eye witness testimony

• Eyewitness testimony = An account given by people of an event they have witnessed
• Misleading information = Incorrect information given the an eyewitness after an event
• leading questions = Question phrased in such a way that it prompts a particular kind of answer
• Post-event discussion = A potential source of misleading information where witnesses discuss what they saw afterwards
• Loftus and Palmer 1974

  • 45 college students were shown 7 different films of traffic accidents and asked questions about them
  • The critical question (the one actually being assessed) was 'how fast were the cars going when they hit each other'
  • There were 5 group in total and the word 'hit' was replaced with smashed, collided, bumped and contacted
• Findings of Loftus and Palmer

  A) 40.8

  B) 31.8

  
• post event discussion

  conformity effect = when discussing an event with other witnesses you might end up going along with what the group say
• repeat interviewing = comments from the interviewer can become incorporated into recollection of event
• strengths of misleading info in EWT

  • Yuille and Cutshall 1986 found that witnesses to an armed robbery gave accurate accounts despite being given leading questions
  • Highlighting misleading information as a negative factor in EWT has led to new techniques designed to improve memory retrieval, such as the cognitive interview
• limitations of misleading info theory in EWT

  • There are individual differences e.g., older people may be more prone to being affected by leading question
  • A further realism pitfall - watching a video is arguably less emotionally arousing than witnessing real incidents, and some evidence suggests that emotional arousal can increase can improve the accuracy of EWT.
• evidence for anxiety increasing accuracy of EWT

  Christianson and Hubinette 1993

  • Questioned 58 witnesses of bank robberies, they were either the bank teller or just a customer
  • Bank teller = high anxiety
  • Customer = low anxiety
  • All had good recall but bank teller remembered the most - high anxiety person remembered most
• evidence against

  Johnson and Scott 1976 -

  • had ppts wait in a room
  • They heard either a low key discussion and a man leave the room with a pen = low anxiety situation and weapon
  • Or the man left an argument with a blood stained paper knife = high anxiety
  • The ppts then had to recognise the man from a set of photos
  • 49% accuracy for the low anxiety group compared to a 33% in the high anxiety group
  • Thought to be due to weapon focus
• weapon focus = the anxiety caused as a result of witnessing a weapon focuses the attention away from potential perpetrators and reduces the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.