Week 8 - Eyewitness Testimony

Question 1

Factors that make eyewitness testimony unreliable

Answer 1

Anxiety/Stress, presence of a weapon, suggestive questions, misinformation effect, age, race

Question 2

three general dependent variables in eyewitness studies

Answer 2

Recall of the event/crime
- Open-ended recall and free narrative
- Direct question recall

Recall of the target/culprit
- Open-ended recall and free narrative
- Direct question recall

Recognition of the target/culprit
- Lineup

Question 3

Study on police techniques used to interview eyewitnesses (Fisher et al. 1987)

Answer 3

• Frequent interruption of witnesses during open-ended recall
• Use of very short, specific questions
• Questions asked in a predetermined or random order that was inconsistent with the information the witness was providing at the time or completely irrelevant
• Found that officers tend to be impatient

Question 4

memory conformity

Answer 4

Witnesses can be contaminated by information they may become aware of from other witnesses

Question 5

Misinformation Effect

Answer 5

witness who is presented with inaccurate information after an event will incorporate that misinformation in a subsequent recall task

Question 6

Misinformation acceptance hypothesis (McCloskey & Zaragoza, 1985)

Answer 6

Incorrect information is provided because the witness guessed what the officer or experimenter wants the response to be

Question 7

Source misattribution hypothesis (Lindsay, 1994)

Answer 7

• Where the witness has two memories, the original and the misinformation
• Witness cannot remember where each memory originated or the source of each

Question 8

Memory impairment hypothesis (Loftus, 1979)

Answer 8

The original memory is replaced with the new, incorrect, information

Question 9

Hypnotically refreshed memory

Answer 9

where a hypnotized person is able to produce a greater number of details than a person who has not been hypnotized

Question 10

Factors that can influence whether hypnosis can be induced (Spiegel & Spiegel, 1987)

Answer 10

• The degree of trust the witness places in the hypnotist
• The witness’s willingness to be hypnotized
• The witness’s belief in hypnosis
• The seriousness of the context for being hypnotized

Question 11

The Cognitive Interview

Answer 11

Has been developed based on the principles of memory storage and retrieval

Question 12

The original cognitive interview (Geiselman & al. 1986)

Answer 12

• Reinstating the context
• Reporting everything
• Reversing order
• Changing perspective

Question 13

The enhanced cognitive interview (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992)

Answer 13

• Rapport building
• Supportive interviewer behaviour
• Transfer of control
• Focused retrieval
• Witness-compatible questioning

Question 14

False memory syndrome

Answer 14

describe client’s false beliefs that they were sexually abused as children, having no memories of this abuse until they enter therapy to deal with some other psychological problem such as depression or substance abuse

Question 15

five criteria for determining the veracity of a recovered memory (Lindsay & Read, 1995)

Answer 15

• Age of the complainant at the time of the alleged abuse
• Techniques used to recover memory
• Similarity of reports across interview sessions
• Motivation for recall
• Time elapsed since the alleged abuse

Question 16

Study on the accuracy of descriptors (Yarmey & Yarmey, 1997)

Answer 16

• Accuracy highest for hair colour and the type of clothing worn below the waist
• Difficulty in reporting weight, eye colour. and type of footwear

Question 17

Recognition Memory tests

Answer 17

• Video surveillance records
• Voice identification
• Live lineups or photo arrays

Question 18

Suspect v. Culprit

Answer 18

• Suspect: may be innocent or guilty for the crime
• Culprit: individual who committed the crime

Question 19

Use of distractors or foil

Answer 19

• A similarity-to-suspect strategy
• A match-to-description strategy

The suspect should not stand out from the other members of the line up - ensures fairness

Question 20

Lineup with target present

Answer 20

• Correct identification: eyewitness identifies the target
• Foil identification (error): eyewitness identifies a foil/distractor as the target
• False rejection (error): eyewitness states that the target is absent

Question 21

Lineup with target absent

Answer 21

• Correct rejection: eyewitness states that the target is absent
• Foil or False identification (error): eyewitness identifies a foil/distractor as the target (note: since there is no target in the lineup, any identification is an error)

Question 22

Implications of identification errors in real life (Wells & Turtle, 1986)

Answer 22

• Foil identification: error known to the police - may question the accuracy of the witness
• False rejection: unknown error to the police - guilty suspect goes free
• False identification (i.e., identifying an innocent suspect as the culprit): unknown error to the police - guilty suspect goes free & innocent may be prosecuted

Question 23

(Turtle et al., 2003) Photo arrays are preferable to live lineups because:

Answer 23

• Less time-consuming to put together
• Portable
• No right to counsel for the suspect
• Photos are static (suspect cant draw attention to themself)
• Reduced anxiety for eyewitness

Question 24

Lineup presentation formats

Answer 24

• Simultaneous lineup: presenting all lineup members at one time to the witness
• Relative judgment
• Sequential lineup: presenting members of the lineup one at a time
• Absolute judgment

Question 25

Showup

Answer 25

showing one person to the witness: the suspect

• Fear that the witness won’t be alive by the time a lineup is put together
• The witness and culprit is still at the crime scene, everything is very fresh

Disadvantage: witness knows that this is the police’s suspect – bias, pressure to confirm for witness

Question 26

Walk-by

Answer 26

Taking the witness to a public location where the suspect is likely to be

• Used when police have no suspects (?)
• Can be used before a more formal lineup

Question 27

Are confident witnesses accurate? (Wells & Bradfield,1998)

Answer 27

• Small positive correlation between confidence and accuracy
• Accurate when the confidence is asserted immediately
• Confirming feedback
• Disconfirming feedback
• No feedback
  The group who received confirming feedback from police reported more confidence and having better view of the crime/culprit – their confidence affected other aspects of their recognition

Question 28

Weapon focus

Answer 28

Cue-utilization: high emotional arousal decreases capacity to pay attention to details – the weapon will be encoded instead of peripheral info

Unusualness hypothesis: weapons are unusual – attracts attention and decreases chances of encoding other info