Cognitive - Debate

Question 1

Reliability of EWT

Answer 1

> Post-event information
Crimes are emotive experiences
Child witnesses
Reconstructive memory

Question 2

Not Reliable - Post-event Information

Answer 2

> Loftus and Palmer (1976) = easy to influence people’s memory with post-event info,

Question 3

Reliable - Post-event information

Answer 3

> Not all research suggest post info is misleading
Loftus - showed participants slides of man stealing large, bright red purse from woman - exposed to info containing subtle errors and obvious one (purse brown) - 98% remembered it was red
recollection for central or key details may be more resistant to distortion

Question 4

Not reliable - crimes are emotive experiences

Answer 4

> unexpected and emotionally traumatising experience = Freud - dealt with through the processes of ego-defence mechanisms such as repression which can effect on the memory

Question 5

Reliable - Crimes are emotive experiences

Answer 5

> psychologists - when we experience events that are emotionally shocking and hold personal significance we create a particularly accurate, long-lasting memory (flashbulb memory
Cahill and McGaugh - hormones associated with emotion, adrenaline, enhance the storage of memories

Question 6

Not Reliable - Child witnesses

Answer 6

Pozzulo and Lindsay (1998) meta-analysis -looked into numerous studies that have been made and data collected.
>less reliable:more sensitive - when they were given a line-up of people and told to identify the target they feel that they have to give an answer, even if this means an incorrect answer.
>children under 5 years old were less likely to identify the target correctly and children 5-13 more likely to give an answer even when the target wasn’t part of the line-up. - except for this diff to adults
>Prone to fantasy, could exaggerate, easier to influence on

Question 7

Reliable - Child witnesses

Answer 7

> Davies et al (1989) children between 6 and 7, and 10 and 11 don’t tend to fantasize and make things up leading to a fairly accurate testimony
Anastasi and Rhodes (2006) that children tend to give a more accurate report if the target is the same age

Question 8

Not Reliable - Memory is reconstructive

Answer 8

> Information that is already held in our schemas could influence our memory of the crime.
built up a perception of the characteristics of a criminal based upon films and news reports or things they have seen in the past = inaccurate recall

Yamey (1993)
240 students looked at videos of 30 unknown males and classify them as good or bad
>high agreement suggesting similarity in info stored

Question 9

Reliable - Memory in reconstructive

Answer 9

> doesn’t mean it isn’t reliable
many crimes witnesses knows the perpetrator = dons’t need to refer to schemas
RapeCrisis - 90% rapists ar known by victims

Question 10

Ethical, Social, economic implications

Answer 10

> Unreliable eye-witness reports can lead to additional and substantial economic costs for the judicial system in the form of re-trial costs and compensation payouts to those wrongly convicted due to unreliable eye-witness testimony.
unreliable EWT can have a major impact on the person that is wrongfully convicted = could mean that the criminal remains free and could be a risk to society.

Question 11

Conclusion

Answer 11

DIfficult to prove if they are reliable or not
Area of research helpful - led to be more critical of the recollection of EWT
>developed other methods - cognitive interviews, sequential line-ups.