Factors Affecting Accuracy Of Eyewitness Testimonys Flashcards
What is eyewitness testimony?
Eyewitness testimony is an account given by people of an event they have witnessed.
True or False: Eyewitness testimony is always reliable.
False
Name one factor that can affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
Stress or anxiety during the event.
Fill in the blank: The __________ effect refers to the phenomenon where a person’s memory is influenced by misleading information presented after the event.
misinformation
What is the weapon focus effect?
The weapon focus effect is when a witness’s attention is drawn to a weapon, impairing their ability to remember other details.
Multiple Choice: Which of the following can negatively impact eyewitness accuracy? A) Time since the event B) Witness confidence C) Age of the witness D) All of the above
D) All of the above
What role does stress play in eyewitness testimony?
High levels of stress can impair memory and reduce the accuracy of eyewitness accounts.
Fill in the blank: The __________ hypothesis suggests that memory recall is better when the context of the event is similar to the context during recall.
encoding specificity
What is the role of leading questions in eyewitness testimony?
Leading questions can suggest a particular answer and distort a witness’s memory.
Fill in the blank: The __________ effect occurs when an eyewitness’s confidence in their memory is influenced by external factors, such as feedback from law enforcement.
post-event
What is the significance of the ‘confidence-accuracy’ relationship in eyewitness testimony?
Higher confidence does not necessarily correlate with higher accuracy in eyewitness identification.
Multiple Choice: Which of the following can improve the reliability of eyewitness testimony? A) Use of double-blind lineups B) Suggestive interviews C) High stress environments D) Poor lighting conditions
A) Use of double-blind lineups
True or False: Memory decay happens immediately after an event.
False
What is the misinformation effect?
The misinformation effect occurs when a witness recalls false information due to misleading post-event information.
Fill in the blank: Witnesses who are __________ may provide less accurate testimony due to cognitive overload.
overwhelmed
Fight or flight reponse
You either run away from danger or freeze and fight the danger because your focused from getting away from the danger heart rate speeds up and your mind fogsbso you have a less accurate testimony
How does weapon focus effect eye witness testimony
Higher levels of stress or anxiety make it harder for you to remember as it clouds your memory
Yerkes-dodson law
Lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall accuracy but memory becomes more accurate as a level of anxiety experienced increases however there comes a point where the optimal level of stress is reached this is the point of maximum accuracy if an eyewitness experiences more stress than this their recall of the event will decrease
Loftus study
Two conditions one with a man holding a pen to order with a man holding a knife and blood people who witnessed with a pen were more accurate in their testimony then people with the knife anxiety caused by seeing the knife was said to take away the attention from the face a weakness in the story is the participants were deceived about the nature of the experiment and not protected from harm however it was a lab study so variables were controlled
Loftus evaluation
Low ecological validity as they might not have been anxious because it was in a real-life setting the might of figured out it was fake because of the demand characteristics
Yuille and cutshall
Real life case study that contradicts loftus investigated effects of anxiety on a real life shooting 13 participants took part found they were accurate in that eyewitness accounts five months later. Anxiety had little effect on their subsequent memory this refutes the weapon focus effect and results it is a weakness as it doesn’t prevent harm as it makes them relive trauma as it’s a real-life case study you can’t control the variables so extraneous variables might effect the experiment
How do leading questions affect eyewitness testimonies
Response bias: the wording of the question has no real effect on the participants memories but just influences how they decide to answer
Substitution explanation: wording of a leading question actually changes the participants memory
Loftus and Palmer test
45 students were shown films of traffic accidents people with harsh words like smashed said the cause crashed going faster and people with words like contacted said and they were going slower this proves that I witness testimonies are unreliable and inaccurate the form of questioning has a big effect on witnesses and answers to the question
