Factors influencing EWT: Reliability Flashcards
What is Eye-Witness testimony (EWT)?
An account of an event or crime that was seen by an observer “first hand.” Although these are useful to the police they may also be unreliable, and affected by factors such as anxiety and post- event information
What is post- event information?
Any information supplied to an eye witness after the event that may affect their recall. Examples include leading questions and post-event discussion.
What is weapon focus?
When a witness’ attention is drawn towards the weapon a perpetrator is holding, which results in them being less able to recall other details of crime.
Why does memory not record events in exact detail ?
It is reconstructive
Human memory, fits memories with a pre-existing framework of expectations and past knowledge called what?
Schemas
What is Bartlett “effort after meaning” mean?
A person’s ability to recall events of a crime may be based on their schema of the event than what actually occurred.
What are questions (or statements) that lead a person to a specific answer called?
leading questionssssssssssssss duhhhh
What does the graph showing the inverted U relationship between anxiety and recall show?
Moderate levels of anxiety are actually helpful to memory, however if an eye witness’ anxiety continues to rise and becomes too extreme, then this is associated with a decline in recall.
Why is the witness’ recall for important details altered in weapon focus?
The brain’s natural tendency is to zoom in on that main source of stress (knife, gun, etc.). This means that the eyewitnes’ recall for important details, such as what the perpetrator looked like or what s/he was wearing are likely to be forgotten or misremembered.
How is the weapon focus phenomenon is explained by tunnel theory?
Noticing a weapon produced a form of selective attention that excludes or ignores any other competing bits of information
How does Loftus and Palmer suggest that post- event information in the form of leading questions has a significant effect on recall?
When ppts were shown video clips of car accidents, their estimate of how fast the cars were travelling was related to the form of a question they were asked. Ppts who heard the word “smashed” rather than an alternative such as “contacted” gave higher estimation of speed. In follow up, ppts who heard “smashed” rather than “hit” were also more likely to report seeing broken glass despite there not being any in the clip
How are Yuille and Cutshall a weakness that real-life crimes do not support the effects of leading questions or weapon focus (anxiety)?
Interviewed witnesses to a real-life shooting in Canada. 13 witnesses were interviewed by police after the event and reinterviewed by the researchers 4-5 months later and produced accurate accounts of the event despite the researchers’ deliberate inclusion of 2 leading questions in the second interview. The witnesses were highly ancious at the time of the incident - their self reported anxiety was more than 5 on a 7-point scale. This suggests that the effects of leading questions and weapon focus may be less pronounced when apllied to real life events
How did Johnson and Scott support the weapon focus effect?
Half the ppts overheard a conversation in an adjoining room, after which a man appeared with greasy hands carring a pen (control condition). In the experimental condition, ppts heard an argument followed by a man emerging with a blood stained knife. Of the ppts in the control condition, 49% later correctly identified the man they had seen (from a selection of 50 photographs) compared with 33% in the weapon condition.
