factors affecting EWT

Question 1

what is an eye witness

Answer 1

a person who has witnessed a crim first hand.
an eyewitness testimony is an account of an event or crime that was seen by an observer.

Question 2

what are the factors affecting it

Answer 2

• schemas
• stress and arousal
• weapon focus
• media
• post event info
• leading questions

these lead to miscarriages of justice;
incorrect ew accounts identified as the main cause of miscarriages of justice
eg. Ronald cotton
- wrongly identified rape victim
- 11 years in prison for crime done by bobby poole
- due to inaccurate ewt given by victim.

Question 3

post event info

Answer 3

• any info that arrives after an event has been witnessed which may have some impact on the way it is recalled.
• human mameory is reconstructive by nature ( Bartlett) which implies that memory does not record events in exact detail like a recording.
  it is influenced by schema which are preexisting frame works built on prior knowledge and past experiences which generate expectations. therefore recall may be based on own schema.

leading questions:
one example of how post event info can trigger schema and effect recall is through leading questions. this refers to the way in which questions are phrased. an example is ‘was there a weapon involved’

this creates misinformation effect, where info that is not correct can change a persons memory of an event.

Question 4

evaluation for post event info

Answer 4

EVIDENCE-
there is evidence to support the notion that post event info can impact EWT.
Loftus and palmer found that participants were affected by leading questions eg. …
this shows that EWT can be a confabulation and therefore there may not be consistency of recall between those who have witnessed a crime.
CA= lab experiment
:( that said yuille showed that memory is consistent eg they found that
this shows that memories that are personal to us may create a flash bulb memory situation.
that said, as participants were tested a number of months later their recall may be more consistent because of rehearsal of info.

S/W-
:( post event does not take into account individual differnces in EWT. for example, individuals who have gone past their optimum level of stress may not be impacted by post event so these eye witnesses may be more consistent in recall.
:( concepts such as schemas, that post event info rests on may be difficult to test because they are a hypothetical construct.

alternative-
stress and arousal

Question 5

stress and arousal

Answer 5

experiencing a traumatic event is likely to be extremely stressful for a witness and may affect their ability to recall it. however it depends on the degree of anxiety.
- the yerkes dodson law suggests we perform poorly when we are both at low and high levels of arousal and we perform best and moderate levels.
- the recall of events by eye witnesses will be poor seen as they witnessed the event with high levels of stress and arousal.

supporting evidence:
valentine and mesout 2009 found that recall was compromised if the indicuual was overly aroused. therfore, there would be inconsistencies in eye witness testimony if people have different optimum levels of stress.

Question 6

evaluation; stress and arousal

Answer 6

:) there is evidence to support the im[pact of stress and arousal on the consistency of EWT.
eg. valentine
:( this can’t explain why all participants in yuille recalled so vividly their memories of a real bank robbery.
:) study conducted a review of 21 studies and concluded that moderate levels of anxiety are helpful to emory.

application-
cog interview - reinstate context to help with retrieval

s/w
:) takes into account indivual differences in the stress and arousal and the impact of consistency of EWT.
:( difficult to establish cause and effect in measuring the impact of stress on the consistency of EWT eg. a number of other factors

alt- post event

Question 7

weapon effect

Answer 7

• if there is a weapon used within the offence witnessed then this will affect eye witness recall. this is because people concentrate on a weapon to the exclusion of other details.
• this is also related to stress and arousal;
  when there is a weapon present, it creates anxiety which means although they remember the weapon, other details may be forgotten. this suggests that arousal results in the individual focusing on the weapon to the detriment of others, so making recall limited.

stress;
our brains natural tendency is to zoom in on a weapon as the main source of stress. it is this focus of attention that diminishes the capacity of a witness to encode other info. the weapon focus affect is explained by tunnel theory - noticing one produces a form of selective attention which excludes or ignores competing bits of info.

Question 8

evaluation for weapon focus

Answer 8

:) evidence supporting the inconsistency of eyewitness testimony.
eg. Loftus found that there were more inconsistencies when a gun was shown rather than a cheque book in a slide of a restaurant scene.
therefore, eye witness focus attention away from the perpetuator leading to inconsistency in EWT because only the weapon is being encoded into memory at that time.
CA= the study was conducted in a lab

:( in a real life setting, memory and recall may be consistent among amongst eye witnesses. this is supported by yuille
as this is a field experiment this may be a more valid piece of evidence

Question 9

S/W

Answer 9

:) the inconsistency is eyewitness recall based on weapon focus takes into account the role of nature and nurture in producing accurate memories. for example, we are evolved to be scared of things that threaten our survival and our upbringing determines how comfortable we are with the presence of weapons.
:) it also takes into account individual differences because the inconsistency between eyewitnesses depends on their optimum level of arousal.
:( that said, it may well be the unusualness of the item and not the threat that could actually cause the inconsistency in recall. therefore this explanation may be reductionist.

alternative= post event