psychology paper 1 case study flashcards
when was the cognitive interviw developed and why
1985
response to traditional police interviews
what did fisher et al do
studied police interviews in florida and found that witnesses were presennted qith short closed questions
what did gielemnan do
For this reason, Geiselman et al (1985) developed the cognitive interview,
gieselnmans method
89 students watched a video of a simulated crime.
Two days later they were interviewed using cognitive interview or standard interview
average correct items recalled in cog vs standard interview
41.5 vs 29.3
average number of incorrect items recalled in cog vs standard
7.3 vs 6.1
gieselments study has low ecological vaalidity
E: This is because the participants were shown a video of a violent crime and asked to recall the events. The study was not conducted in a real-life setting.
E: This is a limitation as demand characteristics could affect as the participants knew this was not a real crime so they may have paid more attention to the details of the crime.
L: Therefore, this may undermine the validity of the cognitive interview technique.
the cognitive interview is not often used by the police
E: This is because conducting the cognitive interview itself may take longer as opposed to standard interview techniques as the police should allowed EWT to take time to think and express themselves without being prompted in order to improve the accuracy of the EWT.
E: Another reason why the police are reluctant to use the cognitive interview is because the cognitive interview requires special training and many police forces have not provided more than rudimentary training.
E: This explains why the cognitive interview is not readily used
Some aspects of the interview technique may not yield as many results as the other
Rebecca Milne and Ray Bull found that each of the 4 techniques used alone produced more information than the standard police interview. However, they also found that using a combination of report everything and reinstate the context produce better recall than any of the other elements or combination of them.
E: This confirmed police officers’ suspicions that some of the aspects of the CI are more useful than others. This may also have been another factor that explains why police officers were reluctant to use the cognitive interview.
L: Therefore, this is a limitation of the CI as it reduces its credibility as a method to enhance accuracy.
johnson and scott procedure
non weapon condition and weapon condition
after the ibcident both groups were shown 5o photos and asked to udenifty who left the lab
particants were infirmed that the suspect may or mahy not be present in the photos
what was the weapon condition
he participant overhead
A heated discussion and
The sound of breaking glass
And crashing chairs.
what was the non weapon condition
The participant heard
Someone saying that
Something about
Equipment failure
conclusion of johnson and scott
Loftus claimed that the participants who were exposed to the knife had higher levels of anxiety and were more likely to focus their attention on the weapon and not the face of the target, a phenomenon known as the weapon focus effect. The anxiety associated with seeing a knife reduces the accuracy of EWT.
yuille and cutshall
One person was killed and another seriously injured in a real-life shooting.
21 EWT were interviewed by the police.
4-5 months after the police investigation, Yuille & Cutshall asked those EWT if they wanted to participate in a research.
13 of those EWT accepted to be interviewed by Yuille & Cutshall.
findings of yuille and cutshall
They found that all of the 13 EWT were accurate in their eyewitness accounts five months later with very little changes such as the height or age.
The eyewitness avoided responding in a biased way to leading questions and the anxiety experienced at the time of the event had little or no effect on their recall of the event.
Therefore, this contradicts the weapon focus effect and the results of Loftus (1979) and shows that in real-life extreme anxiety does not affect EWT.
key factors causing ron cotton to be wrongly convited
Wrong information/features may have been rehearsed
When Jennifer was studying his face it was dark
Traumatic event so she may not have been in the right state of mind
Scared- irrational thinking
Ron Cotton had past record- guilty plea for sexual assault
Photo identification and line up- same person chosen so she was more confident that Ron Cotton was guilty
Looked similar to the real criminal – Bobby Pool
ron cotton and the implications of the judicil system
Can cause lack of trust in the judicial system, therefore
people might not report crimes, crime rates may increase
Accused with lose out on years of their life
Perpetrator might commit crimes again
Stereotypes are perpetuated- large percentage of falsely accused are black
Victim feels guilty and misconception of being safe
loftus and palmer aim
To investigate the effect of leading questions on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
method of loftus and palmer
45American students from the University of Washington formed an opportunity sample.
This was a laboratory experiment with five conditions, only one of which was experienced by each participant (an independent measures experimental design).
Seven films of traffic accidents, ranging in duration from 5 to 30 seconds, were presented to each group in random order.
After watching the film, participants were asked to describe what had happened as if they were eyewitnesses.
They were then asked specific questions, including the question “About how fast were the cars going when they (smashed / collided / bumped / hit / contacted) each other?”
Thus, the IV was the verb of the question, and the DV was the speed reported by the participants.
findings of loftus and palmer
he participants in the “smashed” condition reported the highest speed estimate (40.8 mph), followed by “collided” (39.3 mph), “bumped” (38.1 mph), “hit” (34 mph), and “contacted” (31.8 mph) in descending order
loftus and palmer conclusion
The results show that the verb conveyed an impression of the speed the car was traveling and this altered the participants” perceptions.
In other words, eyewitness testimony might be biased by the way questions are asked after a crime is committed.
lolftus and palmers explanation for the results
response bias factors and memory representtion is altered
Response-bias factors
The misleading information provided may have influenced the answer a person gave (a “response-bias”), but didn’t actually lead to a false memory of the event. For example, the different speed estimates occur because the critical word (e.g., “smash” or “hit”) influences or biases a person’s response.
The memory representation is altered
The critical verb changes a person’s perception of the accident—some critical words would lead someone to perceive the accident as more serious. This perception is then stored in a person’s memory of the event.
aim of loftus and palmer 2
to investigate if leading questions simply create a response bias, or if they actually alter a person’s memory representation.
loftus and palmer proceducre 2
Another group of 150 participants were shown a one-minute film which featured a car driving through the countryside followed by four seconds of a multiple traffic accident.
Afterward, the students were questioned about the film. The independent variable was the type of question asked.
Group 1 was asked how fast were the cars going when they hit each other.
Group 2 was asked how fast were the cars going when they smashed each other.
Group 3: were not asked about the speed of the vehicles. (control group)
.One week later, the dependent variable was measured – without seeing the film again, they answered ten questions, one of which was a critical one randomly placed in the list:
The critical question was: ͞Did you see any broken glass͍͟ There was no broken glass in the video clip
results of Loftus and palmer 2
16 saw broken glass smashed
7 hit
6 control
didn’t see broken glass
34 smashed
43 hit
44 control
Loftus and palmer 2 conclusion
This research suggests that questioning techniques easily distorts memory, and information acquired after an event can merge with original memory, causing inaccurate recall or reconstructive memory.
The results from experiment two suggest that this effect is not just due to a response bias because leading questions altered the participant’s memory for the event.
The addition of false details to a memory of an event is referred to as confabulation. This has important implications for the questions used in police interviews of eyewitnesses.
Consequently, Loftus and Palmer support the reconstructive memory hypothesis – arguing that information gathered at the time of an event is modified by data gathered afterward.
Over time, information from these two sources is integrated so that it is impossible to separate them—in effect, we have only one memory.
GABBERT ET AL aim
To investigate the effect of post-event discussion on the accuracy of EWT.
gabbert et al method
60 students from the University of Aberdeen and 60 older adults from the local community.
Gabbert et al took 120 participants and they were allocated to conditions in pairs.
He then showed each participant a video of a girl putting a book back into a University office.
The control group did not discuss. The experimental group discussed after watching the video.
However, each person from the pairs in the experimental group could see an aspect of the video that the other partner could not, for example, one person could see the title of the book that the girl was returning whilst the other could see the girl stealing a £10 from a wallet.
After watching the video, the participants in the experimental group discussed what they saw in the video with each other
Participants in the control and experimental group were asked to come back and complete a questionnaire independently of what they saw
postman 1960
Participants had to learn two lists of paired words.
participants had to learn only the first list:
findings of gabbert et al
They found that 71% of participants in the experimental group stated they had seen the girl do something which they actually had not seen but just heard from their partner. This figure was 0% for the control group in which there was no post event discussion.
They also found that 60% of the participants in the experimental group said that the girl was guilty of stealing the £10 note even though they had not actually seen her carry out the act themselves.
They concluded that participants may go along with other people due to memory conformity where a person may go along with the answer of someone else because they think they are wrong and the other person might be right or they want social approval of the other person. This shows that post event discussion can have a negative effect on eyewitness testimony as it can lead to people making judgements that are not entirely true.
findings of postman
Those participants who had 2 lists had lower recall than those who only had one list.
Therefore, the findings show that forgetting occurs when information is similar because the words interfere with each other and create confusion.
godden and baddwely aim and sample
Aim: To investigate the effect of contextual cues on recall.
Sample: 18 participants (13 males and 5 females) from a university diving club;
results of godden and baddley
Repeated measures design (4 conditions).
Participants went to all conditions over 4 separate days.
Findings: the words learned underwater were better recalled underwater and those learned on land were recalled better on land. Recall was 40% lower in the non-matching condition and this led to retrieval failure.
HM
He went through surgery to recover from epilepsy. However, after the surgery he suffered from anterograde and retrograde amnesia. He was able to remember information before the surgery but he could not form new memories after surgery. This suggests his STM was damaged after the operation and he could not form new memories. This supports the MSM as it shows that LTM and STM are separate stores.
CW
had a viral infection which damaged Clive’s hippocampus. The hippocampus is a part of the brain that plays an important role in consolidating short-term memory into long-term memory. Clive could not remember anything he learnt after 20 seconds. However, his LTM memories acquired before the infection were intact. This supports the MSM as it shows that STM and LTM are two separate stores.
KF
He suffered a motorcycle accident and damaged several areas of his brain. After the accident his short-term memory for digits was very poor when they were read aloud to him. However, when he was able to read the digits himself, his recall was much better. This shows he remembers visual material better than auditory material. This suggests that there are separate stores for visual and auditory information.
Miller
Miller (1957) did an earlier study into “the Magic Number 7, plus or minus 2”. He found that STM has a capacity of 7 items (or “bits”) of information comfortably, but struggles to hold more than 9. Miller found that “bits” of information can be grouped together into “chunks”. STM can hold more information in chunks, but loses accuracy (eg recalling a whole face instead of remembering eye colour
jacobs
recruited 443 college students from North London. He gave them a sequence of words or letters and asked them to recall them immediately in the correct order. Every time they recalled them correctly, he added a new number or letter until they were not able to recall them.
He found that the average span was 7.3 letters and 9.3 words which supports Miller’s 7 plus, minus 2 notion.
