Lecture 7 - Eyewitness Testimony

Question 1

Describe Hugo Munsterburg’s study on eyewitness testimony

Answer 1

• Considered one of the first to undertake research on juries
• Observed that people’s memory was quite inaccurate

Question 2

Why is testimony unreliable? (Hugo Munsterburg)

Answer 2

• Susceptible to ‘illusions’, perceptions could be affected by circumstances in which the events take place
• Associations, judgements, suggestions taint recollection of events - a lot of focus for recent research

Question 3

Barlett (1932) said that memory for events is affected by our prior knowledge, known as what?

Answer 3

Schemas

Question 4

What did Tuckey & Brewer (2003) find when they asked P’s to describe a prototypical bank robbery?

Answer 4

Even in absence of misinformation, eyewitnesses least likely to remember details that don’t fit with their schema for event and more likely to remember things that fit with their schema

Question 5

What did Loftus, Miller, & Burns (1978) find from their study of effects of misinformation?

Answer 5

• For P’s who received consistent information, 75% chose correctly
• For P’s who received inconsistent post-event info, 41% correct
• Offered monetary incentive
• Memory trace altered

Question 6

Outline Lindsay et al.’s (2004) findings

Answer 6

• P’s in similar conditions (palace burglary & burglary video) had greater proportion of errors than those in dissimilar condition (school trip & burglary video)
• Eyewitnesses often have experience of relevance to questions about the crime that may distort their answers

Question 7

Define provoked variant confabulations

Answer 7

Attempt to fill in knowledge gaps to avoid embarrassment

Question 8

Describe the Dud Effect (Charman, Wells, & Joy, 2011) - the effect of fillers

Answer 8

• Line-up contains several individuals very dissimilar to the culprit
• e.g., 4/5 of fillers in a 6 person line up will not fit the description
• Therefore, arguably equivalent to a 2 person line up
• However, still has an impact of EW ID and confidence

Question 9

Charman et al. (2011) found what in terms of eyewitness confidence?

Answer 9

That the addition of dissimilar members can bias witness confidence

Question 10

What did Valentine et al. (2010) find in terms of anxiety impact on EW ID?

Answer 10

That heightened anxiety and stress have a negative impact on EW ID

Question 11

Why do EW have a poor memory for detail of crime if a weapon is involved?

Answer 11

Because they focus their attention on the weapon as opposed to the culprit themselves