⭐️ eye witness testimony (EWT✅ Flashcards
1️⃣ MISLEADING INFO:
leading questions:
definition of leading questions and post event discussion
what is the response bias explanation ?
what is the substation explanation?
Leading questions - questions that suggest a desired answer
Post-event discussion – information given after an event with potential to influence memory of it (this includes leading questions)
when a question is worded in a certain way which effect how the question is
answered
wording of a question effects the eyewitnesses memory as it interferes with he paginal memory and distorts the accuracy
Misleading info - leading questions exp:
who studied this?
what was their exp.?
what was there critical question?
Loftus and palmer
45 ppts watched a clip of a car crash and were asked about the speed
“how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”
Misleading info - leading questions exp:
how many groups were there? what were they told?
findings → what was the mean speed for the verb ‘contacted’ and then for ‘smashed’?
what were the effect of the leading question with varying verbs included?
5 groups, each asked a different verb ; crashed, smashed, collided, bumped and contacted
31.8mph & 40.5mph
biased the eyewitness recall of the event
Misleading info - post event discussion:
what is memory contamination?
what is memory conformity?
when co-witness’ discuss there accounts of a crime and info mixes
witnesses go along with each other for their social approval as they belive they’re right and their memories must be wrong
Misleading info - post event discussion exp:
who studied this?
what did she get ppts to do?
what did ppts do before they done a recall test?
gabbert et al
in pairs, watched videos of the same crime but he altered the clip saw so they saw slightly different versions
they both discussed what they saw
Misleading info - post event discussion exp:
findings:
what did she find .. what % claimed they saw something they didn’t?
what happened in the control where there was no discussion?
Gabbert et al. found that 71% of the witnesses in the co-witness group recalled information they had not actually seen
no errors
ao3- misleading info:
✅ strength?
❌ 2 weaknesses?
✅ research into misleading info has real life applications e.g improving how the CJS works and how they interview witnesses for criminal investigations which has raised awareness that the criminal justice system cannot always rely on EWT as a basis for [sometimes incorrect] convictions.
❌ lab studies of EWT differ from demand characteristics - the answers the eyewitnesses gave in studies may be bc they think its more helpful rather then its what they actually remembered
❌many EWT` studies lack external validity… ;lab study - eyewitnesses in the real world for actual crimes will have more pressure on themselves to recall what happened so they put more effort into it rathe than a few questions in a lab study… (i.e. bear little relation to a real court scenario); participants in research may be more likely to anticipate truthful information from experimenters, whereas eye witnesses in court cases may anticipate being subject to leading arguments as guilt/innocence is advocated (and thus identify/attempt to avoid being misled).
2️⃣ ANXIETY:
why can anxiety effect the accuracy of an EWT?
the nervousness may distort the memory and recall the wrong thing de to pressure of red life criminal cases
Anxiety - study 1:
who studied anxiety as having a negative effect?
what did they make the ppts do?
explain the 2 conditions?
later what were the ppts asked to do items of that man?
Johnson and Scott
sit in a waiting room for a ‘lab exp’ where they heard arguing next door
low anxiety condition= man walked through room with pen in his hands
high anxiety condition= heated argument followed by the of smashing glass then a man walked through the room holding a paper knife covered in blood
point him out fro a photo line up of 50 men
Anxiety - study 1:
findings?
what does the tunnel theory of memory argue the witnesses attention was on and why?
49% identified the man in the low anxiety condition but only 33% in the high anxiety condition
on the weapon because it was a source of danger and anxiety
Anxiety- study 2:
who studied anxiety as having a positive effect?
what was the study based on?
how many months after the incident were the ppts interviewed?
what did ppts rate they felt at the time?
Yuille and cutshall
a real life crime, a gun-shop owner shot a thief dead, there were 21 witnesses, 13 agreed to ppts in the study
4-5 months after which was compared to the accounts the police had at the Time
how stressed
Anxiety- study 2:
findings?
what ppts had the highest accuracy?
ppts were very accurate and there was little change after 5 months
those who had reported feeling the highest level of stress (88%)
anxiety:
explaining the contradictory findings…
what us the ‘inverted U’ theory?
what did deffenbacher find out?
yerkes and Dodson argue that performance will increase with stress buy only tp a certain point where out then decrease drastically
lower levels of anxiety produced lower levels of recall accuracy- meaning anxiety is useful in order to the EWT to be more accurate and reliable
AO3- anxiety:
✅strength
❌2 weaknesses
✅ backed up by research such as deffenbacher , yuille and cutshall
❌Johnson and Scotts study may be testing purpose rather then anxiety - the ppts were shocked to see/ hear what they’d so the focus on the Weapon is bc its an unusual threat
❌ethical issues in this field of research - causing ppts to have anxiety could have long- lasting psychological implications
3️⃣ COGNITVE INTERVIEW:
which 2 introduced this and what do they believe?
why did they call it cognitive interview?
fisher and geiselman - EWT could be improved if the police use techniques based on psychological sunlights into how memory works
to indicate how iris the foundation of cognitive psychology
