Factors Affecting Accuracy Of Eyewitness Testimony Flashcards
(21 cards)
What are the 2 factors that can affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony?
• Misleading information
• Anxiety
Who argued that memories are not accurate ‘snapshots’ of events perfectly preserved but are instead ‘reconstructions’ of events? What are reconsteuctions influenced by?
• Bartlett
• The ‘reconstructions’ are influenced by our persinal attitudes and the stereotypes we hold
What is Schema? What is it known as?
Packages of information about people and objects in the world around us
Known as ‘mental shortcuts’ as when we recall a memory, it is influenced by schemas and memories change to fit the individuals pre-existing bias
What is reconstructive memory?
Memory is not an accurate recording of events, it is reconstructed in recalling and may produce errors (confabulations)
What are leading questions?
Questions that imply a particular answer that may influence how a memory is recalled
What are the two things leading questions can lead to and what do they mean?
• Substitution bias explanation: Due to an actual change in memory
• Response bias explanation: Due to an emotional pressure to give a particular response
What is post-event contamination/discussion?
When the recalling of events by one witness alters the accuracy of the recall by another witness. Could be memory conformity when the witness goes along with others’ account for social approval
What study suggests that misleasing information in the form of leading questions can influence the recall of eyewitness testimony?
• Loftus & Palmer
• Participants were shown clips of traffic accidents
• Participants were asked the leading question: “how fast were the cards going when they ___ into eachother”
• Gap was replaced with different verbs such as ‘smashed’ or ‘hit’
• It was found that the more extreme the verb was, the faster the estimation of speed, with smashed being the highest
What study suggests the effects of misleading information in the form of leading questions can be long lasting and actually changes memories via substitution rather than response bias?
• Loftus & Palmer
• Participants were shown a car accident clip without broken glass
• After viewing they were asked how fast the car was going with the different verbs
• A week later there was a follow up questionnaire with “did you see broken glass?” As one of the questions
• It was found participants were twice as likely in the ‘smashed’ condition to respond yes compared to the ‘hit’ condition
What study suggests that witnesses change their account of crimes to match other witnesses’ testimonies and why?
• Gabbert et al
• Videos of crimes shot from different perspectives were shown to pairs of participants
• It was found that 81% of the pairs who were allowed to discuss what they had seen included aspects of the video they had not seen in their own perspective
- Compared to 0% in pairs not allowed to discuss what they had seen
• May be an attempt to seek social approval, resulting in memory conformity
What study suggests that if warned about the dangers of Post-event discussion, it’s effects on eyewitness testimony can be reduced?
• Bodner et al
• Participants explicitly discouraged from sharing information in their testimony
• It was found that these participants shared significantly less information gained from the other witnesses
What is anxiety?
A mental state of arousal that includes feelings of extreme concern and tension
Often accompanied by physiological effects sucjbas elevated heartrate
How does anxiety decrease recall?
High levels of anxiety decreases accurate recall of things such as the criminal’s face
What is weapon focus/effect?
Witnesses become distracted, as weapons are a cause of anxiety, so person focusses attention on the weapon rather than the criminal
How can axiety increase recall?
A state of arousal improves alertness and awareness of the situation and surroundings
Strong emotions felt can improve memory coding
What is the Yerks-Dodson Law of Arousal?
• EWT accuracy increases as anxiety raises as the witness becomes alert
• However at a point, anxiety becomes too high and more stress/distractions results in lower accuracy
What study suggests that weapons draw attention away from criminal?
• Johnson & Scott
• Unaware participants were placed outside a lab, listening to one of two conversations:
- Convo about equipment failure, man walks out with greasy hands and pen
- Hostile, breaking glass and knocking furniture, man walks out with a blood-covered knife
• Participants askes to identify either man from sets of 50 photographs coming out of the lab
• Accuracy for the pen condition was 49%, for the knife condition was 33%
What study suggests weapon focus exists?
• Peters
• Patients at a real healthcare centre were given a real injection by a nurse, with a researcher present in the room
• It was found that the patients were better able to recognise the researcher than the nurse, suggests weapon focus on the syringe
How has research on the limitations of EWT led to real-life applications?
• Development of the cognitive interview
• This technique is designed to reduce the influence of schemas on the accuracy of recall
How may lab based studies suffer from demand characteristics?
• Participants often want to ‘help’ the researcher by giving responses they expect as they could pick up on the language used in leading questions
How can research on anxiety and EWT be unethical?
• Some research does not give informed consent
• Does not protect participants from harm
• Even interviewing people about traumatic experiences could cause additional anxiety
