Eyewitness Testimony

• Field experiment


  Type of experiment where the research is conducted in a natural setting rather than a laboratory
• Independent groups


  Experimental design where participants are randomly assigned to different conditions
• IV


  Independent variable - whether the participant was in the low anxiety or high anxiety condition
• DV


  Dependent variable - the percentage that were able to recall the man correctly
• Anxiety lowers the accuracy of eyewitness recall - those in the low anxiety condition correctly identified the man at 49%, but the high anxiety condition was only 33%
• Tunnel theory


  Explains that the witness's attention focuses on the weapon, and they are less likely to notice the face, as the weapon is the cause of the anxiety
• Yuille and Cutshall (1986) found that 13 witnesses to a shooting incident were highly accurate in their accounts, with little change in amount or accuracy of recall over 5 months
• Natural experiment


  A study of a real-life event, rather than a controlled laboratory experiment
• Riniolo et al. (2003) evaluated the accuracy of eyewitness testimony from survivors of the Titanic disaster, finding that most eyewitness testimony was consistent with forensic evidence
• Cognitive Interview Technique


  1. Recall/Report Everything - witness encouraged to report all details, even seemingly unimportant ones

  2. Context Reinstatement - witness encouraged to mentally recreate the environment and situation

  3. Reverse Order - witness asked to recall the event in reverse chronological order

  4. Change Perspective - witness asked to describe the event from a different point of view
• The cognitive interview technique aims to improve the accuracy of eyewitness testimony by using these four steps
• Real police officers often make mistakes when interviewing witnesses, such as bombarding them with closed-ended questions, leaving them waiting, interrupting them, and asking questions out of sync with the witness's memory
• Evaluations of the cognitive interview technique have found it increases the amount of accurate information recalled, but also increases some inaccurate information
• Eyewitness testimony


  The ability of people to remember the details of events, such as accidents and crimes, which they have observed
• Leading questions


  Questions that are worded to suggest a particular answer
• Loftus and Palmer's research showed that the wording of questions about a car crash could influence participants' memory of whether they saw broken glass, even though there was none
• Gabbert et al. (2003) found that 71% of witnesses who discussed the event with a co-witness recalled information they had not actually seen
• Gabbert's study used both university students and older adults, which increases the representativeness and sampling validity compared to Loftus and Palmer's study which only used students
• Gabbert's study demonstrates the powerful effect that post-event discussion can have on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony, but does not explain why memory becomes distorted after discussion