Factors Effecting Eyewitness Testimony

Question 1

What did Barrett [1932] argue about memories ?

Answer 1

• memories are not accurate ‘snapshots’ of events perfectly preserved, but are instead ‘reconstructions’ of events. These reconstructions are influenced by our personal attitudes and the stereotypes we hold.
  But if recall is not objective then this is a problem for EWT

Question 2

What is a schema?

Answer 2

Packages of information about people and objects in the world around us.(what you have experienced in the past)
We use schema as mental shortcuts. Because when we recall a memory it is influenced by schemas, memories change to fit with the individuals pre-existing bias

Question 3

What is Reconstructive memory?

Answer 3

Memory isn’t an accurate snapshot of events it is reconstructed (piece together) on recalling and may produce confabulations (errors)

Question 4

what is leading questions and the 2 types of it?

Answer 4

Questions that suggest a specific answer can influence memory recall. This can happen in two ways:

Substitution bias: The memory itself changes to fit the question’s suggestion.
Response bias: The person feels emotional pressure to give a particular answer, without the memory actually changing.

Question 5

How does post-event contamination/discussion influence a change on memory ?

Answer 5

is when the recalling of events by one witness alters the accuracy of the recall by another witness. This could be memory conformaty the witnesses go along with others accounts for social approval

Question 6

Loftus and palmer [1974] Research into car crash

Answer 6

Participants N=45 were shown clips of traffic accidents.
After watching the clip they where asked the following critical (leading) question
“how fast were the cars going when they.
…. into each other. The missing verb
was changed (to smashed, collided, bumped, hit or contacted. It was found the
more extreme the verb the faster the estimation of MPH. Contacted = 31.8 and
smashed = 40.8. This suggests misleading information in the form of leading
questions can influence the recall of eyewitness testimony

Question 7

Loftus and palmer [follow up research on the car crash]

Answer 7

EV / A03

In a follow up study, participants N = 150 a car accident clip without broken glass. After viewing they were a the cars were going including either verb “hit” or “smashed” or a c

After one week participants completed a questionnaire. “did you s glass?” was one of the questions. It was found participants were t in smashed condition to respond yes compared to the hit conditio The effects of misleading information in the form of leading questi long lasting and actually changes memories via substitution, rathe response bias.
Reference: Reference: Loftus, E. F.,

Question 8

Gabbert et al ( 2003)

Answer 8

Videos of crimes shot from different perspectives were shown to pairs of participants. With unique information available in each film. It was found 71% of pairs allowed to discuss what they had seen included aspects of the film they had not seen in their recollection of the video. This is compared to 0% (meaning that 0% means that no one who didn’t talk about the video added any false information to their memory)
in pairs who were not allowed to discuss what they had seen. This suggests That witnesses will change their account of crimes to match other witnesses testimony. This may be an attempt to seek social approval, resulting in memory conformity.

Question 9

Bodner et al [2009]

Answer 9

EV / A03

in an experimental setup similar to Gabbert participants

where explicitly discouraged from sharing information in their testimony. It was found that these participants shared significantly less information gained from the other witness. This suggests that if warned about the dangers of Post-event discussion its effects can be reduced.

Question 10

What is anxiety?

Answer 10

Is a mental state of arousal that includes feelings of extreme concern and tension this often accompanied by physiological changes such as increased heartrate

Question 11

EwT in real-life

Answer 11

In real life EWT is often used after violent crimes causing high anxiety. Research in EWT often has no emotional impact on the participant, resulting in low validity

Question 12

How can anxiety decrease recall?

Answer 12

high levels of anxiety produce reduced recall of the criminals face.

Question 13

How does weapon effect/focus increase anxiety

Answer 13

weapons are a cause of anxiety, witnesses are distracted, focusing attention on the weapon rather than the criminal.

Question 14

Increases recall by anxiety

Answer 14

-a state of arousal improves alertness, and awareness of the situation and surroundings. Also the strong emotions felt could improve memory encoding

Question 15

Yorks-dodson law of arousal

Answer 15

EWT accuracy increases as anxiety raises as the witness becomes alert. However at a point anxiety becomes too high and more stress results in lower accuracy

Question 16

Johnson and Scott [1976] anxiety by weapon-focus study

Answer 16

EV/AO3

naive participants were placed outside a lab, listening to conversations.
1) normal conversation about equipment failure, man walks out with greasy hands and a pen.
or 2) Hostile, breaking glass, furniture knocked over.
Man walks out with knife covered in blood. then asked to identify the man from 50 photographs coming out of lab. It was found more participants identified a man with a pen (49%) than knife (33%). This suggests Anxiety is caused by knife, resulting in decreased focus on the mans face and more on the weapon.

Question 17

Peters (1988)

Answer 17

Patients at a real healthcare centre were given a real injection by a nurse, with a researcher also present in the room. It was found that the patients were better able to recognise the researcher than the nurse This suggests Anxiety is caused by having an injection, and there is weapon focus on the syringe.

Question 18

Tuileries and Cutshall (1986)

Answer 18

EV / A03 (counter balance)

Interviewed 13 witness to a deadly shooting four

months after the event. It was found witnesses resisted misleading information and those with the most stress (closest to the shooter) produced the most accurate ETW. This suggests misleading information and anxiety may not be a significant problem for real world eye witness testimony.

Question 19

Evaluations/AO3 strengths

Answer 19

-The development cognitive interview is an example of a real-life application Research on the limitations of EWT (this technique is designed to reduce the influence of schemes on the accuracy of recall)
-Loftus’s experiments, using staged crashes and crimes in a lab, mean participants know there are no real consequences for inaccurate eyewitness testimony (EWT). In contrast, in a real courtroom, people may provide more accurate EWT because their statements could impact a conviction.

Question 20

Ev/a03 limitation

Answer 20

-lab based studies may have an increase in demand characteristics in a case of researching leading questions
-Researchers must protect participants from harm and ensure informed consent. Studies on anxiety, like Johnson and Scott’s, may violate these ethical guidelines and could be considered unethical. Even interviewing people about traumatic experiences can cause additional anxiety.