Factors affecting eyewitness testimony

• Eyewitness testimony


  Evidence provided by the witness of a crime to try and identify the perpetrator
• 2 types of misleading information

  Leading questions and post event discussion
• Loftus and Palmer: study 1 aim

  To investigate the effects of leading questions on recall
• Loftus and Palmer: study 1 procedure

  - ppts watched 7 film clips of a car crash and given a questionnaire to fill out

  - there was a critical question on the questionnaire with 5 different verbs to describe the car crash: collided, smashed, contacted, hit and bumped
• Loftus and Palmer: study 1 findings

  Ppts said the car was going faster when the verb was more intense
• Loftus and Palmer: study 2 aim

  To investigate whether leading questions actually alter memory of an event
• Loftus and Palmer: study 2 method

  - ppts were asked if they saw any broken glass in the clips of the car crashes

  - ppts with the more intense verb in the critical question were more likely to say they saw broken glass
• Gabbert et al: aim

  To investigate the effects of post event discussion on the accuracy of EWT
• Gabbert et al: procedure

  - ppts watched a video of a girl stealing money from a wallet

  - ppts discussed it in pairs but only one person had actually seen the money being stolen
• Gabbert et al: findings

  60% of people who didn't actually see the money being stolen said the girl was guilty
• Johnson & Scott: aim

  To investigate the effects of anxiety on EWT
• Johnson & Scott: procedure

  - ppts in a waiting room heard an argument in the next room

  - in one condition, a man walked out sweating and holding a pen

  - in another condition, a man walked out with a knife covered in blood
• Johnson & Scott: findings

  Ppts who saw the knife experienced weapon focus and had worse recall of what the man looked like
• Yuille & Cutshall: aim

  To investigate the effects of anxiety on EWT
• Yuille & Cutshall: procedure

  Studied a real life shooting in Vancouver and asked ppts to rate how stressed they felt from 1-5
• Yuille & Cutshall: findings

  Ppts who were closer to the shooter so more stressed had better recall of what the shooter looked like