Testimonies Flashcards
Eyewitness testimony
Evidence suppled to court by witnesses based on memory and maybe identification of perpetrator - heavily influence juries
Leading questions
Phrased in a way to influence a specific answer - response bias argues memory is unaffected but just the chosen answer given, while substitution bias argues memory is affected as the misleading info qs distort memory
Loftus and palmer leading qs
45 american students shown car crash then told to estimate speed but questions used different verbs - contacted, hit, bumped, collided, smashed
Contacted lead to 31mph estimations but smashed 41mph
Next week asked if any broken glass seen (there was none) and 32% of smashed participants said yes but only 12% contacted
Car crash leading questions eval
+ Lab experiment so controlled, less extraneous variables so easy to replicate
- Lacks ecological validity as watching vs actually witnessing a car accident will have different emotional connections so less susceptible to leading qs
- Lacks population validity as students so less experience drivers so less competent guesses
Post event discussion
discussing with co-witnesses or others which can contaminate memory and reduce accuracy, conformity can occur when people copy other accounts.
Source monitoring when original context reconstructed from bits of other accounts - alternative accounts confuses witness mind so believes they witnessed something they heard
Gabbert et al post event discussion
Pairs watch different videos of the same event and one condition encourages to discuss, 71% of discussors mistakenly recalled aspects only their partner could have seen
Gabbert et al event discussion eval
+ Population validity - little difference between repeats with students and older adults
- Low ecological validity and demand characteristics as knowledge of experiment would promote them to be more attentive to details - real witnesses would notice less
- Bodner et al found post event discussions are less impactful if participants warned of the impacts in advance
Anxiety
State of apprehension, uncertainty fear due to threatening situation - impairs physical and psychological functioning - prevents accurate and detailed recollection
Weapon focus effect
Weapon presence increases anxiety so can impair memory - often pay attention to more threatening aspect i,e weapons so can recall that more but less of the actual criminal/ other details
Loftus (1979)
Participants overheard a heated argument with sounds of overturned furniture and broken glass - in experimental condition man emerged with blood covered letter opener, control condition had greasy hands with pen
When participants asked to identify man from 50 photos, 49% success in control and 33% in bloody letter opener so loss of accuracy
Anxiety/ WFE eval
- Lacks ecological validity as people waited in reception outside lab so may anticipate something affecting accuracy and validity
- Unethical as people deceived and not protected from harm - could cause distress especially to those with knife crime experience
+Loftus and Burns (1982) showed violent crime film where boy is headshot or non-violent crime scene - less accuracy in violent condition - Yuille and Cutshall (1986) investigated anxiety in real shooting w one death and one serious injury, 13/21 original witnesses between 15-32 yrs agreed to partake 5 months later - little change in accounts and accuracy and evasion of leading questions - those most distressed at the time gave most accurate account
- Individual differences - some have better recall when anxious. Christianson and Hubinette (1983) researched 110 eyewitnesses witnessing one of 22 bank robberies, some onlookers and some bank clerks directly threatened, generally clerks/victims more accurate in description
Why was cognitive interview developed
Fisher (1987) studied real interview for 4 months finding brief direct closed factual questions with witnesses interrupted and stopped expansion - standard interview - argued this might contribute to faulty recall
Geiselman et al (1985) - 4 stages of cognitive interview
1 - Context reinstatement - mentally recreate image and details of situation - emotional and physical retrieval cues
2 - report everything - recall all details even overlooked details and may trigger other memories
3 - recall from changed perspective - mentally recreate scene from different pov - more holistic and reduce influence of schemas
4 - recall in reverse order - very accuracy and reduced preconceived schemas/ expectations
Enhanced cognitive interview
Fisher (1987) added additional guidelines
Encourage witness to relax and speak slow to reduce anxiety, avoid distractions, use open questions and offer comments to clarify statements - may improve detail of statement
Cognitive interview eval
+ Geiselman et al (1985) showed a crime video and tested with cognitive, standard interview or hypnosis and cognitive interview led most info recall
+ Fisher et al (1990) trained Miami officers to use enhanced cognitive interview and 46% info increase of which 90% was verifiably accurate
- Koehnken et al (1999) found more incorrect info with cognitive interview - more details given means more chance of mistake
- Time, training and resources needed to implement - often not viable/ enough
- Memon et al (1993) found police were reluctant to use recall from changed perspective because it misleads to speculation and not straight description
