Eye Witness Testimony

Question 1

Aim of Loftus and Palmer

Answer 1

to investigate if language used in EWT can alter memory

Question 2

procedure Loftus and Palmer

Answer 2

Pps were showed video of car and asked to estimate the speed of the car with the experimenter using different verbs to describe the movement of the car

words included: (collided, bumped, smashed)

Question 3

sample Loftus and Palmer

Answer 3

Sample consisted of 45 pps collected by opportunity sampling, from the University of washington.

Question 4

procedure of study 2 Loftus and Palmer

Answer 4

95 pps. Study was conducted in a laboratory environment where pps viewed video of multi-vehicle car accident, they were asked if they saw the broken glass

Question 5

Aim of Loftus and Palmer study 2

Answer 5

to investigate if EWT testimony is easily distorted by asking leading questions

Question 6

weaknesses of Loftus and Palmer

Answer 6

Sample isn’t representative of general population→ small sample, and all uni students

Used opportunity sampling to collect sample→ not generalizable

Lack ecological validity→ unnatural setting and artificial task → could alter the behaviour of the pps and cause invalid results

Question 7

Loftus and Palmer strengths

Answer 7

Large sample size (exp2)→ accounts for anomalies in the global population → sample is more representative

Quantitative data→ not open to interpretation, not subjective → more valid + reliable

Question 8

Yerkes Dodson Law

Answer 8

The law dictates that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but only up to a point

medium arousal is best for recall

Question 9

Weapon focus

Answer 9

Witnesses experience greater stress in the presence of a weapon → focus primarily on the weapon
This distracts them from encoding other information → unreliable due to worse recall

Question 10

supporting studies for weapon focus

Answer 10

Loftus

• Showed pps series of slides in restaurant (either gun or cheque)
• Pps who saw gun tended to focus on weapon → less likely to remember customer than those w cheque version
• Suggested weapon focus bc presence of weapon forces attention away from less dramatic visual images

Question 11

contradicting weapon focus

Answer 11

Pickel
- found similar effect when man pulled out raw chicken
- contradicts the theory seeing as it suggests that important element of weapon focus if surprise rather than stress and arousal

Question 12

what is automatic capture in weapon focus

Answer 12

Suggests attention paid to weapon is automatic and unintentional
Studies have shown that attention can be directed on command

Question 13

stress and recall (valentine and mesout results )

Answer 13

valentine and meout
found that pps w/ high SAI only 17% correcty identified scary man
pps w/ low SAI score correctly identified scary man 75% of time