with different verbs ‘smashed, collided, bumped’

Question 2

Define leading question?

Answer 2

A question that, either by its form or content suggests to the witness what answer is desired or leads him or her to the desired answer

Question 3

Outline the findings of loftus and palmer’s first experiment?

Answer 3

Changing ‘hit’ to verbs like ‘smashed’, ‘collided’ and ‘bumped’ resulted in a greater mean speed estimate

• smashed - 40
• collided - 39
• bumped 38
• hit - 34
• contacted 31

Question 4

Outline the procedure of loftus and palmer’s second experiment?

Answer 4

• leading question may bias a participants response or may actually cause information to be altered before stored - this was tested
• participants divided into 3 groups and shown a minute long film of car accident - were asked questions about speed
• participants returned week later and asked 10 questions about accident - with a critical question ‘did you see any broken glass?’ (there was none)

Idea that presumably those who thought car was travelling faster might be more likely to think there was broken glass

Question 5

Outline the findings of loftus and palmer’s second experiment?

Answer 5

Leading question did change the actual memory a partisans had for the event

16 people said there was broken glass with the verb “smashed”, with 34 saying no - compared to 7 with “hit” and 43 no

Question 6

Outline the findings of loftus and palmer’s second experiment?

Answer 6

Leading question did change the actual memory a participant had for an event

16 people said there was broken glass with the verb “smashed”, with 34 saying no - compared to 7 with “hit” and 43 no

Question 7

Evaluate loftus and palmers experiment - give 2 weaknesses?

Answer 7

• Both are lab experiments and hilighly controlled - lack ecological validity and not applicable to real world (experiencing an actual crash could induce fight or flight which could effect eyewitnesses account) weakness
• lacks population validity - not generalisable as the participants were all students of a particular age group, reactions may vary with older people weakness

Question 8

Give 2 things that may affect eye witness testimony?

Answer 8

• leading question
• post-event discussion

Question 9

What is post-event discussion?

Answer 9

Distortion of what you’ve seen if you’ve been witness to a crime after discussing it with other people or going through repeated interviews

Involves
- conformity effect
- source monitoring theory

Question 10

Explain the conformity effect of post-event discussion - with reference to Gabberts experiment?

Answer 10

Co-witnesses may reach a consensus view of what actually happened - Gabbert investigated this

• participants were in pairs where each partner watched a different video of the same event - they discussed the event before individually recalling the event they watched

71% of witnesses who discussed the event went on to mistakenly recall items acquired through discussion

Question 11

Explain the repeat interviewing effect of post-event discussion?

Answer 11

Each time an eyewitness is interviewed there is the possibility that comments from the interviewer will become incorporated into their recollection of events

• leading questions can alter the individuals memory for event

Question 12

Give 2 strengths of investigating accuracy of Eyewitness testimony specificaly misleading information - focus on application and support?

Answer 12

• real world application - criminal justice system relies heavily on eyewitness identification, research into the field is necessary to ensure that innocent people are not wrongfully convicted on the basis of faulty EWT
• considerable support for research on the effect of misleading information - other studies conducted by Loftus which show the power of misleading information in creating inaccurate memory

Question 13

Give 2 weaknesses of investigating accuracy of Eyewitness testimony specificaly misleading information - focus on lab experiments and response bias?

Answer 13

• involved lab experiments (therefore low ecological validly) which may not represent real life due to participants not taking experiments seriously or not reacting as they would in a real accident - suggests that misleading information may have less influence on real life EWT than loftus research suggest
• response bias - other studies suggest that order of questions had a significant effect, Loftus and palmer presented the questions in random order Where as a replicated study found that participants are not susceptible to misleading information if questions are presented in same order as original data - provides alternative explanation to Loftus and palmer, hilighting importance of question order in interviews

Question 14

Explain how anxiety can have a negative effect on accuracy of Eyewitness testimony - provide research support?

Answer 14

Stress and anxiety have a negative effect on memory and performance - supported by study from Johnson and Scott and loftus

weapon focus effect

• found the mean accuracy of identifying the man in the pen condition was 49%, however when the man was carrying a knife the accuracy fell to 33%

Question 15

Explain why people may conform in post-event discussion of an event - why does this affect Eyewitness testimony?

Answer 15

eyewitness recall appears to change because they go along with the accounts of co-witnesses

• they do this either to win social approval or because they genuinely believe other witnesses are right and they are wrong

important as it shows the importance of not allowing witness to discuss with each other after an event

Question 16

Outline the procedure of Johnson and Scott - weapons focus effect experiment?

Answer 16

Participants were asked to sit in a waiting room, an argument then took place in the room next door - a man than runs through the room carrying either a pen covered in grease (low anxiety condition) or a knife covered in blood (high anxiety - weapon focus condition)

• participants than asked to identify the man from photographs

Question 17

Outline the findings of Johnson and Scott - weapons focus effect experiment - mention research support, specially from Loftus?

Answer 17

found the mean accuracy of identifying the man in the pen condition was 49%, however when the man was carrying a knife the accuracy fell to 33%

findings support the idea of the weapon focus effect

Loftus showed that anxiety does focus attention on central features of a crime (eg weapon) this was done by monitoring eyewitnesses eye movement, therefore drew attention away from things like the persons face

Question 18

Explain how anxiety can have a positive effect on the accuracy eyewitness testimony?

Answer 18

Argument that high anxiety creates more enduring and accurate memories - evolutionary argument that suggest we remember events that are more emotionally important, so that when you experience similar events in the future you can recall and respond better

• high anxiety can induce fight or flight, which increases blood to brain therefore enhancing cognitive ability

Question 19

Give research support from Christianson and Hubinette explaining the positive effect of anxiety on the accuracy of eye witness testimony?

Answer 19

Found evidence of enhanced recall when they questioned 58 real witnesses to bank robberies in Sweden (witnesses were either victims, bank tellers - high anxiety or bystanders, customers - low anxiety) - interviews conducted 4 - 15 months after robberies

• found all witnesses showed generally good memories of the robbery itself 75% accurate recall - witnesses most anxious (victims) had the best recall

Question 20

Explain the Yerkes-Dodson effect regarding explaining the effect of anxiety on accuracy of EWT?

Answer 20

Psychologist suggested this effect after reviewing 21 studies on the effect of anxiety

According to the principle there would be occasion when anxiety/arousal is only moderate therefore the eyewitness account accuracy would be enhanced - when anxiety/arousal is too extreme or too low than accuracy would be reduced

Question 21

Give a strength of investigating accuracy of Eyewitness testimony specificaly anxiety - focus on the type of studies?

Answer 21

• real life - christianson and hubinette conducted a study with participants involved in a real crime, a robbery - this is important as lab studies often do not create the real levels of anxiety experienced by real eyewitnesses during an actual crime - theory is backed by both lab and real-life studies

Question 22

Give 2 weaknesses of investigating accuracy of Eyewitness testimony specificaly anxiety - focus on other causes of anxiety and why its not a simple conclusion?

Answer 22

• criticism of the weapon focus effect comes from beliefs that the reduced accuracy of identification could be due to surprise rather than anxiety - study conducted found identification was least accurate in high surprise conditions rather than high threat supports idea the effect is related to surprise rather than anxiety
• the violence of a crime a may affect the accuracy of recall - studies found victims of violent crimes were more accurate in recall of the crime scene than non-violent crime victim - suggests there is no simple rule about the effect of anxiety on accuracy of EWT

Question 23

Explain what cognitive interview is?

Answer 23

Police technique for interviewing witnesses to a crime, developed by Geislman, which encourages them to recreate the original context of the crime in order to increase the accessibility of stored information - memories are accessed using multiple retrieval strategies

• made up of 4 components

- mental reinstatement of original context / recreate the content
- report everything
- change order
- change perspective

Question 24

Explain what happens in the ‘mental reinstatement of original context / recreate the content’ part of the cognitive interview?

Answer 24

interviewer will ask you to recreate an image and remember specific details - eg, what the weather was like, distinctive smells, who were were with at the time - the aim is to make memories accessible by providing cues

• recreate both physical and psychological environment of the original incident

Question 25

Explain what happens in the ‘report everything’ part of the cognitive interview?

Answer 25

Interviewer encourages the reporting of every single detail of the event without editing anything out - even if it doesn’t have a significant part in the crime (interviewer does not interrupt)

• memories are interconnected with one another so that recollection of one item may then cue a whole lot of other memories

Question 26

Explain what happens in the ‘change order’ part of the cognitive interview?

Answer 26

Interviewer may try alternate way through the timeline of the incident - eg reverse the order of the recall of the event, or start with a particular aspect of the scene and work backwards or forwards - this is because your mind remembers the whole event and stores it as whole, rather than a second by second count

Question 27

Explain what happens in the ‘change perspective’ part of the cognitive interview?

Answer 27

your asked to attempt to describe the incident from the perceptive of other people who were present at the time - this is done again to distrupt the effect that schemas have on recall

Question 28

Give 2 strengths of the cognitive interview as a method for improving the accuracy of EWT?

Answer 28

• large amount of supporting research - meta-analysis of 53 studies conducted, found on average an increase of 34% in the amount of correct information generated in the CI compared with standard interviewing techniques
• may be useful when interviewing older witnesses who have ‘declining’ memory

Question 29

Give 2 weaknesses of the cognitive interview as a method for improving the accuracy of EWT?

Answer 29

• effectiveness has largely been in terms of quantity of information, rather than quality - studies show an increase in correct information but also an increase in incorrect information - therefore police should treat all information collected with caution
• police report that the technique requires more time than is often available - CI requires special training so is not widely implemented

Question 30

Give the 4 components of the cognitive interview?

Answer 30

- mental reinstatement of original context / recreate the content
- report everything
- change order
- change perspective