eyewitness testimony Flashcards
1
Q
factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony
A
misleading information
2
Q
misleading information
A
- wording of a question may lead you to give a certain answer
- Police may direct a witness to give a partial answer.
3
Q
Loftus and Palmer
A
- Arranged 45 participants to watch clips of car accidents then asked questions about them.
- Participants asked to describe how fast the cars were going, 5 groups given different verb
- The mean speed for ‘contacted’ was 31.8mph
- Mean for ‘smashed’ was 40.5mph
4
Q
why do leading questions affect EWT
A
response bias
- wording if questions has no influence on memory but does influence how we answer
- Loftus and Palmer - experiment, wording of leading question changes the participants memory of the clip
- participants who heard smash more likely to recall seeing glass (there was no glass)
5
Q
research on post-event discussion
A
- Eyewitnesses to crime may sometimes discuss their experiences and memories with each other
- Gabbert (2003) studied participants in pairs
- Each participant watched a video of the same crime but filmed from different points of view
- Both participants then discussed what they had seen before individually completing a test of recall
- 71% of participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they didn’t see in video but heard in the discussion
- control group where there was no discussion was 0%
- Evidence of memory
6
Q
why does post-event discussion affect EWT
A
- memory contamination
- memory conformity
7
Q
memory contamination
A
- co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with each other, their eyewitness testimonies become distored/ altered
- combine information from other witnesses with their own memories
8
Q
memory conformity
A
- gabbert - witnesses go along with each other to win social approval or because they believe they are correct
9
Q
misleading information evaluation
A
- real world application
- evidence against the substitution
- evidence challenging memory conformity
10
Q
real world application
A
- important practical uses in the criminal justice system
- Loftus (1975) - leading questions can have distorting effect on memory so police are careful with how they phrase their questions
- Psychologists sometimes asked to act as expert eyewitness in court trials to explain the limits of EWT to juries
- Shows that psychologists can help to improve the way the legal system works
11
Q
real world application
counterpoint
A
- Participants watched film clips in a lab, which is different from experiencing it in real life
- Foster said what eyewitnesses remember has important consequences in the real world but participant responses in research don’t matter in the same way
- Suggests that Loftus is too pessimistic about the effects of misleading information
12
Q
evidence against the substitution
A
- EWT more accurate for some aspects of an event than others
- Sutherland and Hayne (2001) showed participant video clip when they were asked leading questions
- recall more accurate for central details of the event than for peripheral ones
- Suggests that the original memories for central details survived and were not distorted an outcome that is not predicted by the substitution explanation
13
Q
evidence challenging memory conformity
A
- Evidence that post–event discussion actually alters EWT
- Skagerberg and Wright (2008) showed participants film clips. There were 2 versions
- Participants discussed the clips in pairs each having seen different
- Often didn’t report what they had seen but what they had heard
- Suggests that memory itself is distorted through misleading post-event discussion rather than result of memory conformity.
14
Q
improving EWT
A
cognitive interview
