Factors Affecting EWT

• There are 2 factors. Misleading info (leading questions + post event discussion) and anxiety
• Misleading information-E.g. leading questions – point to a certain answer because of how they are phrased.
• Loftus and Palmer-Car crash study –

  • leading questions (e.g. smashed) affected the speed estimates participants gave.
  • found-Substitution not response bias-Loftus and Palmer asked about broken glass, leading question had altered memory of the event, wasn't due to how the question was asked
• Post-event discussion-Gabbert et al. – when co-witnesses talk about the event with each other, this can distort EWT.
• 2 reasons for change in PED

  • Memory contamination-Original memory altered because witness combines mis(information) from other witnesses with own memories.
  • Memory conformity-Eyewitnesses may ‘go along’ with other witnesses’ memories to gain social approval or because they believe others are correct.
• one strentgh of misleading information is it changed the justice system to not use leading questions.
• one limitation of misleading info is substitution is often a more realistic explanation than memory actually changing.
• another limitation of misleading info is researchers often use videos which are not real which may affect how the participant answers the questions- demand characteristics.
• anxiety can be argued to affect recall positively and negatively
• negatively-Johnson and Scott-weapon focus effect. Ppts believed they were part of lab study-waited in waiting room. high anxiety- man has heated conversation and sound of broken glass- walks out with knife that has blood on it. Low anxiety- regular converstaion and man leaves with a pen and grease on hishands. When asked to identify photo- 49% in low anxiety, 33% in high anxiety. Shows tunnel theory- too focusedion weapon.
• positively- fight or flght triggers which increadses alertness-yuille and cutshall- gun shop. Used a real incident and interviewed eyewitnesses 4-5 months after crime. Found that those who reported the highest anxiety had the best recall-88%. Whereas those with the lowest anxiety had 75%
• Yerkes-Dodson law. Says anxiety increases accuracy of recall as fight or flight increases alertness to a point. However if a person experiences more anxiety past the optimal point then they will make more mistakes when recalling.
• one limitation of anxiety as a factor is it was disproved by Pickel. Participants watched a video of a hairdressers ands recall was worse when the weapon was of high unusualness, such as a raw chicken compared to high danger but low unusualness such as scissors. which disproves the weapon focus effect.
• one limitation of anxiety as a factor is the Yerkes-Dodson law doesn't take into account other that anxiety has many elements- cognitive, physiological