Eyewitness testimony

Question 1

What are four possible factors that make eyewitness unreliable?

Answer 1

1. Anxiety and stress during the incident
2. Presence of a weapon
3. Suggestive questions
4. Misinformation effect

Question 2

What are the five stages of memory

Answer 2

1. Perception/ Attention
2. Encoding
3. Short term memory
4. Long term memory
5. Retrieval

Question 3

What are the two types of eyewitness testimony memory

Answer 3

1. Recall memory

2. Recognition memory

Question 4

What are the independent variables with regards to eyewitness of a crime

Answer 4

Estimator and system variables

Question 5

What are three general dependent variables in eyewitness testimony

Answer 5

Recall of the event
Recall of the target/ culprit
Recognition of the target/culprit

Question 6

What are some negative implications of relying upon an eyewitness to solve the crime

Answer 6

1. Insufficient memory can result in case never being solved

2. Inaccurate info can lead to innocent people being convicted

Question 7

What were four things police did wrong in interviewing a witness

Answer 7

1. They would interrupt the witness
2. The would use short specific answers
3. They would ask for info irrelevant to what witness was trying to recall
4. Tended to ask suggestive questions

Question 8

Define the misinformation effect

Answer 8

Phenomenon where a witness who is presented with inaccurate info after an event will incorporate that misinformation in a subsequent recall task

Question 9

What are three explanations for the misinformation effect?>

Answer 9

1. Misinformation acceptance hypothesis
2. Source misattribution hypothesis
3. Memory impairment hypothesis

Question 10

Define the Misinformation acceptance hypothesis

Answer 10

Incorrect info is provided because the witness takes a guess at what the officer wants to hear

Question 11

Define the Source Misattribution hypothesis

Answer 11

Both the original memory and the misinfo memory are stored, but the witness cant remember where either originated from

Question 12

Define the Memory impairment hypothesis

Answer 12

The original memory is deleted and replaced with misinfo memory

Question 13

What are two ways to interview an eyewitness when nothing else works?

Answer 13

Hypnotically refreshed memory and cognitive interview

Question 14

what are four factors that can influence the likelihood of hypnosis working?

Answer 14

1. The degree of trust the witness has in hypnotist
2. Willingness to be hypnotized
3. Witness’s belief in hypnosis
4. Seriousness of the context for being hypnotized

Question 15

Define the cognitive interview

Answer 15

1. Has been developed based on memory storage and retrieval principles, much more accurate than hypnosis
2. Has been shown to increase the amount of accurate info by 30%

Question 16

What was the original method of the cognitive interview?

Answer 16

1. Reinstate the context
2. Report everything
3. Reverse the order of events
4. Change perspective

Question 17

What are the steps of the enhanced method of the cognitive interview?

Answer 17

1. Rapport building to make witness comfortable
2. Supportive interview behaviour
3. Transfer of control to the eyewitness
4. Focused retrieval