Eyewitness Testimony Flashcards
Outline Loftus and Palmer’s first study into eyewitness testimony
1) Ps shown a film of a multiple car crash, then asked a series of questions including how fast was the car going when it hit/smashed/collided/bumped/contacted. Ps given the word smashed estimated the highest speed av 41 contacted gave lowest av 32
Outline Loftus and Palmer’s second study into eyewitness testimony
Ps split into Three groups, one given hit the other smashed and the last wasn’t given any indication of speed. A week later they were asked to recall if there was any broken glass
Smashed condition Ps more likely to say there was
Who investigated leading questions with loftus?
Zanni
What was the study into leading questions?
All shown video of a car crash, half asked if they saw A broken headlight, the others if they saw THE broken headlight
17% said yes to the
7% said yes to a
Post event discussion was first studied by
Shaw et al
Who studied post event conversation?
Gabbert et al
Outline Gabbert et al study
Both groups each a different age group watched a staged crime and were either exposed to misleading information by reading a report of the crime or having a discussion with a confederate pretending to be a participant.
What did the gabbert et al study find?
More likely to recall misleading information from a conversation than the report
Valentine and Coxon found that what has an effect on EWT?
Age
Who studied weapon focus in EWT?
Loftus
Outline Loftus’ weapon focus expertement
In an independent groups design, Ps heard a discussion in a nearby room. One condition heard a normal discussion and a man walked out with grease on his hands carrying a pen. In the other it was a heated violent encounter and the man exited with blood and a knife on his hands.
What was the accuracy of the Ps to recognise the faces of the men exiting for each condition?
Grease - 49% accurate
Blood - 33% accurate
A field study by which psychologists found that anxiety doesn’t always effect EWT, by interviewing real eyewitnesses of a shooting five months later?
Yuille and Cutshall
What did Yuille and Cutshall find?
Recall was highly accurate 5 months later, and misleading questions had no effect
What shape is made my a graph showing the correlation between level of arousal and accuracy of memory?
An upwards curve
