Eye Witness Testimony Flashcards
List the components of the cognitive interview
- Mental reinstatement of events- to provide contextual and emotional cues that make memories more accessible
- Report everything- even irrelevant information may tigger the recall of another one
- Change the order- to remove any schemas that may impact EWT
- Change perspective- done to minimise effects of schemas
Describe Johnson’s and Scott’s study on the effects of anxiety on EWT
Participants heard an argument and then saw a man run past holding a grease covered pen( low anxiety condition) or knife covered in blood( high anxiety condition) in the low anxiety condition identification of the man was 49% accurate but only 33% in high anxiety condition
What are two misleading factors that affect EWT
- Leading questions
Response- bias explanation- when a person gets a leading question it biases their response without changing the memory
Memory substitution explanation- when a person gets a leading question it actually changes the stored question - Post event discussion
When witnesses discuss what they saw after a crime their memory can become contaminated with what other say or by misleading information. Witnesses must be kept apart to avoid this until statements are taken. In court witnesses not allowed to come into contact until the trial is finished
Who investigated leading questions
Loftus and Palmer
Students watcher film clips of car crashes and then were asked how fast the car was going changing the extremity of the Verb ‘bumped’ ‘collided’ ‘hit’ ‘smashed’
They found the mean estimate of speed increased when the intestity of the vern increased. Showed the effect of leading questions
Who investigated post event discussion
Loftus and Pickrell
Found they could plant false memories of being lost in a store aged 5 in their sample of 24. Nearly 30% of sample recalled being lost and were able to provide details purely from suggestions. Suggests memory is reconstructive and not like a video re enactment
