Memory L7-9 (EWT/cognitive Interview)

Question 1

What is eye witness testimony?

Answer 1

Refers to an account given by people on an event they have witnessed.
-It is the ability of people to remember the details of an event. (Eg. Accident/ crimes)

Question 2

Explain what leading questions are and their effect on EWT.

Answer 2

Leading questions are questions that are phrased in such a way as to encourage a witness to give a certain answer.

• The response-bias explanation argues that leading questions do not affect memory, only the answer a person chooses to give.
• substitution-bias explanation proposes that leading questions distort memories because they contain misleading information.

Question 3

Explain a study on the effect of leading questions.

Answer 3

Loftus and Palmer (1974):
-showed 45 students a film of a car crash and then asked them to estimate the speed that the cars were travelling when they crashed.
-Different verbs were used in the question depending on the condition:
contacted, hit, bumped, collided, or smashed.
Findings - Participants in the ‘contacted’ condition estimated the speed as 31mph but in the ‘smashed’ condition participants estimated the speed as 41mph.

Question 4

What did Loftus and Palmer do 1 week after their experiment and the results?

Answer 4

A week later participants were asked if they saw any broken glass, even though there was no broken glass shown in the film.

• 32% of the participants in the ‘smashed’ condition reported seeing broken glass compared to only 12% in the control condition.
• This shows that leading questions have a significant impact on what people recall and can change a person’s entire memory of an event.

Question 5

Evaluation of study on Leading questions?

Answer 5

+laboratory experiment= highly controlled. This reduces chance of extraneous variables, increasing the validity.
+easy for psychologists to replicate to see if the same results are found, meaning the study is reliable.
-questionable ecological validity- participants watched a video of a car crash. People who witness a real car accident, who have a stronger emotionally connection to the event, may not be as susceptible to leading questions.
- lacks population validity. The study consisted of 45 American students. Students are less experienced drivers may be less competent at estimating speeds. Consequently, we are unable to generalise the results of this study to other populations. Older and more experienced drivers may be more accurate in their judgement of speeds and therefore less susceptible to leading questions.

Question 6

What is post-event discussion and how does it effect EWT?

Answer 6

When witnesses to an event discuss what they have experienced just after it has happened.
Affects accuracy of EWT due to:
1. Memory contamination- witnesses mix other people’s information into their own memory.
2. Memory conformity- witnesses pick up details from others testimonies because they want social approval or believe that the others are right.

Question 7

Explain a study on post-event discussion.

Answer 7

Gabbert et al. (2003):

• put participants in pairs and got them to watch a different perspective video of the same event so that they each got unique details.
• In one condition the pairs were encouraged to discuss the event with one another before individually recalling the event.
• In the other condition they did not discuss what they had seen with one another. Findings - 71% of witnesses who had discussed the event mentioned aspects they had not seen, but their partner had. This was true for 0% of pps in the control group.

Question 8

Evaluation of study on post event discussion?

Answer 8

+has population validity- two different populations, students and older adults, were compared and there were no significant differences between these two groups.
+ shows police how to phrase questions and monitor real eyewitnesses.
- lacks ecological validity- participants knew they were taking part in an experiment and they therefore are more likely to have paid close attention or show demand characteristics. The results do not reflect real life where the witnesses may be exposed to less information.
- video may not reflect real life situations accurately.

Question 9

Explain Yuille and Cutshall’s study.

Answer 9

• interviewed 13 witnesses of a real crime 5 months after the event.
• pps were asked 2 leading questions during interview.
• recall was found to be accurate. Leading questions had no effect.
• suggests EWT is more accurate and less effected by leading questions in real life therefore challenging the other supporting studies.

Question 10

What is anxiety?

Answer 10

Anxiety is a state of apprehension, uncertainty, and fear resulting from a
threatening situation.
-When anxiety is high it can often impair both physical and psychological functioning. -Several psychologists have suggested that the anxiety that occurs when witnessing a crime can prevent accurate and detailed recall of that crime.

Question 11

Explain the weapon focus effect.

Answer 11

The presence of a weapon during a crime increases anxiety and therefore could impair witnesses’ memory of the crime.
-People who observe a violent crime will often pay attention to the aspect of the situation posing the most threat to them because of the anxiety these weapons cause. -This means that witnesses who see a violent crime involving a weapon can often describe a criminal’s weapon in great detail, but they cannot recall much about the criminal themselves.

Question 12

What is the Yerkes-Dodson law?

Answer 12

Yerkes and Dodson said the relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like an inverted U. This theory states that performance will increase with stress up to a certain point where it drastically decreases.
- Deffenbacher applied this to EWT. Memory becomes more accurate as the level of anxiety increases. However, if the eyewitness reaches the optimal level of anxiety, their recall of the event suffers a drastic decline.

Question 13

Explain a study into the effect of anxiety on EWT.

Answer 13

Johnson and Scott:
In the experimental condition arranged for participants to overhear a heated argument between two people with sounds of furniture being overturned and broken glass followed by a man emerging carrying a blood stained paper knife.
control condition- friendly conversation between two people about before a man with grease all over his hands emerged carrying a pen.
Participants were then asked to identify the person they had just seen from 50 photos.

Question 14

Findings of Johnson and Scott’s study.

Answer 14

Only 33% of the participants in the bloody letter opener condition recognised the photo of the person carrying the letter opener whereas 49% of the participants in the pen condition recognised the photo of the person
carrying the pen.
- this shows the anxiety caused by the weapon diverted attention away from the face of the man onto the weapon itself. (Weapon-focus effect)

Question 15

Strengths of anxiety as a factor affecting EWT?

Answer 15

1. Supporting study:
   Loftus & Burns (1982) allocated participants into one of two conditions. One group watched a violent short film where a boy was shot in the head. The other group watched a non-violent short film of a crime.
   -Participants were less accurate in recall when they saw the short film with a gun than those who watched the non-violent movie.

Question 16

Weaknesses of anxiety as a factor affecting EWT?

Answer 16

1. There are participant variables in how anxiety affects memory. Some people actually have better recall when they are anxious. This is supported by Christianson and Hubinette.
2. Pickel’s research study.
3. Yuille and Cutshall (1986) investigated the effect of anxiety in a real life shooting, in which one person was killed and another person seriously wounded. 13 witnesses took part in an interview five months later. The witnesses were accurate in their eyewitness accounts and those who had been most distressed at the time gave the most accurate testimony.
   Showing in real life cases anxiety doesn’t affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony like in the laboratory.

Question 17

Outline Christianson and Hubinette’s study.

Answer 17

Christianson and Hubinette (1983) conducted a research study using 110 real life eyewitnesses who had witnessed one of 22 bank robberies. Some were onlookers and some were bank clerks who had been directly threatened by the robbers.
It was found that victims were 75% more accurate than onlookers in their description of the bank robbers.
This suggests high anxiety enhances accurate recall.

Question 18

Problems with Johnson and Scotts study?

Answer 18

1. lacks ecological validity- Although they were waiting in the reception area they may have anticipated that something was going to happen, which could have affected the accuracy of their judgements and the validity of the study.
2. Ethical issues - pps were deceived about the nature of the experiment and were not protected from psychological harm. They were exposed to a man who had apparently just killed someone, holding a bloodied knife, which could have caused them extreme distress.

Question 19

What did Pickel criticise?

Answer 19

The weapon focus effect. She proposed that reduced accuracy of EWT can be due to surprise rather than anxiety.

• arranged for pps to see a thief enter a hair salon carrying either scissors, handgun, wallet or a whole raw chicken.
• findings were that identification was least accurate in the high surprise conditions (handgun and chicken) even though the chicken was not a threat.
• therefore challenges validity of weapon focus effect.

Question 20

Explain how the cognitive interview was introduced.

Answer 20

Fisher and Geiselman et al. studied real police interviews over a four-month period and found that questions were brief, direct, fact based and closed ( =standard interview)
They argued that this might be contributing to the failure of eyewitnesses to accurately recall the event they had witnessed
-developed the cognitive interview to improve police interview techniques and obtain more accurate information from eyewitnesses. It consists of four main stages.

Question 21

What are the four parts of cognitive interview?

Answer 21

1. Context Reinstatement = witness tries to mentally recreate an image
   of the situation, including details of the environment (weather and emotional state). These act as retrieval cues (context-dependent) to improve recall.
2. Report Everything = interviewer encourages the witness to recall all
   details about the event, even though these details may seem to be unimportant. This highlights overlooked details and trigger other memories.
3. Recall From Changed Perspective = witness tries to mentally recreate the situation from different points of view (like another witness). This might enhance recall and reduce the influence of schemas. Schemas are mental structures of preconceived ideas.
4. Recall in Reverse Order = The witness is asked to recall the scene in a different chronological order. This should verify the accuracy of the witnesses’ account and reduce the possibility that recall may be influenced by schemas/expectations.

Question 22

What are the additional guidelines Fisher introduced?

Answer 22

added additional guidelines for police interviews:
-avoid judgemental comments.
-Avoid interruption/distraction.
-Use open-ended questions.
- adapt language to suit witness.
Called the enhanced CI.

Question 23

Strengths of cognitive interview?

Answer 23

1. Geiselman et al. (1985) showed participants a video of a simulated crime and tested recall using the cognitive interview, standard interview or hypnosis.
   The cognitive interview led to the most information being recalled by the eyewitnesses.
2. Kohnken et al carried out a meta-analysis of 53 studies. Found an average increase of 34% in correct info generated by the CI compared to standard interview. Shows there are real life supporting evidence= increasing validity.

Question 24

Weaknesses of cognitive interview?

Answer 24

1. Koehnken et al. found that witnesses recalled more incorrect information when interviewed with the cognitive interview compared to the standard interview technique, perhaps because more detailed recall increases the chance of making a mistake.
2. time consuming to implement and police officers often do not have the time, training and resources to use it.
3. Memon et al. reported that police officers believed that Recall From Changed Perspective stage of the cognitive interview misleads witnesses into speculating about the event others witnessed rather than reporting what they actually saw.