Factors Affecting Accuracy Of EWT Flashcards
Outline leading questions (6 marks)
A leading question is a question that wrongly implies something about an event or crime such as ‘what colour was the youth’s jacket?’ Which implies that the perpetrator was a youth. This affects the accuracy of EWT as it contaminates the witness’s memory and therefore witnesses recall inaccurate information. Loftus and Palmer conducted a study into leading questions and investigated whether the phrasing of a question can affect a participants memory of an event. They used a lab experiment with a sample of 45 American students who were split into 5 groups of 9. All participants were shown a video of a car crash and each group was asked a leading question with a different verb such as smashed, hit, collided, bumped or contacted about the speed of the car in mph. They found that participants guessed a higher mean speed of 40 mph when they had ‘smashed’ compared to ‘contacted’ with the mean speed of 31 mph. Therefore, the phrasing of a question can influence a participants memory of an event.
Discuss leading questions as a factor affecting the accuracy of EWT (2 X AO3)
A strength of the research into the effect of leading questions on the accuracy of EWT is that it has practical applications. The principles of the theory that leading questions can affect the accuracy of EWT has led to improvements in the criminal justice system an the development of the cognitive interview. The cognitive interview avoids the use of leading questions and uses a variety of techniques to increase the accuracy of EWT. For example, it uses open questions such as ‘recall everything about the event’ to trigger as much details as possible about the event and increases the accuracy of EWT without being affected by leading questions. Therefore, the research in to how leading questions affect the accuracy of EWT is an important part of applied psychology BECAUSE it could lead to more accurate testimonies and improve the lives of people affected by crime.
However, a criticism of the research into the effects of leading questions on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony is that it lacks mundane realism. This is because Loftus and Palmer’s research uses artificial task of watching a video of a car crash. Therefore, it is difficult to generalise findings to real life cases of how leading questions can affect the accuracy of EWT as individuals would understand the consequences of providing inaccurate information for real life events. Thus, lowering the external validity of the research into leading questions as a factor affecting the accuracy of EWT.
Outline post event discussion as a factor affecting the accuracy of EWT (6 marks)
Post event discussion is where witnesses of an event discuss their account with each other. This could lead to memory contamination which is where co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with each other and their EWT becomes altered or distorted.
This is because they combine the information from other witnesses with their own memories suggesting that
memories of the event have changed because of post event discussion. Another way that this could affect the accuracy of EWT is by memory conformity which is where withesses will go along with each other to win approval or because they believe that the other witness is right and they are wrong. The memory remains unchanged but the accuracy of recall has been affected.
Discuss post event discussion as a factor affecting the accuracy of EWT (2 X AO3)
Research to support post even discussion affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony was conducted by Skagerberg and Wright. They showed participants two versions of a film clip of a mugging, one in which muggers hair was dark brown, and in the other the muggers hair was light brown. The participants discussed the clips in pairs each having seen different versions. It was found that they often did not report what they had heard from their co-witness, but rather it was a blend of the two suggesting the mugger had medium brown hair, rather than dark or light. Therefore, this supports post-event discussion affecting the accuracy of EWT BECAUSE it supports that memory contamination during post-event discussion does occur, distorting the witness’ EWT rather than just conforming to their co-witness’ response.
However, much of the research investigating post event discussion and its effect on the accuracy of EWT may be affected by demand characteristics. This is because the research is conducted in a controlled environment with unrealistic tasks such as watching video clips of crimes. Research has found that participants usually want to be helpful and not let the researcher down, so it is possible that participants from the research are able to pick up on clues from the task and the experimenter and change their responses to fit the aims of the research, for example, changing their response to match that of their co-witness after discussing the clip. This would lower the internal validity of research investigating post-event discussion as the effects of discussing a crime on the accuracy of eye-witness testimony are not being accurately measured.
Outline Anxiety as a factor affecting the accuracy of an EWT (6 marks)
Anxiety is a strong emotional and physical state that affects EWT. Extreme anxiety has found to negatively affect EWT as witnesses only focus on certain aspects of the even so their recall is limited. Johnson and Scott investigated the effects of anxiety on the accuracy of EWT. They used a lab experiment where participants were placed in a high anxiety ‘weapon focus’ condition or a low anxiety condition. All participants were told to wait outside a room before the experiment began. In the high anxiety weapon focus condition, participants heard an argument from the room and then a man walked out of the room carrying a knife covered in blood. In the low anxiety condition, participants heard an argument from the room and then a man walked out with grease on his hands and a pen. The participants had to identify the man who left the room from 50 photographs. They found that the participants in the high anxiety weapon focus condition correctly identified the man 33% of the time whereas the participants in the low anxiety condition had correctly identified the man 49% of the time. Therefore, anxiety meant that the participants concentrated on the weapon and not the person because of the fear of the situation, reducing the accuracy of the EWT.
Discuss anxiety as a factor affecting the accuracy of an EWT (3 x AO3)
Research to support that anxiety has a negative effect on the accuracy of eye witness testimony was conducted by Valentine and Mesout. The researchers used an objective measure to divide participants into high and low anxiety groups. Participants took part in the London Dungeon Labyrinth and were then asked to immediately recall physical details of the actor from the event. It was found that high anxiety lowered the accuracy of EWT significantly which therefore suggests that high levels of anxiety does have a negative effect on immediate eye-witness recall of a stressful event.
However, research to contradict Johnson and Scott’s research into the effects of anxiety on EWT comes from Christianson and Hubinette. They interviewed real life witnesses of a bank robbery where some had been directly threatened with high anxiety and others were bystanders with low anxiety. It was found that recall was more than 75% accurate across all witness but those who had been directly threatened had even more accurate accounts. This contradicts current research that anxiety reduces the accuracy of EWT BECAUSE compared to real life cases of those who had high anxiety, they were able to focus on key aspects of the event and were successful in the perpetrator being caught.
To evaluate anxiety as a factor affecting the accuracy of EWT the Yerkes-Dodson Law can used. This proposes that anxiety and the accuracy of EWT is not a simple relationship. Different levels of anxiety affect the accuracy of EWT. Too little or too much anxiety would result in poor EWT recall, however, if you reach an optimum level of anxiety, the accuracy of EWT is high. This explains the differences in results between Johnson and Scott and Christianson and Hubinette’s research. It may be suggested that the participants in Christianson and Hubinette’s were at an optimum level of anxiety, which resulted in more accurate EWT whereas the participants in Johnson and Scott’s study may have not been as anxious due to it being an experiment, resulting in less accurate EWT. Therefore, this resolves the contradiction and validates that anxiety does affect EWT.
