Eye Witness Testimony (Memory)

Question 1

Eye witness Tesitmony

Answer 1

The ability of people to remember the details of past events which hey have observed.

Question 2

Misleading information

Answer 2

incorrect information given to the EW usually after the event

Question 3

Leading Question

Answer 3

a question that suggests a certain answer.

Question 4

Post event discussion (PED)

Answer 4

occurs when there is more than one witness to an event. Witnesses may discuss what they have seen with other co-witnesses. This affects accuracy, as co-witness testimonies may contaminate each other’s testimonies. They may combine misinformation from other witnesses with their own memories. Research has demonstrated how this happens.

Question 5

The role of schema in memory (includes problem with this)

Answer 5

Schemas are generalised, simplified representations of things based on our experience. Memory capacity can prevent us from remembering precise details about our everyday lives, but schemas allow us to overcome these limitations because we can summarise the regularities in our lives.
A problem with this is that we ma mistakenly recall events that never really happened, because they make sense within a particular schema.

Question 6

The Response-Bias explanation

Answer 6

Suggests that the wording of the question has no real effect on the participant’s memories but it influences how they decide to answer

Question 7

(Loftus and Palmer 1974) Experiment 1 Method and Results

Answer 7

Participants were shown a film of a multiple car crash. They were then asked a series of questions on how fast the cars hit each other (first condition), but using a different verb in the second condition (either smashed, collided, bumped or contacted).

Participants given ‘smashed’ estimated the highest speed, those given contacted gave the lowest.

Question 8

(Loftus and Palmer 1974) Experiment 2 Method and Results

Answer 8

Split into three groups. One was given the word smashed, the another hit and another was given no indication of the vehicles’ speed.
They were then asked if they saw any broken glass.

Although there was no broken glass in the film, participants were more likely to say yes if they were in the smashed condition.

Question 9

(Loftus and Palmer 1974) Conclusion

Answer 9

Leading questions can affect the accuracy of people’s memories of events.

Question 10

(Loftus and Palmer 1974) Evaluation

Answer 10

Implications for police interviews

artificial, watching a video is not as emotionally arousing as a real-life event so this may affect recall

a later study found that participants who thought they’d seen a real robbery could give an accurate description of the robber

demand characteristics (cues in the questions) reduce the validity and reliability in this experiment

Question 11

Gabbert et al (2003)

Answer 11

Ps in pairs. Each P watch ed the same video of a crime taking place, but filmed from a different angle, meaning that each P could see things that others couldn’t.

Both would then discuss what they saw, individually completing a test of recall.

Gabbert et al found that 71% of teh Ps mistakenly recalled aspects that they personally did not see.

Concluded that witnesses often go along with each other, either to win social approval or because they believe that the others are right and that they are wrong.

Question 12

Clifasefi et al 2013 on false memory

Answer 12

Ps given a profile of personalised food and drink based on an earlier questionnaire.

For one group, profiles included reference to an incident where they were so drunk at age 16 that they were sick.
Ps then completed a memory test that asked about the incident

A significant number of Ps recalled being sick due to drinking too much alcohol (despite this not necessarily being the case). Ps surprisingly recalled not liking some alcoholic drinks because of this incident

Question 13

(EWT and Anxiety) The Amygdala

Answer 13

-Responsible for encoding and storing associations.
-released cortisol stress hormone, vivid and memorable
-Arc proteins in neurons strengthens the synapses, in hippocampus, emotionally arousing and repetition
-Genetic and environmental: how we react to trauma depending on genetic makeup or how we’ve been conditioned
-DID- Dissociation and Detachment

Question 14

Anxiety

Answer 14

-an unpleasant emotional state of fearing that something bad will happen
-happens in stressful situations
-tends to be accompanied with physiological arousal (increased heart rate and slow breathing)

Question 15

Johnson and Scott 1967

Answer 15

The effect of weapons
-Ps given 50 photos and asked to identify the man who had come out of the lab
-People who witnessed the peaceful scene had a better recall and were more accurate in recognising than those who witnessed the hostile condition. Pen=49% accurate recall, bloody knife=33% accurate recall
-they believed that the anxiety caused by the weapon (blood stained knife) narrowed the focus of the p and took some attention from the man’s face

Question 16

The Tunnel theory

Answer 16

An explanation for the weapon-focus effect is that the weapon narrows the field of attention and thus reduced the information to be stored

Question 17

Christian and Hubinette 1993

Answer 17

questioned 110 real victims of a bank robbery
they found that those who had actually been threatened were more accurate in their recall, compared to those who were onlookers. This continued to be true 15 months later

Question 18

Yerkes-Dodson Law 1908

Answer 18

explains contrasting findings, refer to diagram in notes

Question 19

(Evaluation of anxiety as a factor affecting the accuracy of EWT) Weapon focus may not be relevant

Answer 19

-Johnson and Scott may have tested surprise and not anxiety
-Pickel 1998- low anxiety- low unusualness (scissors)
-study involved ps in hairdressers when someone walked in carrying either a pair of scissors gun, wallet or a raw chicken
-highly unusual conditions led to poorer accuracy

Question 20

(Evaluation of anxiety as a factor affecting the accuracy of EWT) Field studies can lack control

Answer 20

-other variables have affected the witnesses’ accounts
-extraneous variables may impact accuracy of recall
-it is impossible to assess over time wether it is the effect of anxiety

Question 21

(Evaluation of anxiety as a factor affecting the accuracy of EWT) Ethical issues

Answer 21

psychological harm can result from these studies. is this worth the results

Question 22

(Evaluation of anxiety as a factor affecting the accuracy of EWT) The inverted U explanation is too simplistic

Answer 22

-is it cognitive, emotional or physical
-only linked to physiological arousal

Question 23

(Evaluation of anxiety as a factor affecting the accuracy of EWT) Demand characteristics in lab studies

Answer 23

-most ps are shown a filmed or staged crime
leads to them figuring out the nature of the study and what they may be questioned about

Question 24

The Cognitive interview

Answer 24

The cognitive interview technique is a questioning technique used by the police to enhance retrieval of information from the witnesses’ memory.

Importance: Improving effectiveness of questioning witnesses in police interviews, Apply findings of psychological findings to this area.

Created by Fisher and Geiselman

Question 25

Fisher and Geiselman 1992

Answer 25

Reviewed memory literature- people remember things better if they are provided with retrieval cues. The technique they devised had 4 components:

-Report everything- every single detail, even trivial ones.
-Context reinstatement- Mentally reinstate the context of the target event. Recall scene, weather, thoughts and feelings, preceding events.
-Recall from changed perspective- Try to describe the episode as it would have been seen from different viewpoints, not just your own. Disrupts schema.
-Recall events in reverse order- different temporal orders, moving backwards and forwards in time.

Question 26

The enhanced cognitive interview

Answer 26

An amended version of the CI that seeks to build a trusting relationship between interviewer and witness and improve the quality of the communication between the two.
-The interviewer won’t distract e witness with unnecessary interruptions or questions
-The witness controlling the flow of information
-Asking open ended questions
-Getting them to speak slowly
-Reminding them not to guess and to say “I don’t know” when necessary
-Reducing anxiety in witnesses
Modified versions of this and the cognitive interview have been made, for example, with children.

Question 27

(Evaluation of CI) Mello and Fisher 1996

Answer 27

When CI and normal interview techniques were tested on both older adults (72 years) and younger adults (22 years) memory, CI was better for both.

This was more significantly an advantage for the elderly.

Question 28

(Evaluation of CI) Kohnken et al 1999

Answer 28

Meta analysis of 53 studies.

Found on average 34% increase in amount of correct information generated in CI.

But most of the sample were university students.

Question 29

(Evaluation of CI) Milne and Bull 2002

Answer 29

Found that when they used a combination of “report everything” and “mental reinstatement”, recall was significantly higher.

This was a laboratory experiment, meaning it was artificial.

Question 30

(Evaluation of CI) False positives?

Answer 30

Although cognitive interviewing produces an increase in ‘false positives’ (recall of additional items), there is a bigger increase in the amount of correct information recalled, compared to a standard interview.

Question 31

(Evaluation of CI) Meissner and Fraser 2010

Answer 31

Performed an meta-analysis of studies using the CI, including enhanced CI and modified CI. They reviewed 57 studies involving comparison of the CI with a control technique such as the standard police interview. The CI was found to produce more accurate detail than other methods, although there was a small increase in inaccurate details. the MCI produced more inaccurate details than either CI or ECI.

Question 32

(Evaluation of CI) Holliday 2003

Answer 32

Gave children either a SPI or MCI specifically designed for children after showing them a video of a child’s birthday party. She found that the MCI produced more accurate detail than SPI demonstrating MCI’s effectiveness with children.

Question 33

(Evaluation of CI) Kebbell and Wagstaff

Answer 33

Police officers suggest that this technique requires more time than is often available and that instead they prefer to use deliberate strategies aimed to limit an eyewitness’ report to the minimum amount of information that they feel is necessary. in addition, CI requires special training and many forces have not been able to provide training for more than a few hours.

Question 34

(Evaluation of CI) Variations

Answer 34

-Different police forces use different aspects of the CI technique so it is difficult to evaluate its effectiveness fully

-It takes more time than is often available. Techniques that limit the eyewitness account to the minimum are often preferred

-Demands are placed on the interviewer to ‘probe’ effectively

-The quantity and quality of CI training is an issue

-Some research has used laboratory experiments and university students which can affect the generalisation of results