factors influencing EWT

Question 1

EWT

Answer 1

an account given by people of a crime or event they have witnessed which may be used in a court of law

Question 2

what are the 5 factors influencing EWT reliability

Answer 2

1. post-event information
2. leading questions
3. influence of anxiety
4. Tunnel theory/ weapon focus
5. post-event discussion

Question 3

post event information

Answer 3

Bartlett schema theory

• suggests that we alter stored information as it is not perfectly encoded
• It is affected by scheme, past knowledge and inserting information

Question 4

leading questions

Answer 4

supporting evidence from Loftus and Palmer 1974
EV: Yuille and Cutshall 1986 looked at EWT of people who saw a real life shooting in Canada. 2 leading questions had no impact on reliability of EWT

Question 5

influence of anxiety

Answer 5

Deffenbacher 1983 - law of optimal arousal to explain how moderate levels of anxiety can be beneficial to accurate recall.
- state dependant cues aid recall. As EWT more anxious

• Yuille and Cutshall 1986

y= memory accuracy
x = level of anxiety
inverted U shaped

Question 6

tunnel theory/ weapon focus effect

Answer 6

• noticing a weapon forms selective attention where we are unable to focus on anything else
• maybe linked with high anxiety levels as natural tendency to zoom in on threatening object

SE Johnson and scott study 1976
- lab, 2 groups heard commotion and argument
experimental = bloody knife = 33% identified man
control = greasy pen = 50% identified man

EV: pickel 1998 - used chicken and same effect as weapon

Question 7

post-event discussion

Answer 7

Gabbert et al 2003 experiment
- post event discussion = more errors and less reliability
- control had no discussion
Both saw same video of crime from various angles

EV: application to real world, legal system become more robust