Cognitive Psychology: Influence of Age on Eyewitness Testimony Flashcards
Name 2 studies which look into children and EWT
> Roberts and Lamb
> David
What did Roberts and Lamb use as a procedure?
Analyzed 161 police interviews with children regarding allegations of abuse.
What did they find?
They found that in 68 out of 161 of the interviews, interviewers misinterpreted “in private” as “in the privates” and in 2/3 of these cases this remained uncorrected by children.
What conclusions were drawn from the results?
This research suggests that people of a young age do not have accurate eye witness testimony.
What did David use as a procedure?
David looked at interviews involving adults and interviews with children.
What did they find?
He found that differences between child and adult interviews were overstated and that children can provide very valuable EWT as long as care is taken during the interviewing procedure.
What conclusions were drawn from the results?
This research would suggest that people of a young age do have accurate EWT
Name 2 studies which look into the elderly and EWT
> Cohen and Faulkner
> Coxon and Valentine
What did Cohen and Faulkner use as a procedure?
They showed 70 year olds and 35 year olds a film of a kidnapping then presented them with misleading details before asking them to recall what happened in the film.
What did they find?
They found that 70 year olds were more likely to be mislead than the 35 year olds.
What conclusions were drawn from the results?
Therefore this research would suggest that people of an old age do not have accurate EWT
What did Coxen and Valentine use as a procedure?
They asked children (aged 8), young adults (aged 17) and older adults (aged 70) questions containing misleading information after they had watched a video. They then asked a further 20 specific questions to assess whether they had accepted the misleading information or not.
What did they find?
They found that the older adults were less suggestible and were the only age group not to show a statistcally significant misinformation effect.
What conclusions were drawn from the results?
This research would suggest that people of an old age do have accurate eye witness testimony.
Name an Evaluation point to do with the methodology
Most of the research is lab based meaning it is replicable, but is lacking in ecological validity.
