EyeWitness Testimonies

Question 1

what are misleading questions?

Answer 1

• suggests a desired response
• contains misleading info and usually a closed question

Question 2

misleading info strength

Answer 2

• real world applications e.g. EWT largest contributor to wrongful convictions
• further support from research e.g college students evaluating Disney adverts

Question 3

misleading info weaknesses

Answer 3

• contradictory evidence from research e.g. yuille and cutshall
• ignores individual differences e.g. shatter et al with elderly ppl

Question 4

what is anxiety?

Answer 4

unpleasant emotional state where we fear something bad is going to happen
- accompanied with physiological arousal

Question 5

what is weapons focus effect?

Answer 5

arousal focuses the witness on more central details e.g. the weapon rather than more peripheral details e.g. what the perp looked like

Question 6

Christianson and hubinette

Answer 6

questioned real life victims of a bank robbery and found those who were threatened were more accurate in their recall compared to onlookers

Question 7

examples of contradicting research

Answer 7

yuille and cutshall investigated a real life shooting with 1 death and serious injury and found witnesses were still accurate in their recall 5 months later

Question 8

how can we explain contradicting findings?

Answer 8

deffenbacher explains differences using the Yerkes Dodson law: an optimal level of anxiety is needed for accurate recall (inverted u graph)

Question 9

anxiety strengths

Answer 9

• research support from real life and labs e.g. deffenbacher, anxiety reduces recall

Question 10

anxiety limitations

Answer 10

• weapons focus effect isn’t caused by anxiety e.g. pickle experiment
• contradicting research e.g. Halford and Milne violent crime victims
• individual differences affect anxiety levels

Question 11

loftus and Palmer procedure 1

Answer 11

• 45 ppts, independent measure
• shown a video of a car accident and asked “how fast were the cars travelling when they …with each other
• verb changed to hit, bumped, collided, smashed, or contacted

Question 12

loftus and Palmer findings and conclusion 1

Answer 12

• smashed: 40.8mph
• contacted: 31.8 mph
• leading questions affect ppts ewt

Question 13

loftus and Palmer procedure 2

Answer 13

• 3 groups of 50, shown vid , asked 1) hit 2) smashed 3) control- no Q’s abt speed
• after a week ppts were asked if they saw broken glass even though there wasn’t any in the film
• 1) 34/50 said yes 2) 7 said yes 3) 6 said yes

Question 14

response bias

Answer 14

affects answer not memory, answer given because it’s what the question looks for (experiment 1)

Question 15

substitution explanation

Answer 15

leading questions affect recall of the memory and distorts it (experiment 2)

Question 16

why does post event discussion affect recall?

Answer 16

• memory contamination: retroactive interference
• memory conformity: NSI

Question 17

Gabbert et al 2003

Answer 17

• 60 uni students and 60 older adults
• shows clips of the same event but from different angles
• ppts discussed w a ppt who saw a diff angle
• 71% reported info they hadn’t seen

Question 18

Pickles conditions

Answer 18

ppts watched a thief enter a salon holding:
- scissors (high threat, low surprise)
- a wallet (low threat, low surprise)
- a handgun (high threat high surprise)
- a raw chicken (low threat, high surprise)