Factors affecting the accuracy of EWT

• What is a schema?

  a mental representaion of an object or situation it is based on prior experience
• What is reconstructive memory ?


  a theory which suggest that our memory is influenced by our prior experiences and schemas and is not an exact representation of what actually happened

  the idea that memory is rebuilt
• what was the aim of Bartlett (1932) war of the ghosts study?


  the effect of cultural schemas on reconstructive memory
• what was the procedure of Bartlett (1932) study ?


  first participant read the native american folk story ' war of the ghosts'

  then reproduced what they could remember in writing

  written recall was given to a second participant , then wrote their own

  then passed onto third participant and so on
• what were the results of Bartlett (1932) study?


  participants stories bore little similarity to the original
• what were the 3 changes made in the results of Bartlett (1932) study?


  omission- details ignored or missed out

  assimilation and sharpening - details changed to suit the participant

  leveling- story became shorter
• what is the conclusion of Bartlett (1932) study?


  cultural schemas contribute to reconstructive memory
• what is eye-witness testimony (EWT)?


  ecidence provided by those recalling an event who were present when the event took place
• what is misleading information?


  information that suggests a desired response
• what is witness discussion?


  when witnesses discuss what they have seen with other witnesses or with other people
• what can witnesses discussion lead to ?


  confabulation and inaccuracy in recall
• what are the two types of witness discussion


  conformity effect

  source maintaing errors
• what is the conformity effect? (EWT)


  witnesses change their answers for social approval
• what is source maintaning errors?


  distortion occurs when other accounts are heard creating confusion

  people remember the information but don't recall whether they saw it first hand or heard it later
• what is Anxiety?


  an unpleasant state of emotional arousal

  its not post-event contamination because it happens during the event not after it
• what is the weapons effect?


  the theory that witnesses to violent crimes involving a weapon may focus on the weapon rather than the other details like the culprits face

  could have a negative impact on recall
• what is weapon focus?


  a factor that is partly related to emotionand stress, where a witnesses attention is drawn to the weapon in a crime scene and they recall thew other details
• what was Loftus et al (1987) study?


  the effect of the presence of a weapon on recall of an event

  participants watched a video of an exchange in a fast-food restaurant

  eye movements were measure

  1 video involved a gun and the other the bill exchange

  once they watch one of the videos they were asked to recall details
• what were the findings of Loftus et al (1987) study?


  if the participant saw the video involving the gun they spent longer fixating on that in comparison to the bill

  had poorer recall of the event than the witness in the bill condition
• what did Deffenbatcher (1982) The yerkes- dobson IUH sugget about anxiety?

  denonstated the inverted U hypothesis

  it showed that there will be better recall when the sistuation isn't highly emotional and stress inducing so EWT will be more reliable

  under or over arousal with have a bad performace in recall
• what was Yuille and Custshall (1986) study?


  investigated EW of a real life incident

  there was a theif in vancouver at a petrol station who stole guns and money was shot 6 times and died

  police interviewed witnesses and 13 of them were reinterviewd 5 months later
• what was the findings of Yuille and Cutshall (1986)?


  recall was really accurate even after a long time

  two misleading questions inserted by the research team had no effect
• what was the conclusion of Yuille and Cutshall (1986) study?


  situations with high levels of anxiety increase the ability to recall a situation
• what was the procedure of Johnson and Scott (1976) study?


  participants believed they were going to be part of a lab experiment

  while in the waiting room they heard an argument in the next room

  participants then either witnessed a low anxiety condition or a high anxiety ccondition

  participants then had to pick the man from the conditions from a set of 50 photos
• what was the low anxiety condition in Johnson and Scott (1976) study?


  man walked through the waiting room carrying a pen with grease on his hands
• what was the high anxiety condition in Johnson and Scott (1976) study?


  they heard broken glass and a man walked through with a paper knife that was covered in blood
• what were the findings of Johnson and Scott (1976) study?


  49% of the low anxiety condition were able to identify the man

  33% of the high anxiety condition were able to identify the man
• what was the conclusion of Johnson and Scott (1976) study ?


  when high levels of anxiety is present the performance of recall is poor
• how does anxiety have a negative impact on EWT?


  it could lead to poor recall because when the memory was encoded the state the person was in was heightened anxiety so when having to recall they are no longer in that state so no triggers and prompts are avaliable not only this but they might not have been coding the information at the time of the situation
• how does anxiety have a positive impact on EWT?


  it could lead to good recall because of the adrenaline that is released when facing the situation which causes recall to be effective due to fight or flight , we are more alert so are coding cues
• what was Wright et al(2000) study?


  was to investigate the effect of post event disscusion

  two groups of participants were shown a seriesof story pictures about a woman stealing a mans wallet

  in one condition the woman was alone at the start in the other she had an acomplice

  the participants then answered questions on wether the woman had an acomplice or not

  they were then put into pairs one from each condition and had to discuss the story
• what were the findings for Wright et al (2000) study?


  79% of participant pairs agreed about whether there had been an acomplice in the first part of the story even though they had seen different versions
• what was the conclusion on wright et al (2000) study ?


  in a significant number of cases one member of each pair had changed their recollection of the event due to the influence of the other person
• what was Paterson (2004) study?


  to investigate the effects of co-witness discussion on EWT

  171 participants watched videos of crimes

  all participants completed recognition tasks about the videos randomly allocated one of the three conditions

  . discussions in a group of 4 including a confederate who deliberately introduced mislesding info

  .natural discussions with other co-witnesses in a group of 4

  .control group where there was no dicussion

  after discussions participants completed a free recall task and a recognition questionnaire
• what were the findings for Patersons (2004) study?


  83% of participants in the group with the confederate reported more misinformation after the discussion compared to those in a group without a confederate (38%) and the control group (31%)
• what was the conclusion for Paterson (2004) study?


  discussions between co-witnesses can lead to memories of an event being disorted however this mostly occured when misinformation was included
• what was the Loftus and Palmer (1974) study? Method 1


  to investigate whether the type of questioning affects the reliability of EWT

  150nparticipants were told to watch a one minute film of a car crash , describe what happened and answer questions

  there were three conditions

  . asked how fast the car was going when they smashed into eachother

  .asked how fast the car was going when they hit eachother

  .the control group,not asked about the speed of the car
• what were the findings for method 1 in Loftus and Palmer (1974) study?


  significant difference in mean estimate of speed

  smashed- 41mph

  hit- 34
• what was Loftus and Palmer (1947) study method 2?


  a week later participants were asked futher questions including was there broken glass

  there was no broken glass
• what were the findings for method 2 of Loftus and Palmer (1974) study ?


  32% of participants in the smashed group reported seeing broken glass

  14% for hit group

  12% for the control group