eye witness testimony Flashcards
what is eye witness testimony (ewt)
the abilty of people to remember the details of events which they themselves have observed
schema in memory
our memory capacity prevents us from remembering precise details about our everyday lives, but schemas allowed us to summarise the regularities in lives
gabbert et al
investigated the effect of post event discussion on ewt. studied participants in pairs. Each participant watched a vid but at different points of elments in the event that others could not. Both participants than discussed what fhey had seen before. They recalled info they never personally saw.
post event discussion
when co-witness to a crime discuss it with each other, their ewt may become contaminated because they combine info that may be incorrect from other witnesses with their own memorys
misleading information
incorrect information given to the eyewitness usually after the event
leading questions
a question which because of the way it is phrased, suggests a certain answer.
e.g. Did you see the gun in his hand?
loftue and palmer
uni students were asked to watch film clips of car accidents and were then asked a critical question about the accident but with different verbs.
“how fast were the cars going when they HIT each other?”
different verbs had different answers despite watching same clip
response bias
misleading information may lead to bias response, but not altered memory in any way
substitution explanation
the wording of a question actually changes how a person remembers an event
evaluation on post event discussion
lab experiments- students aware no consequences: affect accuracy
low ecological validity
practical application
