Accuracy’s of EWT

• Misleading info as a factor affect EWT - PEEL 1:

  Strength - misleading info has important uses in the real world where the consequences of inaccurate eyewitness testimony can be very serious. Police need to be wary with the phrasing of their questions
• Misleading info as a factor affect EWT - PEEL 2:

  Weakness - Participants in Loftus and Palmer (1974) study watched video clips of car accidents - this is a very different experience from witnessing a real accident as clips lack the stress
• Misleading info as a factor affect EWT - PEEL 3:

  Weakness - Answers given in lab studies of EWT are the result of demand characteristics - testees want to appear helpful and not let the researchers down and so may guess answers especially if its a yes/no question
• Misleading info as a factor affect EWT - PEEL 4:

  Weakness - more accurate for some aspects of an event than for others - Sutherland and Hayne (2001)

  • partial explanation
• Sutherland and Hayne (2001):

  • Showed PPs a video clip
  • When PPs were later asked misleading questions, their recall was more accurate for central details of the event than for peripheral ones
  • Presumably the PPs attention was focused on central features of the event and these memories were relatively resistant to misleading info
• Misleading info as a factor affect EWT - PEELs

  1. Strength - practical use in the real world
  2. Weakness - Loftus & Palmer (videos don't compare)
  3. Weakness - demand characteristics
  4. Weakness - Partial explanation
• Eye Witness testimony has huge importance in criminal trials and is often the key evidence used to arrest someone

  • however some research has revealed that EWT can be unreliable under certain conditions
• Leading Questions:

  • A question that suggests or leads to a desired response due to its wording
  • E.G. Did you see THE knife?
• Leading Questions:

  • It is a form of misleading information as it can prompt the eye witness to recall events incorrectly
  • Proposes that a leading question changes a persons memory of an event by adding detail that was not present at the time
• Loftus and Palmer (1974) - Aim:

  To assess the extent to which PPs estimates of the speed of cars involved in accidents witnessed on video could be influenced by misleading questions
• Loftus and Palmer (1974) - Procedure:

  • 45 Uni students shown videos of car crashes
  • After each accident, PPs were asked what they recall
  • KQ = ‘What was the speed of the car when they [verb condition] each other
  • 5 conditions of verbs
  • PPs estimations of speed were then recorded
• Loftus and Palmer (1974) - Conditions:

  1. Contacted
  2. Hit
  3. Bumped
  4. Collided
  5. Smashed
• Loftus and Palmer (1974) - Findings:

  Verb = speed guessed

  1. Contacted = 32 mph
  2. Hit = 34 mph
  3. Bumped = 38 mph
  4. Collided = 39 mph
  5. Smashed = 40 mph
• Loftus and Palmer (1974) - Conclusion:

  Showed that misleading information in the form of leading questions can affect memory recall of eyewitness
• Response-bias factors:

  The misleading information provided may have simply influenced the answer a person gave but didn’t actually lead to a false memory of the event
• Factors affecting EWT:

  • anxiety
  • misleading information
  • leading questions
  • weapon focus
  • age
  • sterotyping
  • reconstructive memory
  • line up information
• Past-Event discussion (PED):

  When a number of eyewitnesses’ discuss what they have seen and this may influence the accuracy of each eyewitnesses’ recall
• Gabbert et al (2003) - Aim:

  To study the impact of Post-Event Discussion on Eye Witness Testimony
• Gabbert et al (2003) - Procedure:

  • Studies PPs in pairs
  • Each PP watched a video of the same crime but filmed from different perspective.
  • The paired PPs then discussed what they had seen before individually
• Gabbert et al (2003) - Findings:

  71% of PPs mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they didn’t see in their video but had picked up in their PED
• Why does Post - Evidence Discussion affect EWT:

  1. Source monitoring Theory
  2. Conformity Theory
• Source monitoring theory = memory contamination
• Conformity Theory = memory conformity
• Source monitoring theory/memory contamination:

  Memories of events are distorted but they can’t remember where they remember it from
• Conformity theory - memory conformity

  • Post-event discussion does affect EWT.
  • Eyewitnesses change what they remember to fix it with co-witnesses.
  • They may do this for social approval or they genuinely think that they are wrong and others are right
• The memory representation is actually altered:

  The critical verb changes a persons perception of the accident - some critical words would lead someone to have a perception of the accident being more serious. This perception is then stored in a persons memory of the event
• Loftus and Palmers explanation for the result:

  • Response-bias factors
  • The memory representation is actually altered
• Anxiety as a factor affecting EWT - PEEL 1:

  Limitation (neg effects) - May not have tested anxiety and rather surprise/shock at seeing a weapon rather than feeling scared - Kerri Pickel (1998) - Suggests that the weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety
• Kerri Pickel (1998) - Was tested in a hair dressing salon where

  • scissors are high anxiety, low unusualness
  • a wallet is low anxiety, low unusualness
  • a handgun is high anxiety, high unusualness
  • raw chicken is low anxiety, high unusualness

  Eyewitness accuracy was significantly poorer in high unusualness (handgun and raw chicken) which suggests that the weapon focus effect is due to unusualness rather than anxiety
• Anxiety as an explanation of EWT - PEEL 2:

  Strength (neg effects) - Supporting study - Valentine and Mesout (2009) - high levels of anxiety affect eyewitness recall
• Valentine and Mesout (2009):

  Measured heart rate to divide PPs into high and low anxiety groups. Anxiety disrupted PPs ability to recall details about the actor in London Dungeons

  Therefore high levels of anxiety affect EW recall
• Anxiety as an explanation of EWT - PEEL 3:

  Strength (positive effects) - Yuille and Cutshall (1986) uses real life eye witnesses rather than use a set up lab experiment

  • provides ecological validity
• Anxiety as an explanation of EWT - PEEL 4:

  Limitation (positive effects) - Yuille and Cutshall (1986) has a small sample as it was a one off event therefore the results can’t be generalised

  • lacks generalisability
• Anxiety as an explanation of EWT - PEEL Paragraphs:

  1. Limitation (neg) - Shock not anxiety
  2. Strength (neg) - Supporting Study - Valentine & Mesout (2009)
  3. Strength (pos) - Yuille and Cutshall (1986) used real life EWs
  4. Limitation (pos) - Yuille and Cutshall (1986) used small sample as it was a one off event
• Anixety - a state of emotional and physical arousal. The emotions include worry and tension. Physical changes include increased heart rate and sweat
• After eyewitnesses experience a traumatic event, PPs are likely to experience both psychological and physiological feelings
• psychological = heightened emotions of fear, shock and distress
• physiological = Fight or Flight response, a surge of adrenaline
• Positive effects of anxiety links Yuille and Cutshall (1986)
• Positive effects:

  Fight or Flight can enhance Eye-witness testimony through:

  • wide eyes and dilated pupils which mean we can scan for signs of danger
  • A sense of heightened alertness means that we are able to pick up on more sensory cues and pay more attention to the environment