Intoxicated Witnesses

Question 1

what is the UK drink drive limit

Answer 1

80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood

35mg per 100ml of breath

Question 2

Soderlund

Answer 2

the effect of alcohol on cognition depends on the different points on the Blood Alcohol Concentration Curve.
Ascending limb- memory, reasoning and information processing impaired here.
Descending limb- executive function, visual memory impaired here.

Question 3

Institute of Alcohol Studies

Answer 3

In 2015/2016 in England, victims believed the offenders to be under the influence of alcohol in 39% of all violent incidents

Question 4

Crossland, Kneller & Wilcock

Answer 4

Survey of 198 English police officers found that 43.96% of interviews with witnesses were intoxicated at the time of the crime

Question 5

Evans,

Answer 5

Officers interviewed an average of 4 intoxicated witnesses a week
53% of officers surveyed, routinely dealt with intoxicated witnesses and suspects

Question 6

Crossland

Answer 6

police believe that statements provided by intoxicated witnesses to be significantly less accurate

Question 7

Crossland, Kneller & Wilcock; Submitted

Answer 7

240 jury eligible individuals completed an online questionnaire rating one of six witness testimonies given when either sober, moderately or severely intoxicated.

Within each condition, the testimony was either long or short.

50% were told the state of the witness, 50% were not.

Knowledge of the witness’s intoxication and a less complete account led to lower credibility ratings.

Question 8

White

Answer 8

alcohol reduces the ability to form new long term memories

Question 9

Parker

Answer 9

alcohol impairs encoding/storage more than retrieval

Question 10

Steele and Josephs

Answer 10

Alcohol Myopia Theory

Question 11

alcohol Myopia Theory

Answer 11

to explain alcohol’s dissociative effects on an individuals recall in similar situations
the theory proposes a disproportionate amount of attention is given to central salient cues, whilst weaker more peripheral cues receive less attention

Question 12

Explain the assumptions of AMT

Answer 12

when drunk we attend to, and encode fewer available cues
Alcohol reduces our ability to process and extract meaning from the cues and information we do perceive
inhibitory cues are less salient

Question 13

Evaluate AMT

Answer 13

research supports attention allocation model in explaining the social behaviour of intoxicated people

no detailed account of the cognitive mechanism underpinning the myopic effect
it is not clear whether alcohol reduces the overall capacity of one’s attention or whether it hampers our ability to allocate attention

Question 14

Yuille

Answer 14

witnessed a staged theft
50% of witnesses provided immediate and delayed recall,
50% just delayed
intoxicated resulted in significant reduction in overall reliability
intoxication exhibited a deficit in recall in both immediate and delayed
no effect on ID accuracy in TP
increased in false ID in TA

Question 15

Dysart;

Answer 15

field study
103 participants approached by female recruiter
in TP Blood Alcohol Level had no effect
in TA intoxicated were less likely to correctly identify

Question 16

Schreiber-Compo 1

Answer 16

participants interacted with a bar-tender whilst either sober, intoxicated, placebo
immediately after convo participants completed free recall
central details; descriptions of bartender, actions, convo as accurate
peripheral details significantly less accurate
Provides support for AMT

Question 17

Schreiber-Compo 2

Answer 17

examined effects of alcohol on susceptibility to misinformation
participants interacted with a bar-tender whilst either sober, intoxicated, placebo
during free recall task misinformation was introduced
in an interview significantly more incorrect details reported when misinformation introduced for all intoxication levels

Question 18

Harvey, Kneller & Campbell

Answer 18

used eye tracking to provide measures of overt visual attention in sober and drunk participants as they encoded photographic images of genuine crime scenes
its a direct test of AMT
after 24 hours memory tested
centre of images attracted more attention then periphery
alcohol narrowed eye movements it made no sig diff to memory

Question 19

Harvey, Kneller

Answer 19

used static images of a forensically relevant event
combined face identification task with recognition memory test
alcohol reduced eye movements but no less information gathering
more likely to correctly reject TA than correctly ID from TP
significant negative effect of alcohol on recognition
contrary to AMT no difference in peripheral memory

Question 20

Crossland, Kneller, Wilcock

Answer 20

conducted two lab based studies
study 1- intoxication found no significant reduction in accuracy using either free recall or recognition tests

study 2- high blood alcohol content impaired recall when memory assessed through free recall but not recognition

Question 21

Altman

Answer 21

examined memory for a video crime from bar customers
interviewed immediately after seeing video
alcohol negatively affected both quantity and quality of recall

Question 22

Griffin 2010

Answer 22

reviewed AMT in examining consumption and high risk sexual behaviour amongst US female college students

Question 23

Macdonald

Answer 23

applied AMT to risky sexual behaviour
intoxicated people will
be more or less likely to exhibit risky behavior, depending on the cues provided. In 4 studies, we found
an interaction between intoxication and cue type. When impelling cues were present, intoxicated people
reported greater intentions to have unprotected sex than did sober people. When subtle inhibiting cues
were present, intoxicated and sober people reported equally cautious intentions