Eyewitness Testimony

Question 1

Define Eyewitness Testimony

Answer 1

An account given by people of an event they have witnessed (usually a crime or accident).

Question 2

Causes Of Inaccuracies

Answer 2

• Postevent discussion
• Anxiety
• Leading Questions

Question 3

Define Eyewitness Testimony

Answer 3

The evidence given in court or in police investigations by someone who has witnessed a crime or an accident

Question 4

Define Misleading Information

Answer 4

Information that brings you to a false conclusion

Question 5

Define Leading Question

Answer 5

A question phrased in such a way as to promt a particular kind of answer

Question 6

Define Post Event Discussion

Answer 6

Having a conversation before he eyewitness testimony that can lead to inaccuracies.

Question 7

Loftus and Palmer - Eyewitness Testimony : Aim

Answer 7

To see if misleading information could effect eyewitness testimonies

Question 8

Loftus and Palmer - Eyewitness Testimony : Methods

Answer 8

Asked a group of 45 students separated into 5 groups to watch a video of a car accident and asked how fast the cars were going”. Each group got a different word in the question from contacted, hit, bumped, collided, smashed. A week later the same people were asked, if they saw any broken glass (when there was non)

Question 9

Loftus and Palmer - Eyewitness Testimony : Results

Answer 9

Contacted produced the lowest speed of 31.8mph while smashed produced the highest of 40.8 mph

Participants who had “smashed” as their question answered to seeing broken glass more commonly than the other groups.

Question 10

Loftus and Palmer - Eyewitness Testimony : Conclusion

Answer 10

The verb implied further things associated with the speed of the vehicle making it more likely that glass would be present if the cars smashed.

Question 11

Loftus and Palmer - Eyewitness Testimony : A P F C

Answer 11

To see if misleading information could effect eyewitness testimonies
Asked a group of 45 students separated into 5 groups to watch a video of a car accident and asked how fast the cars were going”. Each group got a different word in the question from contacted, hit, bumped, collided, smashed. A week later the same people were asked, if they saw any broken glass (when there was non)
Contacted produced the lowest speed of 31.8mph while smashed produced the highest of 40.8 mph

Participants who had “smashed” as their question answered to seeing broken glass more commonly than the other groups.
The verb implied further things associated with the speed of the vehicle making it more likely that glass would be present if the cars smashed.

Question 12

Methodological Issues with Loftus and Palmer - Eyewitness Testimony

Answer 12

+Lab based so it is controlled, so no outside factors can affect results

• Real life emotions aren’t reached as it was only a video and not in person, Lacks ecological validity
• Couldn’t generalise as it was only students

Question 13

Ethical Issues with Loftus and Palmer Eyewitness Testimony

Answer 13

Traumatic memories can upset participants

Deception -> No lies?
Informed Consent -> Knew everything that will happen?
Protection from harm -> Physical and mentally stable when walking in and walking out?

Question 14

Loftus and Zanni - Effects on leading questions Aim

Answer 14

To investigate the distortion of eyewitness memory by use of definitive/leading questions in interview procedure.

Question 15

Loftus and Zanni - Effects on leading questions Method

Answer 15

Participants were shown a clip of a car accident. Some were asked “Did you see a broken headlight?” and others were asked “Did you see the broken headlight?” (the definitive.) There was no broken headlight in the film clip.

Question 16

Loftus and Zanni - Effects on leading questions Results

Answer 16

17% of the participants asked the definitive question replied that they had seen the broken headlight, while only 7% of those asked the non-definitive question said that they had.

Question 17

Loftus and Zanni - Effects on leading questions Conclusion

Answer 17

The use of definitive or leading questions in an interview can lead to the creation of false memories by the eyewitness - thus eyewitness testimony is subject to inaccuracy and its reliability can be questioned.

Question 18

Loftus and Zanni -Effects on leading questions A P F C

Answer 18

To investigate the distortion of eyewitness memory by use of definitive/leading questions in interview procedure.
Participants were shown a clip of a car accident. Some were asked “Did you see a broken headlight?” and others were asked “Did you see the broken headlight?” (the definitive.) There was no broken headlight in the film clip.
17% of the participants asked the definitive question replied that they had seen the broken headlight, while only 7% of those asked the non-definitive question said that they had.
The use of definitive or leading questions in an interview can lead to the creation of false memories by the eyewitness - thus eyewitness testimony is subject to inaccuracy and its reliability can be questioned.

Question 19

Evaluate Loftus and Palmer - Ecological Validity

Answer 19

One Limitiation of the research is that it lacked mundane realism / ecological valididty. Participants viewed video clips rather than being present at a real life accident. As the video clip does not have the same emotional impact as witnessing a real-life accident the participants would be less likeyl to pay attention and less motivated to be accurate in their judgement.

Question 20

Evaluation Loftus and Palmer - Use Of Students

Answer 20

A Further problem with the study was the use of students as participants. Students are not representative of the general population in a number of ways. Importantly they may be less experienced drivers and therefore less confident in their abilitiy to estimate speeds. This may have influenced them to be more swayed by the verb in the question

Question 21

Define Anxiety

Answer 21

Anxiety is a state of arousal, uneasiness or tension caused by apprehension/fear of danger or misfortune.

Psychologists tend to believe that small increase in anxiety may increase the accuracy of memory, but high levels have a negative effects on accuracy

Question 22

Loftus Weapon Effect: Aim

Answer 22

To find if anxiety effects eyewitness testimony

Question 23

Loftus Weapon Effect: Method

Answer 23

Exposed to one of two conditions:
1. Overheard a low key discussion in a lab about an equipment failure. A person them emerged from the laboratory holding a pen in grease covered hands.
2. Overheard a heated and hostile debate between people in the lab. After the sound of breaking glass and crashing chairs. A man came out of the lab holding a paper knife covered in blood.
Participants were then asked to recall the person from 50 photos..

Question 24

Loftus Weapon Effect: Results

Answer 24

49% correctly recalled the confederate from 50 photos in the condition where the person emerged holding a pen in greasy hands.
33% correctly recalled the confederate from 50 photos when the person emerged holding a paper knife covered in blood.

Question 25

Loftus Weapon Effect Conclusion

Answer 25

This demonstrated the ‘weapon focused phenomenon’ as the participants focused on the weapon and were less likely to recall the person accurately.
It was concluded that a weapon focuses the attention and narrows the focus of attention, resulting in accurate central details but less accurate peripheral details..

Question 26

Loftus Weapon Effect - A P F C

Answer 26

To find if anxiety effects eyewitness testimony
Exposed to one of two conditions:
1. Overheard a low key discussion in a lab about an equipment failure. A person them emerged from the laboratory holding a pen in grease covered hands.
2. Overheard a heated and hostile debate between people in the lab. After the sound of breaking glass and crashing chairs. A man came out of the lab holding a paper knife covered in blood.
Participants were then asked to recall the person from 50 photos..
49% correctly recalled the confederate from 50 photos in the condition where the person emerged holding a pen in greasy hands.
33% correctly recalled the confederate from 50 photos when the person emerged holding a paper knife covered in blood.
This demonstrated the ‘weapon focused phenomenon’ as the participants focused on the weapon and were less likely to recall the person accurately.
It was concluded that a weapon focuses the attention and narrows the focus of attention, resulting in accurate central details but less accurate peripheral details..

Question 27

Loftus Evolution - Loftus and Burns

Answer 27

Participants were allocated to one of two conditions.
1. Watched a violent short film where a boy was shot in the head
or
2. Watched a non-violent short film of a crime
Participants were less accurate in recall when they saw the violent short film than those who watched the non-violent movie.
This demonstrates support for Loftus (1797) as it shows that when people witness anxiety provoking situations they are less likely to recall accurately

Question 28

Loftus Evaluation- Christianson and Hubinette

Answer 28

They conducted research using 110 real life eyewitnesses who had witnessed one of 22 bank robberies.
Some were onlookers and some were bank clerks who had been directly threatened by the robbers.
It was found that:
* victims were more accurate than onlookers in their descrpition of the bank robbers.
*There recall lasted even after 15 months.
This demonstrates that anxiety did not make recall inaccurate and in some cases may have made recall more accurate.

Question 29

Ethical Issues with Loftus Weapon Effect

Answer 29

The participants in Loftus (1979) were deceived as they were led to believe it was a real situation, this it may have caused psychological harm to the participant. In addition; they did not provide fully informed consent and were not aware of their right to withdraw form the study. The researchers attempted to over come this by fully debriefing participants at the end of the study and allowing them the right to withdraw.

Question 30

Methodological Issues with Loftus Weapon Effect

Answer 30

One weakness is that the majority of research into anxiety and eyewitness testimony is laboratory based.
This means that the tasks may lack mundane realism. The tasks are not usually expected on real life, for instance you would not be normally asked to recall a short film. This means that the participants may not be focused on the details as they would be in a real life crime.
In addition to this laboratory research is conducted in an artificial situation, this means that it may lack ecological validity. Therefore the findings cannot be generalised outside of the laboratory setting.

Question 31

Define Cognitive Interview

Answer 31

The Cognitive Interview (CI) is a procedure used by police to help eyewitnesses recall information more accurately. The procedure involves a series of memory retrieval and communication techniques.

Question 32

Identify The 4 Key Components of the Cognitive Interview

Answer 32

Context Reinstatement (CR)
Report Everything (RE)
Recall From Changing Perspective (CP)
Recall In Reverse Order (RO)

Question 33

Define Context Reinstatement

Answer 33

Mentally Reinstate the context of the incidient, recall the scene, what you were feeling/ thinking.

Question 34

Define Report Everything (RE)

Answer 34

Report every detail even if you think it is trivial.

Question 35

Define Recall From Changing Perspective (CP)

Answer 35

Imagine the incident from someone elses perspective/ viewpoint

Question 36

Define Recall In Reverse Order (RO)

Answer 36

Try reporting the incident in a different order moving from most recent to start of incident

Question 37

Geiselman - Cognitive Interview : Aim

Answer 37

Geiselman (1985) set out to investigate the effectiveness of the cognitive interview.

Question 38

Geiselman - Cognitive Interview :Method

Answer 38

Participants viewed a film of a violent crime and, after 48 hours, were interviewed by a policeman using one of three methods: the cognitive interview; a standard interview used by the Los Angeles Police; or an interview using hypnosis. The number of facts accurately recalled and the number of errors made were recorded.

Question 39

Geiselman - Cognitive Interview : Results

Answer 39

The average number of correctly recalled facts for the cognitive interview was 41.2, for hypnosis it was 38.0 and for the standard interview it was 29.4. There was no significant difference in the number of errors in each condition..

Question 40

Geiselman - Cognitive Interview : Conclusion

Answer 40

The cognitive interview leads to better memory for events, with witnesses able to recall more relevant information compared with a traditional interview method.

Question 41

Geiselman - Cognitive Interview : A P F C

Answer 41

Geiselman (1985) set out to investigate the effectiveness of the cognitive interview.
Participants viewed a film of a violent crime and, after 48 hours, were interviewed by a policeman using one of three methods: the cognitive interview; a standard interview used by the Los Angeles Police; or an interview using hypnosis. The number of facts accurately recalled and the number of errors made were recorded.
The average number of correctly recalled facts for the cognitive interview was 41.2, for hypnosis it was 38.0 and for the standard interview it was 29.4. There was no significant difference in the number of errors in each condition..
The cognitive interview leads to better memory for events, with witnesses able to recall more relevant information compared with a traditional interview method.

Question 42

Strength of Geiselman (1985) Cognitive Interview : Fisher Et Al

Answer 42

found that witnesses reported greater detail in their accounts of crimes when American detectives had been trained to use the technique.
- The technique is more structured than the standard technique, and it seems appropriate for crime-related interviews to be very thorough in order to gather the detail required for a useful testimony.

Question 43

Weakness of Geiselman (1985) Cognitive Interview : Koehnken Et Al

Answer 43

found that witnesses recalled more incorrect information when interviewed with the cognitive interview compared to the standard interview technique, perhaps because more detailed recall increases the chances of making mistakes.
- The interview is far more time-consuming than the standard interview.

Question 44

Strength of Geiselman (1985) Cognitive Interview : Effective In All Cases

Answer 44

A number of studies have investigated the effectiveness of the Cognitive Interview Schedule.
Bekerian and Dennet (1993) reviewed 27 studies and found that in ALL cases, the Cognitive Interview Schedule was more accurate than other interview procedures.

In 2003, Holliday used a modified version of the Cognitive Interview Schedule for interviewing children. Two groups of children, aged 4-5 and 9-10 were shown a 5 minute video of a child’s birthday party. The next day all the children were interviewed about what they had seen, using either a standard interview or the `Cognitive Interview. Findings show that more correct details were recalled using the Cognitive Interview

Question 45

Weakness of Geiselman (1985) Cognitive Interview : Time Consuming

Answer 45

Time Consuming In order to carry out the Cognitive Interview Schedule, you need trained and skilled people, and it can be time consuming to carry out