Eye Witness Testimony Flashcards
What is EWT?
A legal term referring to the use of eye witnesses of a crime giving evidence in court
What are the two main factors influencing EWT?
- Anxiety
- Age
What may an individuals testimony in court include?
An account of what the witness saw regarding the crime
Who investigated the effects of misleading information on the accuracy of eye witness testimony?
Loftus and Palmer x2, Loftus
In Loftus and Palmers first study, what was their aim?
To investigate the accuracy of an eye witnesses memory, and in particular to see if the accuracy of their immediate recall could be affected by post event information
What was the method of Loftus and Palmers first study?
45 students were shown 7 films of different traffic accidents. Afterwards, they were asked to firstly describe the accident and then were asked more specific questions, including a CRITICAL QUESTION
What was the critical question?
“About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”. The verb ‘hit’ was replaced in the other groups with other semantically similar verbs but that implied varying severity
What did Loftus and Palmer find in their first experiment?
- All the groups estimated a different speed on average
- Groups given the verb ‘smashed’ or ‘collided’ estimated the highest speed
- Groups given the verb ‘contacted’ estimated the lowest speed
What did Loftus and Palmer conclude from their first experiment?
That eyewitness testimony is generally inaccurate and heavily influenced by the use of leading questions, so is therefore unreliable
What was the aim of Loftus and Palmers second experiment?
To investigate whether post event information can alter the storage or retrieval of memories
What was the method of Loftus and Palmers second experiment?
- Set of P’s shown a short film of a car accident
- Asked specific questions and the critical question
- 1 week after, asked if they had seen any broken glass
What were the findings of Loftus and Palmers second experiment?
Participants who heard the word smashed were more likely to claim they had seen broken glass, when in reality there was none
What does Loftus and Palmers second experiment show?
That post event information can affect initial storage, providing further evidence that misleading information can affect the accuracy of EWT
What was the method of Loftus’s individual study?
-Participants were shown pics of a car at a junction with either a Stop or Yield sign, and then asked questions either consistent or inconsistent with what they had seen
What were the findings of Loftus’s individual study?
Participants shown inconsistent (misleading) information were only 41% correct in identification of original pic, but when consistent info was given, P’s were 75% accurate
What is a strength of the findings on misleading information?
Real world application
What are three limitations of the research conducted on misleading information?
- Lacks ecological validity
- Individual differences
- Evidence unsupportive of findings
How do the studies on misleading information lack ecological validity?
- Lab experiments: artificial conditions and task so participants would not take it seriously
- Foster found that if P’s thought they were watching a real life robbery and thought their answers would genuinely influence the trial, their identification was more accurate: more emotionally aroused
What is the real world application of research into misleading information?
It has been crucial in understanding how misleading info can affect the accuracy of EWT
What are the individual differences associated with the research into misleading information?
Elderly people have more difficulty remembering the source of their information, so are more susceptible to somebody suggesting a potential answer that influences their response
Who conducted the study that was unsupportive of the research on misleading info?
Yuille and Cutshall
What was the method of Yuille and Cutshalls study?
They interviewed people who had witnessed an armed robbery, more than 4 months after, including two misleading questions
What were the results of Yullle and Cutshalls study?
Despite the misleading questions, the witnesses provided accurate information that matched their initial detailed reports
What do the results of Yuille and Cutshalls study suggest?
That post event information does NOT affect recall in real life EWT, therefore not supporting the previous findings of Loftus and Palmer
What are the three findings for the effect of anxiety on EWT?
1) Anxiety has a NEGATIVE effect
2) Anxiety ENHANCES recall
3) The weapon focus effect
What study found that anxiety has a negative effect?
Deffenbecher carried out a meta analysis of 21 studies, looking at the effect of heightened anxiety on recall. He gained considerable support for the hypothesis that high levels of stress negatively impact accuracy
What study found that anxiety enhances recall?
Christianson and Hubinette questioned 58 witnesses of a robbery, finding those who had been threatened in some way were more accurate due to emotional arousal
What is the weapon focus effect?
In violent crimes, witnesses may focus their attention of central details of the attack rather than more peripheral details
What research did Loftus carry out regarding the weapon focus effect?
2 conditions were used: 1 involving a weapon, one not. P’s were asked to discuss the conditions and identify the perpetrator from 50 photos.
What were the results of Loftus’s research into the weapon focus effect?
- Participants in condition without weapon were 49% accurate, P’s in condition w/o weapon were only 33%
- Suggests that weapon may have distracted attention from person holding it
What were the three evaluation points for the effects of anxiety on EWT?
- Contradiction in research findings
- Research support for weapon focus effect
- Real world application
How did Deffenbacher explain the apparent contradiction in his findings?
In relation to the Yerkes Bodson law: accuracy is optimal under conditions of moderate arousal
What research support is there for the weapon focus effect?
- A met analysis showed that the presence of a weapon reduces the chance of a witness correctly identifying the perpetrator
- Loftus et al monitored eye movement, finding that the presence of a weapon causes attention to be physically drawn to it
What is a real world application of the research into anxiety on EWT?
Until 1985, it was widely accepted that the Titanic had sunk intact, despite contrary evidence from eyewitnesses. 75% reported the ship had broken in half, so the testimony gives further support that the central details of an event are often recorded accurately, despite high levels of trauma/anxiety
What are the three findings concerning the effect of age on EWT?
- Parker and Caranza (children as witnesses)
- Age differences
- Effects of delay
What was the method of Parker and Caranzas study into age on EWT?
They compared primary school and college participants in their ability to correctly identify following a mock crime slideshow
What is there a heightened concern over in the courtroom?
Children becoming more evident in the courtroom
What did Parker and Caranza find concerning age on EWT?
Although children had a higher rate of choosing than adults, they were more likely to make identification errors
What does Parker and Caranza’s study show?
It illustrates the effects of age in the accuracy of EWT
What was the method of Yarmeys study?
Stopped 651 adults in a public setting and asked them to identify the physical characteristics of a woman they had spoken to 2 minutes earlier for 15 seconds
What were the findings of Yarmeys study?
Middle aged/young adults were more confident in their answers, there were no significant differences in the accuracy compared to older adults
What does Yarmeys study show?
Suggests that there is no evidence of the effects of age on the accuracy of EWT
Who was the research into the effects of age on EWT conducted by?
Parker and Caranza, Yarmey, Memon
What did Memon investigate?
The effects of delay on the accuracy of eyewitnesses of varying ages
What was the method of Memons study?
-recruited young and old eyewitnesses, presented with a mock crime and asked to identify face after a delay of either 35 mins or a longer delay
What were the findings of Memons study?
- No diff. in the accuracy after a short delay
- Long delay: older age group were significantly less accurate
What does Memons study show?
That age can have an effect on the accuracy of EWT if there is a longer delay, but no effect if the delay is short
What are the evaluation points for research into age on EWT?
Own age bias (+ explaining it), individual differences
Why might the own age bias lead to adults having poorer performance on face recognition tests?
Because improper stimuli has been used, as college students are generally asked to identify faces of their own age. Individuals have a superior memory of faces of their own age
What did Anastasi and Rhodes investigate?
The own age bias
What was the method of Anastasi and Rhodes study?
Individuals from 3 diff. age groups were shown 24 photos representing 3 diff. age groups. After a short filler activity, individuals were asked to identify the faces they had seen within a set of other, distraction pictures
What were the dinging of Anastasi and Rhodes study?
Middle age and young participants were significantly more accurate in their recognition, and all groups were more accurate in identifying their own age
What are some individual differences with the effect of age on recall?
Alcohol consumption: 82% of tipsy participants did not notice someone in a gorilla outfit in a video, but only 42% of sober participants did not. Showing age and anxiety may not be the only factors affecting the accuracy of EWT
What is the Cognitive Interview?
A police technique devised by Fisher and Gieselman, used to interview witnesses of a crime
What is the cognitive interview based on?
What psychologists have found out about memory
What does the cognitive interview encourage witnesses to do?
Recreate the original context to increase the accessibility of stored information
What are the four main components of the cognitive interview?
1) Report everything
2) Mental reinstatement of original context
3) Changing the order
4) Changing the perspective
