Eye Witness Testimony Flashcards
What is eye witness testimony?
EWT is the evidence provided by people who witnessed a particular event or time relying on recall from memory.
What factors affect EWT?
Misleading information/Leading questions
Age
Anxiety
What is the study that explains misleading information?
Lotus and Palmer. 1974
They carried out an experiment about leading information when witnessing a car crash.
Explain Loftus and Palmers car crash study and results
Experiment 1
Participants were shown a film of multiple car crashes they were then asked a series of questions including ‘about how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?’
In different conditions the word hit was replaced with smashed, collided bumped or contacted.
It was seen that participants given the word smashed estimated the highest speed an average of 41 mph and those given the word contacted gave the lowest estimate an average of 32 mph.
What effect does age have on eye witness testimony?
Studies have shown that the age of the witness can have an effect on the accuracy of eye witness testimony
What study investigates the effect of age on eye witness testimony?
A study by Valentine and Coxon. Theee groups of participants (children young adults and elderly people) watched a video of a kidnapping. They were then asked a series of leading a non-leading questions about what they had seen. Both the elderly and the children gave more incorrect answers to non-leading questions children were misled mobile leading questions than adults or the elderly.
What did the study investigating the effect of age on eyewitness testimonies prove?
The study showed that age has an affect on the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies.
How can the results of the study investigating the effect of age on eye witness testimony be applied to the real world?
It can show that there can be implications in law when children or elderly people are questioned.
What effects do psychologists believe anxiety can have on eye witness testimony?
Psychologists believe that small increases in anxiety and arousal may increase the accuracy of memory but high levels have a negative effect on the accuracy.
Who created the study to investigate the effect of anxiety and eye witness testimony?
Loftus
What was the study investigating the effects of anxiety on eye witness testimony?
In a study with an independent groups design participants heard a discussion in a nearby room in one condition a man came out the room with a pen and grease on its hands in the second condition the man came out current a knife covered in blood but is the puzzle asked to identify the man from 50 photographs.
What was the results of the study on the effects of anxiety on eyewitness testimonies?
Participants in condition 1 were 49% accurate only 33% of the participants in condition 2 were correct which shows that when anxious and aroused witnesses focus more on the weapon at the expense of other details.
Who created the cognitive interview?
Geiselman et al
Why was the cognitive interview created?
Geiselman tried to create the cognitive interview to increase the accuracy of witnesses required have been string police questioning.
What occurs in the cognitive interview?
The interviewer tries to make the witness relaxed and tailors their language to suit the witness.
The witness recreates the environmental added her know context of the crime scene.
The witness reports absolutely everything they can remember about the crime.
They are asked to recall details of the crime in different orders.
The interview avoids any judgement or personal comments.
