ewt

Question 1

eyewitness testimony

Answer 1

• ability of people to remember the details of events, such as accidents and crimes, which they themselves have observed,

accuracy can be affected by factors e.g misleading information and anxiety

Question 2

misleading information

Answer 2

• incorrect information given to an eyewitness usually after the event
• can take many forms e.g leading questions and post event discussion between co witnesses etc

Question 3

leading question

Answer 3

• question which because of the way its phrased, suggests a certain answer

Question 4

post event discussion

Answer 4

• when there’s more than one witness to an event
• witnesses may discuss what they have seen with co witnesses/other people
• may influence accuracy of each withness recall of the event

Question 5

what is the study for leading questions

Question 6

Loftus and palmer procedure

Answer 6

–45 people to watch clips of car accidents and then ask them questions about the accident

• critical question (leading question)= ppts were asked to estimate how fast the cars were going when they hit each other
• 5 groups of people and each group was given a different verb in the critical question
• the estimated speed for the word contacted was 31.8mpth whereas for smashed it was 40.5mph

-can conclude that the leading question biased the eyewitness recall of the event

Question 7

findings

Answer 7

• the estimated speed for the word contacted was 31.8mpth whereas for smashed it was 40.5mph

Question 8

conclusion

Answer 8

-can conclude that the leading question biased the eyewitness recall of the event

Question 9

why do leading questions affect ewt

Answer 9

• response bias suggest that the wording of question has no effect on ppts memory but just influences how they want to answer

Question 10

Loftus and palmer second study

Answer 10

-supportedd their called the substitute explanation

study supported idea that the wording of a leading question changes the pps memory on the clip,

-reportd as pps who heard the word smashed were more likely to report seeing broken glass than those who heard hit

Question 11

research on post event discussion

Answer 11

gabbert et al

Question 12

gabbert et al procedure

Answer 12

• studied pps in pairs
  -each pps watched a video of the same crime, but filmed from diff pov
• meant that each pps could see title of book being carried by a woman
• both pps then discussed what they had seen before indivually completing recall test

Question 13

gabbert et al findings

Answer 13

• found that 71% of pps mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they didnt see in the video, but had gotten from discussion
• corresponding figure in the control group, where there was no discussion was 0%

evidence of memory conformity

Question 14

why do post event discussions affect ewt

Answer 14

• memory conformity
• gabbert et al said that witnesses often go along with each other, either to win social approval or because they think that the other witnesses are correct and they are wrong, but their actual memory isn’t changed

Question 15

strength

(misleading information)

Answer 15

p- practical uses in criminal justice system

e- consequences of ewt can be serious, loftus believes that leading questions can have such a distorting effect on memory that police officer need to be careful about how they phrase their questions when interviewing eyewitnesses

e- psychologists sare sometimes asked to act as an expert witnesses in court tries and explain the limited of ewt to juries

l- shows that psychologists can help improve the way the legal system works, esp by protecting innocent people from faulty convictions based on unreliable ewt

Question 16

limitation

(subsitution explanation)

Answer 16

p-ewt is more accurate for some aspects of an event than for others

e- sutherland and hayne showed pps a video clip, when pps were later asked misleading questions, recall was more accurate for central details of the event than for peripheral ones

e- presumably the pps attention was focused on central features of the event and the memories were relatively resistant to misleading information

l- suggests that the original memories for central details survived and weren’t distorted, an outcome that isn’t predicted y the substitution explanation

Question 17

limitation

memory conformity explanation

Answer 17

-p - ped alters ewt

e- skagerberg and wright shower their pps film clips, 2 versions , pps discussed their clips in pairs each having seen diff versions

e- often didnt say what they saw in the clip but a blend of them both

l- suggests the memory itself is distorted through contamination by misleading post event discussion, rather than a result of memory conformity