eye witness testimony

Question 1

how can stress and arousal relate to eye witness testimony

Answer 1

any type of performance can become impaired if we get too stressed/aroused, Yerkes-Dodson law- optimum level of stress/arousal is good, too little arousal or too much arousal may result in heightened levels of anxiety or just ignoring stimulus so memory performance isn’t as good

Question 2

studies related to stress and arousal

Answer 2

valentine and mesout, stanny and Johnson

Question 3

valentine and mesout

Answer 3

heightened levels of arousal/anxiety resulted in worse memory of what an actor looked like who scared them at the London dungeons, only 17% of people with an above average anxiety score could correctly identify the man compared to 75% with below average

Question 4

stanny and Johnson

Answer 4

high stress police officers training involving a shooting incident resulted in fewer events being recalled

Question 5

how can weapons focus relate to eye witness testimony

Answer 5

weapon may be focused on more than other information, immediate threat

Question 6

studies related to weapons focus

Answer 6

pickel, Loftus et al

Question 7

pickel

Answer 7

focus on unusualness of the weapon not threat from the weapon, did fake incident at a hair salon with various weapons, raw chicken produced the worst recall, may also relate to whether something fits into our schemas of an event

Question 8

Loftus et al

Answer 8

shown a series of slides of a customer in a restaurant, in one they were being threatened with a gun and in the other a chequebook, people who were shown the one with the chequebook had better recall, could better identify the culprit

Question 9

other ideas related to weapons focus

Answer 9

mostly based upon lab experiments, different to real life, no real life threat from the weapons, demand characteristics?

Question 10

how can post event information link to eye witness testimony

Answer 10

schemas- reconstruction of memories can effect how information is encoded but also retrieval of information, exposure to post event information may augment or degrade a witness account, ideas may fir more with our schemas so we are more likely to believe new information, misinformation effect- information that is incorrect can change a persons memory of an event

Question 11

studies related to post event information

Answer 11

Loftus and palmer, Loftus and pickerel, yuille and cutshall

Question 12

Loftus and palmer

Answer 12

when asked a question about the speed of the car the verb used to describe how the cars collided changed the estimated speed of the cars, smashed produced the highest and contacted produced the lowest, difference of 9. furthermore in a second experiment they were asked whether they could see any broken glass and again given different verbs, found that smashed group 32% saw broken glass compared to 14% in hit showing hornet altered memory of the event

Question 13

Loftus and pickerell

Answer 13

participants were given a list of four stories said to be from their childhood, one was incorrect but participants acted as if they remembered the story about being lost in a shopping mall, when asked to identify the false story 5/24 guessed incorrectly

Question 14

Yuille and cutshall

Answer 14

real life incident involving a shoot out to a gun store following a theft, owner eventually shot the perpetrator after sustaining injuries himself, there were lots of eye witnesses some of which were interviewed after the even, they all made very accurate recall and using leading questions had limited affect as did trying to provide alternate information, wife shops owner had the best recall of events, real life event so very high validity

Question 15

how can flashbulb memories relate to eye witness testimony

Answer 15

enables us to remember specific events in detail when a very dramatic event that has a clear emotional impact on the indidiviul

Question 16

studies related to flashbulb memories

Answer 16

brown and kulik, hirst et al, Neisse and harsch

Question 17

brown and kulik

Answer 17

75% od black participants remembered the assassination of Martin Luther king, but only 33% of white participants did

Question 18

Hirst et al

Answer 18

looked at peoples flashbulb memories for 9/11, found that they had very accurate recall closer to the time of the event but over time the memory of the event faded

Question 19

Neisser and harsch

Answer 19

asked participants to recall how they had learned about the challenger space shuttle crash, 1 day after the event, and 3 years after, over 1/3 produced an entirely inaccurate recall after 3 years

Question 20

studies related to clothing and race

Answer 20

sanders, Brigham and malpass, luce, the innocence project

Question 21

sanders

Answer 21

witnesses tend to pay more attention to a suspects clothing than more stable characteristics

Question 22

Brigham and malpass

Answer 22

errors in recall are more likely to occur if the suspects race differs from that of the witnesses

Question 23

luce

Answer 23

african-american, white Chinese and Chinese American recognised their own race group the best

Question 24

the innocence project

Answer 24

looked at 239 convictions that were overturned based upon DNA evidence, 73% of these original convictions were based upon eye witness testimony