Planning

• Multi-Store Model: If an eyewitness ignores a crime the details may never enter the short-term memory, if they don't rehearse the events they saw, their testimony may be inaccurate as they will not transfer those details into the long-term memory
• Multi-Store Model: Peterson and Peterson (1959) - if eyewitnesses rehearsed events repeatedly they may be able to give a more accurate version of events
• Multi-Store Model: The impact of inaccurate eyewitness testimony could be reduced by engaging in better victim support, where they are encouraged to rehearse their recall of the event
• Working Memory Model: If an event happens very quickly in front of us, our working memory may become overloaded; this means it won’t remember everything that we see happen and therefore EWT will be inaccurate as only part of the incident is remembered, other parts are forgotten due to an overload of the working memory
• Working Memory Model: Everyone processes information at different speeds, this means if we witness an incident, we won't all take the same amount of information from the scene; the impact of this can be reduced by asking as many witnesses as possible what they saw to piece together a complete image of what happened
• Tulvig’s Theory of Long-Term Memory: Episodic recall of a crime is reliant on contextual cues, which are lacking in a police station; this means that EWT may not be an accurate recall of an event, but a reconstruction using information from schemas to fill the gaps - links with reconstructive memory
• Tulvig’s Theory of Long-Term Memory: The impact of inaccurate EWT could be reduced by interviewing the witness at the scene of the crime or asking questions that use context
• Reconstructive Memory and Schema Theory: Proposes that memories are reconstructed, using pieces of information from schemas to help recall the event, but also information from schemas to help recall the event so it is never a true recall
• Reconstructive Memory and Schema Theory: People - fill in the gaps (confabulate) with information from their schema, they rationalise things that happened in front of them to help them make sense of schemas fit with what is familiar, and omit details from events that are hard to remember, seem less important or don’t fit with their schemas so memories are shorter
• Reconstructive Memory and Schema Theory: Therefore EWT can be inaccurate to reduce this impact EWT should only be used in conjunction with other evidence - Cohen (1966) found that people remember things in line with their existing stereotypes - known as confirmation bias