Chapter 7 - Forensic Psychology Eyewitness Testimony Flashcards
A witness who is testifying about what she remembers during a convenience store robbery is using what type of memory?
Refreshed memory
Recognition memory
Recall memory
Repressed memory
Reinstated memory
Recall memory
What is another term for the misinformation effect?
Direct question recall effect
Open-ended recall effect
Free narrative effect
Closed-ended recall effect
Post-event information effect
Post-event information effect
The belief that the misinformation effect results from instances where the original memory is replaced with a new, incorrect memory is referred to as:
the source misattribution hypothesis
the memory impairment hypothesis
the encoding rejection hypothesis
the misinformation acceptance hypothesis
the reconstructive memory hypothesis
the memory impairment hypothesis
What is the most common research method for studying eyewitness issues?
Recall study
Field study
Laboratory simulation study
Archival research
Recognition study
Laboratory simulation study
A witness who describes the actions of a culprit relies on ______________, while a witness who identifies the culprit’s voice from a set of voices relies on __________________.
natural memory, prompted memory
verbal cues, non-verbal cues
recall memory, recognition memory
narrative memory, refreshed memory
open-ended memory, direct question memory
recall memory, recognition memory
What is one of the most compelling types of evidence?
1. Professional statement
2. Personal beliefs
3. Judge ruling
4. Eyewitness Testimony
5. Facts in the case
- Eyewitness Testimony
What are factors that affect perception?
Stress, change blindness, weapon focus
Describe what is change blindness?
Change blindness occurs when a change in a visual stimulus is introduced and the observer does not notice it.
Often not able to see changes that would appear to be perfectly obvious to someone who knows they are going to happen
What are 4 factors that affect encoding stage?
Attention, Unexpectedness, Witness Involvement, State of witness
What are 2 types of memory retrieval?
Recall memory and recognition memory
What is recall memory?
Recall memory is reporting details of a previously witnessed event/person –> E.g., Being asked to describe what culprit looked like based on what you saw and remember
(reporting info you have in your memory)
What is recognition memory?
Reporting whether current info is the same as previous info –> E.g., Picking suspect out of lineup
(Compare object in front of you with what is stored in your memory and seeing if the 2 match up)
What are factors that affect retrieval?
1.Inferences (people guess
2.Stereotypes (people fill in gaps, blue eyes)
3.Partisanship (biases influence memory)
4.Scripts/ Schemas
5.Emotional Factors (anxiety blocks retrieval)
6.Context Effects (cues trigger memories)
7.Time (memory slippage)
8. Post-event info - Enhancing memory, compromising memory
How do we study Eyewitness issues?
Natural observation, Archival data, Laboratory simulation
What did Elizabeth Loftus demonstrate with her study?
Elizabeth Loftus is one of the most prominent researchers in area of leading q’s and eyewitness memory. With her study she showed that witness recall can be altered by simple phrasing of a q. So that wording of a question matters in police questioning and leading questions are BAD!
What was the study Elizabeth Loftus conducted?
Participants viewed video of car accident and were asked identical questions w one critical variation. One question was how fast were cars going when they hit each other and the other was how fast were cars going when they smashed each other? Smashed reported higher speeds. They were then asked to come back a week later and each group asked if they saw broken glass. It was evident the phrasing of the q altered future recall because the smashed group said they did but no glass was broken.
