Accuracy of eye witness testimonies: session 10

Question 1

What is an eyewitness?

Answer 1

Someone who has witnessed a crime

Question 2

What was Lotus and Palmers eye witness experiment? Pt 1

Answer 2

1) 45 students shown 7 films of traffic incidents
2) students given questionnaire with critical question on how fast each car was going with a different verb
- group 1: how fast were the cars going when they hit each other
- group 2: how fast were the cars going when they smashed into eachother
- group 3: asked nothing about speed

More aggressive verb was higher students said their speed was

Question 3

What was lotus and Palmers eye witness experiment? Pt2

Answer 3

1) asked groups a week later did they see any broken glass
( they didn’t)

Group 1: 7 yes, 43 no
Group 2: 16 yes, 34 no
Group 3: 6 yes, 44 no

Question 4

Evaluate Lotus & Palmers experiment

Answer 4

• not generalisable, uni students
• reliable, controlled setting
• applicable, court room
• validity, high internal low ecological
• ethical, car crashes may be distressing

Question 5

What is Dodson’s law?

Answer 5

• performance increases with stress up to a point
• when stress level too high or low performance deteriorates