Eye Witness Testimony

Question 0

What things may effect the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies.

Answer 0

Age
Anxiety 
Misleading information
Schemas
Lying
Missed things
Storage
Encoding
Retrieval

Question 1

Define ‘eye witness testimony’.

Answer 1

Evidence give in court by someone who witnessed a crime with a view to identify the perpetrator if the crime. Accuracy my be affected by initial encoding, subsequent storage and eventual retrieval.

Question 2

Describe research into misleading information.

Answer 2

Loftus et al, stop and yield photo, consistent or inconsistent questions, then had to pick original photo. Consistent 75% correct, inconsistent 41% correct.

Question 3

Evaluate research into misleading information.

Answer 3

:) high internal validity

:( low ecological validity

Question 4

Describe research into anxiety. (Loftus and burns)

Answer 4

Loftus and burns, violent crime vs non violent crime, less remembered for the violent crime (boy shot in head). Shown videos of it.

Question 5

Describe research into anxiety. (Loftus)

Answer 5

Loftus, natural experiment, participants going for a routine jab saw the nurse and a researcher for the same amount of time, day later asked to identify them in photos, more people remembered the researcher.

Question 6

Evaluate research into anxiety. (Loftus and burns)

Answer 6

:) high internal
:( low ecological
:( extreme violence

Question 7

Evaluate research into anxiety. (Loftus)

Answer 7

:) high ecological
:) high population
:( low internal
:( unethical

Question 8

Describe research into age.

Answer 8

Yarmey, 651 adults spoke to a young women for 15 seconds and then were stopped and asked about her physical characteristics 2 minutes later. Young (18-29) and middle aged (30-45) were more confident than older people (45-65) but there was NO significant difference in accuracy.

Question 9

Evaluate research into age.

Answer 9

:) high ecological
:) high population
:( low internal
:( own age biased

Question 10

Main features of a cognitive interview.

Answer 10

1. Recall everything
2. Reinstate everything
3. Change order
4. Change perspective

Question 11

Main features of a standard interview.

Answer 11

Descriptions, no cognitive effort needed at all.

Question 12

Describe research into cognitive interviews.

Answer 12

Gieslman, 89 students saw a police training interview, 48 hours later were interview with either a standard interview or cognitive interview. He found accurate info 29% : 41%, inaccurate info 6% : 7%.

Question 13

Evaluate research into cognitive interview.

Answer 13

:) high ecological
:) real life applications
:( low internal