eyewitness testimony: misleading info, leading questions, post event discussion

Question 1

define eyewitness testimony.

Answer 1

eyewitness testimony is evidence provided in court by a person who witnesses a crime, with a view of identifying the perpetrator.

Question 2

state the three stages eyewitness testimony goes through.

Answer 2

1. witness encodes into the LTM, details of the event and the persons involved - encoding may be partial/ distorted due to distractions at the time.
2. the witness retains the info for a period of time.
3. the witness retrieves the memory from storage.

Question 3

define misleading information.

Answer 3

information given to the eyewitness (knowingly or unknowingly) that could have an effect on someones recall of events.

Question 4

describe an effect of post event discussion on eyewitness testimony.

Answer 4

Gabbert:
- method: sample was 60 students from uni and 60 from local community.
- Ps watched video of girl stealing money from wallet. the groups were either tested as individuals (control group) or in pairs (co-witness group)
- Ps in co-witness group were told they watched the same video when only one had actually witnessed girl stealing. the co-witness group then discussed together and all Ps answered questionnaire.
- findings: 71 percent of Ps gave inaccurate statements after discussing what they had seen with a confederate co-witness.

Question 5

what are leading questions?

Answer 5

questions which are asked in such a way to suggest an expected answer.

Question 6

why might eyewitness testimony lack accuracy?

Answer 6

can be interference, or other can mis lead you.

Question 7

evaluation - loftus

Answer 7

supporting evidence - loftus conducted a memorable study involving a cut-out of bugs bunny. college students were asked to evaluate advertising material about Disneyland - however there was misleading info involved (bugs was not Disney)
Participants were assigned to bugs, Ariel or control condition - those in bugs or Ariel group accepted and shook hands with characters, more likely than control condition - shows how misleading info can create an inaccurate (false) memory.

Question 8

evaluation - real life applications

Answer 8

EWT in real life - foster et al found that if participants watch a real life robbery and thought responses influence trial, then identification of robber was more accurate -
Yuille and Gurshall - misleading info may have less influence on EWT.
real world applications - recent DNA exoneration cases have confirmed that mistaken eyewitness identification was largest factor contributing to conviction of innocent people (Wells and Olson)

Question 9

briefly summarise loftus and palmer study.

Answer 9

investigated the effect leading questions had on accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
- 45 students shown seven films of different traffic accidents and had to answer questionnaire after it.
- main question: ‘how fast were cars going when they hit each other?’ - the verb ‘hit’ was replaced with either smashed, collided, bumped, contacted for the other 4 groups.
- leading questions affect response.
- showed higher estimated speed with ‘smashed’ and lower estimated speed with ‘contacted’