Eye Witness Testimonies

Question 1

State the 3 factors that can effect accuracy of EWT

Answer 1

Leading Questions
Post-Event Discussion
Anxiety

Question 2

How can Anxiety affect EWTs?

Answer 2

High anxiety may increase recall
- improved alertness and awareness of the situations and surroundings

HOWEVER high anxiety may also decrease recall
- weapon effect
- witnesses are focusing their attention on the weapon rather than the criminal

Question 3

How can Post-Event Discussion affect EWTs?

Answer 3

Memory conformity
- witnesses go along with others’ accounts for social approval

Question 4

How can Leading Questions affect EWTs?

Answer 4

Can influence how memory is recalled
- due to an actual change in memory (substitution bias)
- or due to emotional pressure to give a particular response (response bias)

Question 5

AO3 Misleading Information

Answer 5

Supporting Research
- Loftus and Palmer’s study
- showed that when the verb was more extreme, estimated speed was higher
- suggests leading questions influence recall

Question 6

AO3 Post-Event Discussion

Answer 6

Supporting Research
- Gabbert found that when pairs discussed what they’d seen (after watching a video of a crime), 71% of the information in their EWT was NOT in the video
- Bodner found when participants were warned about the danger of PED, their EWT changed less

Question 7

AO3 Anxiety

Answer 7

Supporting Research
- Yuille and Cutshall found that when interviewed 4 months after witnessing a deadly shooting, 13 witnesses resisted misleading information, and those with the MOST stress produced the most accurate EWT

Practical Applications
- Cognitive interviews
- designed to reduce the influence of schemas on accuracy of recall

Ethics
- Research that deceives participants and CAUSES anxiety breaks ethical guidelines
- many ethical issues to research fully