Factors affecting the accuracy of Eyewitness Testimony

• Bartlett (1932)


  - argued memory is not an accurate recording of events; it is reconstructed in recalling (reconstructive memory) and may produce errors that schemas influence
• what are leasing questions?

  - they imply a particular answer, which can influence how memory is recalled

  - either due to an actual change to the memory (substitution bias) or due to an emotional pressure to give a particular response (response bias)
• what is post-event contamination/discussion?


  - the recall of events by a witness can alter the accuracy of another witness's recollection

  - this could be memory conformity; the witnesses go along with others' accounts for social approval
• the affect of anxiety


  - a mental state of arousal that includes feelings of extreme concern and tension and physiological changes, eg inc. heart rate

  - high anxiety levels mat decrease recall due to weapon effect/focus, with witnesses focusing their attention on the weapon rather than the criminal's face

  - high anxiety levels ay increase recall as it improves alertness and awareness
• outline the Yerks-Dodson law of arousal


  - EWT accuracy increase as anxiety rises as the witness becomes alert; however, at a point, anxiety becomes too high and more stress/distraction results in lower accuracy
• A03 - Loftus and Palmer (misleading information)


  - after watching a clip of a car crash, ppts were asked "how fast were the cars going when they ___ into each other?" With the verb either: smashed, collided, bumped, hit, or contacted

  - it was found the more extreme the verb, the faster the estimation of MPH

  - contacted =31.8 MPH, but smashed = 40.8 MPH
• A03 - Gabbert (post-event discussion)


  - pairs of ppts watched different videos of the same crime

  - found when pairs were able to discuss what they had seen, 71% included info Marion that was not in the video of their EWT
• A03 - Johnson and Scott (anxiety)


  - naive ppts overhead, 1) normal conversation, a man walks out with greasy hands and a pen, 2) hostile, breaking glass, furniture knocked over and man walks out with a bloody knife

  - found 49% identified a man from 50 photos with a pen and 33% with a knife, weapon focus
• A03 - Yuille and Cutshall (anxiety)


  - found when Inter weirded 4 months after witnessing a real-life deadly shooting,13 witnesses resisted misleading information

  - those with the most stress (closest to the shooter) produced the most accurate EWT