EWT And The Cognitive Interview Flashcards
what is an eye witness testimony (EWT)
the evidence provided by someone who witnessed a crime
what are two examples of misleading information
- post-event discussion
- leading questions
outline Loftus and Palmer’s research (1974) into leading questions and how they affect EWT’s (speed)
- 45 students watched videos of car accidents and were asked a question about the speed of the cars with 1 of 5 verbs
- hit, smashed, collided, bumped and contacted
- found that the more intense the verb used, the higher the estimated speed
- shows that leading questions can manipulate the memory of eye witnesses
outline Loftus and Palmer’s research (1974) into leading questions and how they affect EWT’s (broken glass)
- after a new group of p’s were asked the leading questions with the different intensity of verbs participants were asked if they saw broken glass
- those in the higher intensity verb group were more likely to say there was broken glass
- shows that leading questions can affect the accuracy of EWT
outline Yuille and Cutshall’s research (1986) into misleading information about a real crime
- 13 witnesses of a real robbery were re-interviewed 5 months after
- results showed that misleading information had no effect. the most distressed eyewitnesses had the best recall
outline Gabbet et al research into the effect of post event discussion
- all participants watched a video of a girl stealing a wallet
- control group were individually tested and there was a co-witness group that watched videos of the crime in pairs but from different perspectives. only one of them witnessed the crime but they were told they saw the same
- the pairs then discussed the crime and completed a questionnaire testing their memory of the event
- 71% of witnesses in the co-witness group reported things they hadn’t seen
- 60% said the girl was guilty despite never seeing the crime
AO3 evaluate misleading information as an explanation for inaccurate EWT
strengths:
- considerable research on the effect of misleading information
- research has been applied in real life and prevented innocent people from being wrongly convicted
weaknesses:
- research criticised for lack of ecological validity, Yuille and Cutshall found that witnesses of real-life crimes aren’t affected by misleading information
- Foster et al. point out that in real life there are real consequences on the line so participants’ responses in research may be exaggerated
outline Johnson and Scott’s research (1976) into anxiety and EWT
- participants were asked to sit in a waiting room where they heard an augment in the following room
- the low anxiety condition saw a man run through the room with a pen covered in grease
- the high anxiety condition saw a man run through the room with a bloody knife
- findings support the weapon focus effect
- pen condition successfully identified the man 49% of the time and the knife condition was only 33%
what is the yerkes dodson effect
as arousal increases so does performance (memory recall) up to moderate levels and then performance starts to drop. inverted-U
why is there an inconsistency in research on anxiety and if it increases or decreases EWT accuracy
- this is due to the yerkes-dodson effect
- a meta analysis done by deffenbacher (1983) showed that research showed that higher arousal can both decrease and increase accuracy of EWT.
- he suggested that moderate levels of arousal can increase accuracy whereas low or too high arousal can decrease accuracy.
AO3 evaluate anxiety as an explanation for inaccurate EWT
strengths:
- research support
- lab experiments supported by real life studies too
weaknesses: - individual differences acting as an extraneous variable, emotional sensitivity
- not one answer with anxiety, findings show mixed conclusions
what does ROPE stand for
steps of the cognitive interview R einstate (context) O rder (change) Perspective (change) Everything (recall)
Geislemen (1984) create the cognitive interview, state and explain each aspect
(ROPE)
- mental reinstatement of original context- recreating the physical and psychological environment of the original incident ( smells, weather, feelings)
- changing order- recalling events through a different timeline to prevent pre-existing schemas from filling in the gaps
- change perspective- imagining the incident from a different perspective to again reduce the effect of schemas
- report everything- memories interlink, even something irrelevant may cue other important memories and small details from different witnesses may be pieced together
what was Geisleman et al. (1988) research support into the CI
- police officers shown videos of crimes
- interviewed 2 days later either using CI or the standard interview
- those who did the CI had more accurate EWT’s with less mistakes
outline Fisher et al. research (1989) into the effectiveness of the CI
- study of real life use of the CI
- police using the CI gained 47% more useful information when compared to the standard interview
