eyewitness testimony

Question 1

What is an eyewitness testimony

Answer 1

Someone who has seen something happen often in relation to a crime and can give first hand descriptions of it

Question 2

Factors that affect eye witness testimony

Answer 2

• misleading inform!ation
  (Leading questions and post event discussion)

Question 3

What are leading questions

Answer 3

Leading questions are questions that prompt or encourage an answer this is wanted by person asking the question eg police or lawyer

Question 4

What did loftus and palmer study and what year?

Answer 4

1974
- explored the impact of how language used in questions can alter memory

Question 5

Explain Elizabeth Loftus study in 1974

Answer 5

45 American students from uni of washington watched series of film containing traffic accidents and asked to explain what had happened mimicing an eye witness testimony then asked question (representing leading questions)
- The questions asked how fast were the cars going when they
BUMPED
CONTACTED
HIT
COLLIDED
SMASH
the words were made to vary in the level of intensity of the crash.

Question 6

Findings of Elizabeth Loftus study 1974

Answer 6

• When asked to estimate the speed t which the car was travelling they found that the verb smashed has the highest predicted speed than the other words.

Question 7

Evaluative sentence of Elizabeth Loftus study

Answer 7

This illustrates the effect of simply changing one word in a question can lead to a variation of responses, this demonstrates the way the that eye witness testimony can be affected by misinformation

Question 8

explain Loftus and palmer experiment 2 (1974)

Answer 8

There were three conditions, one asked about how fast the car was going when they smashed, bumped and there was a control group with no questions asked

Some time after the participants were asked about what they watched the week before. The important question was did you see any broken glass? There was no glass in the original film

Question 9

Findings of loftus and palmer experiment 2

Answer 9

They predicted in their hypothesis the condition where the question asked how fast was the car going when it ‘SMASHED’ that they would be more likely to say that the found glass present in the film

Question 10

evaluative sentence of loftus and palmer study 2

Answer 10

This research further demonstrates how to accuracy of memory can be affected by questions especially leading questions

Question 11

Advantages of the research into misleading information

Answer 11

• The work of loftus and palmer has real world practical application for police and lawyers , a technique in cognitive interviews is to report everything and avoid leading questions, and instead ask open ended questions like e’ what happened next’ studies such as palmers and loftus has shaped the bases for the foundation for these types of interviews
• Loftus and palmer can be praised for their study as it was highly controlled experimental settings, careful control of extraneous variables - cause and effect can be establish - the quality of this research strengthens the argument of ow misleading information can effect ewt
• Kohken et al (1999) - research into cognitive interviews and standard interviews he found as a result of these changes the cognitive interview provided more accurate information than the standard interview , this highlights the value of the research into misleading information in how it improved the accuracy of eye witness testimony

Question 12

Drawbacks to research

Answer 12

• artificial studies - (video recordings) lacks level of realism , lacks ecological validity
• the pps aren’t actually ewt to real crimes the levels of anxiety that would be present in an actually ewt isn’t there - Foster et al (1994) found that ewt were more accurate when they believed that the video was a real life scenerio
• sample size - american uni students not repersenative of the wider population specifically in driving they may have less experience are their estimates of speed insightful?

Question 13

What Post event discussion

Answer 13

witnesses of the same event discuss the details of a crime after it has occurred

Question 14

What did Gabbert et al (2003) do

Answer 14

• Showed 2 different groups a crime scene from different angles and viewpoints to mimic different angles and viewpoints of a real crime
  They did a questionnaire to recall what had happened individually or co witness ( w post event discussion)

Question 15

Findings of Gabbert et al 2003

Answer 15

71% reported information gathered from other witness
60% of people in the co witness crime reported that the girl was guilty even though they didn’t witness her doing the crime