Criminal Psychology- Practical investigation Flashcards
What is EWT?
Evidence supplied by people who witness a specific event or crime, relying only on their memory.
Why is it important for society to have accurate EWT?
Many criminal convictions are based on eye witness testimonies and so the answers given could convict people of crimes they did/ didn’t commit.
How would reconstructive memory explain distortion in memory?
It uses schemas that we rely on to help make sense of the world. Therefore we may assume things about a situation that aren’t true.
What did Loftus 1979 find in their study?
She staged a fake crime in a busy train station. Two students left a bag on a bench. While they were gone a male student pretended to pull out an object from the bag and place it under the his coat before walking away. The females then shouted that their tape recorder was missing. Eyewitnesses were asked “did you see the tape recorder?”. Although there was no tape recorder over half claimed that they saw one.
What is the aim?
Does post event information in the form of leading questions have an effect on memory recall
What is the experimental hypothesis?
Memory recall will be significantly impaired with the presence of post event information in the form of leading questions compared to when non-leading questions are used.
What is the null hypothesis?
There will be no significant difference in memory recall with the presence of post event information in the form of leading questions compared to when non-leading questions are used. Any difference will be due to chance.
What is the IV? How did you operationalise it?
Leading/non-leading questions. The leading questions contained information such as specific colours or items that were not included in the non-leading questions.
What is the DV? How did you operationalise it?
The number of correct answers. We came up with a set list of correct answers to compare the participants answers to.
What design was used? Justify why.
Independent measures because it avoids order effects
What is the sampling method?
Opportunity sample. We will ask whoever is around order to avoid participant variables.
How were participants allocated to different groups/conditions?
Randomisation- each person we came across did a different condition. e.g. Person 1 did condition 1, person 2 condition 2 and so on.
List the apparatus used and why you needed it.
An image from google that contained sufficient detail to test memory recall. Two lists of questions to ask participants based on the image. Pen and paper to record answers. Stopwatch to time how long the participants are looking at the picture for.
Which ethical guidelines did you follow?
We caused no distress as the picture of the restaurant was inoffensive, we debriefed each participant, we maintained the participants confidentiality.
Give four extraneous variables and how they were controlled.
Time allowed- we timed each participant for 30 seconds using a stopwatch. Questions used- we came up with a set list of questions to ask so they were all worded in the same way. Size of image- each participant viewed the image on the same phone. Other people- each participant completed it by themselves without anyone else around them.
