Eye-witness testimony

Question 1

Eye-witness testimony is…

Answer 1

The legal term used to describe the account of the crime from somebody who saw it.

Question 2

Study on leading questions as a factor effecting EWT

Answer 2

Loftus and Palmer(1974)

• 45 Psychology students
• Shown 7 films of traffic accidents- 4 were staged and 3 were real
• Asked ‘How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?’
• verb changed to ‘collided’ ‘contacted’ ‘smashed’ and ‘bumped’ in different groups
• When asked question with the verb ‘smashed’, guess for cars speed was 40.8mph
• When asked question with the verb ‘contacted’, guess for cars speed was 31.8mph

Question 3

Study on post-event discussion on the accuracy of EWT

Answer 3

Gabbert et al (2003)

• study on effect of post-event discussion on the accuracy of eye-witness testimony
• sample of 60 students from the university of Aberdeen and 60 older adults recruited from a local community
• Showed a video of a girl stealing money from a wallet
• participants were tested individually (control group) or in pairs (co-witness group)
• participants in the co-witness
  group told that they had watched the same video- had actually watched different perspectives and only one saw the girl stealing
• co-witness groups discussed the video of the girl stealing and then filled out questionnaire
• found that 71% of witnesses in co-witness group recalled information they had not actually seen
• 60% said the girl was guilty despite not actually seeing her commit a crime

Question 4

definition of anxiety…

Answer 4

an unpleasant emotional state where we fear that something bad is about to happen. People often become anxious when they are in stressful situations

Question 5

What does the Yerkes-Dodson law state?

Answer 5

That performance will increase with stress, but only to certain point where it then decreases gradually.

Question 6

What theory did Yerkes-Dodson come up with?

Answer 6

The inverted U theory

Question 7

Give one positive effect of anxiety on EWT

Answer 7

Inverted U theory suggests that when anxiety levels are medium performance peaks

Question 8

Give one negative effect of anxiety on eye-witness testimony

Answer 8

Anxiety creates physiological arousal in the body which prevents us from paying attention to important cues, so recall is worse

Question 9

Johnson and Scotts study on anxiety as a negative effect on eye-witness testimony (highlight procedures)

Answer 9

procedure:

• asked participants to sit in a waiting room
• participants heard an argument in an adjoining room
• they saw a man run through the room either carrying a pen covered in grease(low anxiety) or a knife covered in blood(high anxiety)
• participants were later asked to identify the man from a set of photographs

Question 10

Johnson and Scott’s study(1976) on anxiety as a negative effect on eye-witness testimony (highlight findings)

Answer 10

findings:

• mean accuracy was 49% in identifying the man in the pen condition, compared to 33% accuracy in the knife condition
• were asked to identify the man from 50 different photos

Question 11

Johnson and Scott’s study(1976) on anxiety as a negative effect on eye-witness testimony (highlight conclusions)

Answer 11

conclusions:

• weapons which induce high anxiety(the knife) lead to less accuracy in recall
• weapons which induce lower levels of anxiety(the pen) lead to a higher accuracy in recall
• supports ‘tunnel theory of memory’ where a witnesses attention narrows to focus on a weapon as it is a source of anxiety

Question 12

Pickle’s study(1998) on weapon focus effect (highlight procedures)

Answer 12

procedures:

• 230 psychology undergraduates from an American university
• shown a two-minute video of a hair salon incident
• in video a female receptionist is sat behind a counter, a man entered and approached the receptionist, who handed him money over the counter, the man was then seen to get into the passenger seat of a car and drove away

Question 13

What were the 5 independant measures designs in Pickle’s study(1998)?

Answer 13

1) Weapon was a pair of scissors (high threat, low unusualness)
2) A handgun (high threat, high unusualness)
3) A wallet (low threat, low unusualness)
4) A raw chicken (low threat, high unusualness)
5) No weapon (the control group)

Question 14

What were the aims of Pickle’s study (1998)?

Answer 14

1) To investigate the impact of weapon focus in recall

2) To see if weapon focus is due to the unusualness of the weapon or the threat it imposes

Question 15

What were the results of Pickle’s study (1998)?

Answer 15

After watching the video, participants completed a filler task for 10 minutes. They then filled in a questionnaire requiring them to remember details about the receptionist and the man
included:
-what the man was holding in his hand and what they thought he was doing in the hair salon

found that the handgun and the chicken had poorest recall

Question 16

Anxiety as a positive effect on eye-witness testimony (Yuille and Cutshaw 1986)

Answer 16

P - Strength is there is supportive evidence
E- real life shooting in a gun shop in Canada. Shop own shot a thief dead. 21 witnesses and 13 took part in study. Interviews 4-5 months after, compared with original police interviews straight after event. Had to rate their anxiety on a 7 point scale. Those who stated their anxiety as highest had best recall(88% accuracy)
E- Gives evidence that higher anxiety equals higher eye-witness testimony recall
L- increases external validity of theory as it can be applied to a real life situation