part 2: EWT & interviews

• what is an EWT

  an eye-witness testimony is an account given by a person of an event they have witnessed
• what is EWT misidentification

  the greatest cause of wrongful convictions in the USA, more than 75% of convictions are overturned by DNA testing
• what are 2 factors that affect EWT

  - misleading information

  - anxiety
• what is misleading information and what does it include

  this is where a witness is affected by information after witnessing a crime, it includes:

  1.Post-event discussion

  2. Leading questions
• what is post-event discussion


  this is where witnesses discuss a crime and the testimony becomes contaminated, they combine misinformation from other eye witnesses into their own memory to create false memories
• what can post-event discussion lead to

  can lead to source-monitoring error, this is where the source of a memory is incorrectly attributed to our own recollected experience
• what is the evidence for post-event discussion

  Gabbert:

  p's in pairs watched a film of a crime from different angles, some p's could see bits the others couldn't, after discussion research found that 71% gave information they couldn't see but had gathered from post-event discussion
• what is a leading quesion

  this is where someone indicates a desired answer from the way a question is asked/phrased
• who gave evidence for leading questions and what was their aim

  Loftus and Palmer

  To assess the extent to which p's estimation of the speed of cars involved in accidents could be influenced by misleading questions
• give an overview of experiment 1

  p's were shown clips of car crashes, after they wrote an account of what they recalled & answered questions, the verb in the question differed, from: contacted, hit, bumped, collided or smashed, then p's estimation of speed was recorded
• what was the conclusion from experiment 1

  LQ affect speed estimations as it can bias p's answers
• give an overview of experiment 2

  p's were shown a car crash, 50 with verb smashed, 50 with hit and the other 50 were't asked at all (cpntrol group) 1 week after they were asked if they saw any broken glass, the number who recorded glass was recorded
• what was the conclusion for experiment 2

  LQ can affect EW's memory, as more recorded seeing broken glass when given the word smashed
• what is an advantage of this study

  + shows that LQ can affect EW reliability
• what are the disadvantages of the study

  - lab experiments with an artificial task, so lacks relevance to real life

  - demand characteristics, p's may give the answer they believe the researcher wants
• what are 3 other types of studies into LQ

  ~ Loftus: showed a red wallet being stolen, researcher then referred to it as brown, 98% still called it red: LQ don't effect EWT, However colour is a clear distinction, whereas speed of car is more tangible

  ~ Yullie & Cutshall: interviewed real EW's after they witnessed an armed robbery, included 2 LQ's but the real EW's weren't influenced: LQ don't have an affect as their memories weren't influenced Furthermore, this shows a real life example with actual consequences and they weren't swayed
• what are 2 strengths of misleading information evaluation

  + the reserach into LQ has practical applications, it has changed the way EW are questioned and officers are trained so can reduce wrongful testimonies

  + most of the research involves laboratory studies, enables isolation of a single variable to see its impact on p's, so high objectivity and reliability, However artifical setting and no real consequences for EW = low ecological validity
• what is a weakness of misleading information evaluation

  - some of the research lacks mundane realism (watching clips then questioned) this doesn't reflect a real EWT as there are no intense emotions or consequences
• what is anxiety


  a state of emotional arousal where there is a feeling or experience of apprehension brought about by a real or anticipated threat
• how does anxiety negatively effect recall

  anxiety creates arousal in the body which prevents paying attention to important things so recall is worse
• what is the weapon focus effect


  this is when weapons are present which causes anxiety resulting in a poor EWT, as attention is drawn to the weapon and not other important factors
• what could the weapon focus effect be caused by

  the tunnel theory of memory, this argues we tend to focus on central details of things and forget the less important details
• Evidence for tunnel theory

  p's witnessed someone carrying a blood covered knife (high anxiety) or a man with a pen covered in grease (low anxiety) and the p's in the first condition were less accurate with their description of the criminal
• Evidence against the weapon focus effect


  some argue WFE occurs because of suprise/shock, someone carrying a stick of celery was focused on in the same way as a weapon, so it may not be linked to anxiety but more to paying attention to unusual items
• how can anxiety have a positive effect on recall


  the stress of a situation can make people more alert and remember more, by triggering the fight or flight response which increases alertness and improves memory
• what is the evidence for positive effects of recall

  ~ witnesses saw a real gun shop shooting, those that reported being the most stressed during the crime were the most accurate, suggests its beneficial in real life situations: highest level of anxiety = most accurate recall
• more evidence for positive influence of anxiety


  carried out a survey of witnesses to real armed robberies, the tellers that had been directly threatened and would experience the most anxiety, had more accurate recall

  However, tellers would be trained to deal with robbers so anxiety levels may have actually been lower than the bystanders
• what does IUH stand for

  inverted U hypothesis
• what does the IUH graph show

  the graph shows a link between arousal and performance, as anxiety increases your level of performance also increases, but beyond the maximum performance the level of anxiety is too high so performance is lowered - at moderate emotional arousal (anxiety) the performance is best
• what is the supporting evidence for IUH

  research found EW performance increases with anxiety to a point, but then there was a huge drop in performance beyong high anxiety: the results follow the IUH theory's prediction
• give an evaluation for IUH (2 weaknesses)

  - difficult to test because it's difficult to judge whether someone is at an optimum state of stress or beyong it, so it's an unfalsifiable concept: lacks evidence and can be deemed unscientific

  - studies investigating the effect of anxiety on EWT have to induce anxiety: this breaches ethical guidelines (protection from harm, deception, informed consent)
• what are the issues of standard interviews

  - held in a police station recall takes place in a different context to coding and there's a lack of retrieval cues

  - series of short, pre-determined questions: more probability for LQ's
• what is a cognitive interview

  Geiselman and Fisher: devised to increase accuracy and detail of EWT, it's based on the encoding specificity principle
• what is the encoding specificity principle

  cues at coding need to be present at recall to trigger memories
• what are the 4 CI components

  1. reinstating the context of the event = feelings/surroundings

  2. report everything = all information, even if it seems irrelevant

  3. change the order = recall from end to beginning

  4. change perspective = recall from a different viewpoint
• why does each component of CI work

  1. COE to act as retrieval cues, prevents state/context dependant forgetting

  2. RE memories are reconstructed and interconnected: recollection of 1 detail may trigger others

  3. CO recollections are affected by schema's, by going backwards it prevents the use of pre-existing schema's

  4. CP done to prevent schema's and expectations (all of above)
• what is the enhanced cognitive interview

  Fisher developed additional components to focus on building a trusting relationship with the EW and to improve communication
• what are the additional components of the enhanced CI

  + witness speaks slowly

  + encourage EW not to guess

  + reduce anxiety

  + minimise distractions
• what was Fisher et al.'s study (standard VS CI)


  + EW were interviewed first with a standard interview then half with another standard, the other half with a CI and the CI gained 47% more facts, there was no gain in facts for the standard interview, CI = more effective, provides more detail and facts

  - However, demand characteristics would occur
• what was Geiselman's study (stolen rucksack)

  intruder carrying a blue rucksack stole a slide projector, 2 days later p's were questioned with standard or CI, early on the rucksack was referred to as green, later they were asked what colour it was

  + p's in CI were less likely to recall it as green = p's in CI are less likely to be affected by LQ than a standard interview

  - independant groups used: p variables will occur between groups, lowering accuracy instead of the CI affecting LQ's