Chapter 14: Eyewitness Testimony

Question 0

How do eyewitnesses employ schemas?

Answer 0

Have better recall for schema-relevant than irrelevant information
Generally interpret ambiguous information as being schema-consistent

Question 1

Describe the Swedish immigrant study that demonstrated how expectations can distort memory.

Answer 1

Design: Swedish and immigrant students watched a simulated robbery, in which the burglar was either Swedish or immigrant
-Asked to pick perp from lineup of 50% swedes & 50% immigrants
Results: Swedish students 2x as likely to select innocent immigrant as an innocent Swede
So: overrepresentation of immigrants in Swedish crime stats likely influenced participants’ expectations

Question 2

How can retroactive interference affect eyewitness testimony?

Answer 2

~Study showed that eyewitness memory can be impaired by misleading information presented after they have witnessed the crime
~Memory impaired even when eyewitnesses were warned about presence of misleading info after it had been presented
-So, people aren’t good at guarding themselves against misleading information

Question 3

Describe a study that shows how proactive interference can affect eyewitness memory.

Answer 3

Design: listened to thematically similar or dissimilar narrative prior to seeing a burglary
Results: recall errors more frequent when prior narrative was similar to actual event
So: eyewitnesses’ previous experiences change what they remember

Question 4

Describe the source monitoring framework account of explaining the retroactive interference distortion.

Answer 4

~A memory probe activates related traces, including memories from other sources
~One tries to determine the source, based on the information the memory contains
-sometimes source misattributions occur, esp when memories from different sources are similar

Question 5

Describe a study that suggests the retroactive interference distortion is due to overwriting the original memories.

Answer 5

Design: witnessed pedestrian accident with car stopping at stop or yield sign
-two days later, participants asked a leading question, referring to opposite type of sign
-forced-choice recognition test for snapshots from original scene (one with stop, one with yield)
Results: 70-85% selected sign they were falsely led to believe existed, even though they were paid for correct answers
Conclusion: information from misleading questions can permanently alter the original memory, which is overwritten and destroyed

Question 6

What’s the misinformation effect and some caveats?

Answer 6

~Misinformation effects are eliminated by systematically questioning participants from earlier incidents to later ones
-suggests original memory trace survives
~But eyewitnesses can come to accept misleading information
-More likely as decay increases
-Original memory need not be overwritten
~Memory distortions are more common for peripheral/minor details
~In real life criminal investigations, eyewitnesses’ memories can be quite robust against misleading questions

Question 7

How does age affect eyewitness testimony?

Answer 7

~Young children and elderly adults more susceptible to misleading information
-Elderly adults tend to be more confident in false memories
~Older adults more likely to choose someone from a lineup, even when the culprit is absent
~Own age bias: accuracy of identifying someone is increased when the culprit is about as old as the witness
-perhaps people focus on features of other people like themselves

Question 8

Is confidence a good predictor of accuracy?

Answer 8

~Correlation between confidence and accurate identification is:
-minuscule for people who don’t make a positive identification
-moderate for people who make a positive identification
~Confidence does predict general knowledge accuracy
-Difference due to: having no reference point for accuracy of eyewitness events and having a good idea of whether general knowledge is more/less accurate than others’
~Witnesses also often coached to be more confident than they are

Question 9

Describe a study with confirmatory feedback.

Answer 9

Design: asked to identify a man they saw in a video from a six person lineup
-Confirming feedback condition: regardless of whether they’d picked the right person, given confirmatory feedback
-Neutral condition received no feedback
Results: confirming feedback increased eyewitnesses’ confidence more when they were incorrect than when they were correct
-Correlation between confidence and accuracy significantly worse in confirming feedback condition

Question 10

What is the weapon focus effect? Describe a study evaluating its causes.

Answer 10

~Presence of weapon causes eyewitnesses to fail to recall other details – less likely to accurately identify target when weapon involved
Two possible reasons
1. it’s a threat
2. it’s unexpected
Design: fully crossed threat and expectedness in four videos and then tested memory for person holding the gun
Results: Expected settings improved ability to ID, threat had no effect
So…Probably expectation for whether or not you’ll see a weapon drives focus of attention to the weapon
-Still could be threat effect IRL because threat could extend to witness

Question 11

What are some factors influencing face memory?

Answer 11

Task: categorize faces based on: physical features (chin, eyes, etc.) or psychological features (honesty, intelligence, etc.)
Results:
-Better at recognizing faces categorized on psychological dimensions than physical features
-because we process faces holistically and don’t pay as much attention to individual features
-Adding a disguise or removing one from categorized face reduced recognition performance
-Faces seen in three quarter view are more recognizable than faces seen in profile

Question 12

What is unconscious transference?

Answer 12

~Unconscious transference: tendency to misidentify a familiar but innocent face as belonging to a culprit
-relying on familiarity could lead to mis-ID
~Study showed that people 3x more likely to select innocent bystander from lineup than stranger

Question 13

What’s the verbal overshadowing effect for faces?

Answer 13

~Describing a previously seen face impairs recognition of that face
-usually, verbal description = simplification

Question 14

What’s the expertise hypothesis of the cross-race effect? What’s a caveat?

Answer 14

~We are more experienced distinguishing among same-race faces
~Evidence: people with more cross-race experience show smaller cross-race effects
BUT: effect of expertise is small and fragile
-eliminated by asking white participants to attend closely to facial features distinguishing black faces from each other

Question 15

Explain the social-cognitive hypothesis of the cross-race effect.

Answer 15

~Thorough processing of faces only occurs for individuals with whom we identify (our ingroup)
~Evidence:
-White, educated participants regarded:
-white faces in wealthy contexts as ingroup members
-both white and black faces in impoverished contexts and black faces in wealthy contexts as outgroup members
-only ingroup faces were well recognized

Question 16

What are some differences between lab conditions and real life situations?

Answer 16

Lab conditions….

• tend to ask for information from individuals not directly involved in the crime (i.e., not victims)
• less stressful and anxiety producing
• provide eyewitness with only a single, passive perspective
• typically grant witnesses far less time to view the event/people
• carry only minimal consequences for inaccurate info or mistaken ID

Question 17

Give some reasons that experts should not give testimony.

Answer 17

~Conclusions experts might offer are likely debatable given highly inconsistent evidence
~Most research on eyewitness memory emphasizes situational factors, largely ignoring individual differences
~Factors that influence eyewitness memory are interactive; however, usually studied in isolation
~No empirical data convincingly demonstrates that testimony of defense experts can actually improve accuracy of jury decisions

Question 18

Describe a study with expert testimony.

Answer 18

Design: mock jurors watched realistic videotaped trial of an armed robbery, and a witness made an ID of a perpetrator under good or bad conditions. Expert advice was either offered or not
-Good: robber not disguised, weapon hidden (so no weapon focus), ID took place 2 days after robbery, lineup instructions not suggestive
-Bad: opposite of that shit ^
Results: expert testimony led jurors to better weigh quality of ID conditions
So: jurors not exposed to expert testimony were largely insensitive to the quality of witnessing and ID conditions

Question 19

Give some reasons why experts would be wanted in a courtroom.

Answer 19

~Jurors who hear expert testimony make more accurate decisions than those who have not
~Experts only discuss findings from eyewitness research that are generally agreed to be well established
-forbidden to discuss research in relations to specifics of the case, leaving jurors to decide what is relevant
~While admission of expert advice isn’t perfect, generally levels the playing field and assists in making jurors reasonably more skeptical of eyewitness testimony