key question Flashcards
what are the three studies you can use to help explain the key question
yuille and cutshall
loftus and palmer
valentine and mesout
what was concluded from these three studies
eyewitness testimony can give inaccurate results if participants are unconsciously influenced to give a particular answer using leading questions or if they were highly anxious at the time of the crime
however Yuille and Cutshall show that in real life eyewitnesses can actually be quite accurate
what did Berkowitz find
high levels of stress/arousal caused by seeing a weapon can cause witnesses to forget detail about the crime
or because the crime is an unusual object they will pay so much attention to the weapon but nothing else so can only give detail about that
what is eyewitness testimony
where witnesses who saw an event such as a crime occurring are interviewed. likely to attend court so they can tell the judge what they saw
what does the Yerkes-Dodson law state
our performance is impaired when we become too aroused or stressed. as we become stressed about a situation our performance in that situation will decline.
there is an optimum amount of arousal we need to be successful
who is ronald cotton
spent a third of his life in prison for a rape that he didn’t commit as he was wrongly identified by the victim
is eyewitness testimony too unreliable to trust
- 77% of eyewitnesses line ups are misidentified
- ronald cotton was wrongly arrested for a rape he didn’t commit
- yuille and cutshall found that in real life crime 10/13 eyewitnesses were able to correctly answers questions about the scene
how does Valentine and Mesout back up the Yerkes-Dodson law
as only 17% off the participants who had an anxiety score higher than average could correctly identify the ‘scary person’
