Factors Affecting Eyewitness Testimony

Question 1

anxiety

Answer 1

a state of emotional and physical arousal in response to stress, involving worry, tension, increased HR etc.

Question 2

factors affecting EWT - anxiety evaluation

Answer 2

writing theories about pickles and scary guns

Question 3

studies/ theories showing anxiety has a negative effect on EWT

Answer 3

Johnson and Scott, tunnel theory, Pickel, Valentine and Mesout

Question 4

study that shows anxiety has a positive effect on EWT

Answer 4

Yuille and Cutshall

Question 5

Yerkes Dodson law

Answer 5

suggests medium levels of emotional and physical arousal increases accuracy of EWT while hight or low arousal mkes it worse

Question 6

summary of Johnson and Scott procedure

Answer 6

• P’s thought witing to be in a lab experiment; 2 conditions
• condition 1 = heard casual conversation ab equipment failure in next room and someone came out holding apen w/ grease on hands
• condition 2 = heard heated argument and breaking glass and crashing, man emerges holding knife w/ blood on hands
• P’s asked to identify man from 50 photos

Question 7

johnson and scott findings

Answer 7

• condition 1 = accurate ID 49%
• condition 2 = 33%
• suggests anxiety decreases accuracy of EWT for faces

Question 8

tunnel theory

Answer 8

people have better memory for central events (weapon) and worse for peripheral events (faces) due to narrow focus of attention on source of anxity - weapon focus as result of anxiety

Question 9

unusualness not anxiety

Answer 9

P’s focused on knife bc surprissed by it

Question 10

Pickel

Answer 10

• P’s saw someone carrying a gun, knife, chicken or wallet into hairdresser
• accuracy decreased for chicken and gun (unusual in context) than scissors (could cause anxiety but not unusual)
• suggests weakon focus cauased by unusualness not anxiety

Question 11

Valentine and Mesout procedure

Answer 11

• studied visotors to horror labyrinth of london dungeon wearing wireless HR monitors and completed a questionnare to measure anxiety
• those with higher anxiety less able to accurately ID actor met in labyrinth (17% in lineup) than those with lower anxiety (75%)

Question 12

Valentine and Mesout findings and conclusions

Answer 12

• anxiety clearly disrupted recall
• suggests negative effect on immediate eywitness accuracy of recall of stressful event

Question 13

Yuille and Cutshall procedure

Answer 13

• interviewed 13 witnesses to attempted theft of gun shop in Canada, where shopkeeper shot and killed thief

Question 14

findings and conclusions of Yuille and Cutshall

Answer 14

• 4 months later, accounts still highly accurate when compared with police reports immediately after
• those with highest stress at time most accurate
• suggests anxiety doesn’t have effect on recall accuracy for irl events and may enhance it

Question 15

number of Ps in Loftus and PAlmer

Answer 15

45

Question 16

who were Loftus and Palmer’s Ps?

Answer 16

American students

Question 17

5 conditions of Loftus and Palmer (i.e. verbs)

Answer 17

hit, smashed, collided, bumped and contacted

Question 18

what was the leading question in Loftus and Palmer?

Answer 18

How much brojen glass did you see?

Question 19

aim of L and P

Answer 19

investigate the effect of words of memory of an event

Question 20

critical question asked in L and P

Answer 20

how fast were the cars going when they ____ ?

Question 21

findings of L and P

Answer 21

avg. speed estimated found to increase as strength of verb increased

Question 22

response bias explanation

Answer 22

suggests wording of question can influence answer but not actually aleter the memory of the event

Question 23

substitution explanation

Answer 23

wording of a leading question can change memory of what was seen

Question 24

2nd experiment of L and P procedure and findings

Answer 24

• same procedure with only hit and smashed conditions
  asked a week later how much glass seen
  32% reported glass in smashed condition compared to 14% in hit condition

Question 25

who suggested it’s easier to distort EWT for peripheral details than key details

Answer 25

Fruzetti

Question 26

how does Yuille and Cutshall challeneg influence of misleading info?

Answer 26

• accounts still highly accurate after 4 months and was unaffected by misleading information
• suggests misleading info may not affect real life memories as much as lab memories

Question 27

Gabbert et al procedure

Answer 27

• pairs of Ps watched a video a crime, but from different perspectives with different details
• discussed video togetehr then individually completed recall tests
• control group didn’t discuss

Question 28

wht % of Ps recalled events they hadn’t seen but had heard in discussion in Gabbert et al’s study

Answer 28

71%

Question 29

what may cause memory conformity?

Answer 29

desire for social approval or trusting that others are more likely to be right

Question 30

what have some researches found about reducing effects of PED?

Answer 30

• warning Ps of its impact
• when warned that details fom cowitnesses is second-hand info and should be forgotten, w=their recall was more accurate