eye witness testimony

• Eyewitness testimony (EWT)


  Testimony given by someone who witnessed an event, which has been given huge importance in criminal trials and has often been the key piece of evidence used to convict someone
• Psychological research has revealed that EWT can be unreliable under certain conditions
• Leading questions


  Questions used by the police or barristers/lawyers during a criminal trial that suggest or lead to a desired response due to the wording of the question
• Leading questions may lead to unreliable EWT being given and, ultimately, an innocent person being convicted
• Response bias


  The eye witness does not answer the question accurately; they answer in the way that they think they should answer (this may occur without someone realising that it is happening)
• Substitution explanation


  A leading question changes a person's memory of an event by adding detail that was not present at the time
• Loftus and Palmer (1974)


  • The strength of the verb used in the critical question (e.g. 'smashed' as opposed to 'contacted') may have led participants to estimate higher speed estimates accordingly
• Yuille and Cutshall (1986)

  • Participants who had been real-life eye witnesses of a shooting were not misled by false information and leading questions
• Fight or flight (FoF) response


  Physiological response involving increased heart rate, sweating, pupils dilated, an adrenaline surge
• Weapon focus effect (WFE)

  Taking in only the details of a weapon used by the criminal during a crime, rather than details of the criminal
• Loftus et al. (1987)

  • Participants were shown slides of people queuing up at a 'Taco Time' restaurant, with the second person in the queue pulling out a gun (experimental condition) or a cheque (control condition); the presence of a weapon meant participants spent longer looking at the weapon than the criminal holding it
• Cognitive interview (CI)


  A method of interviewing eyewitnesses about what they can recall from a crime scene or event, developed to improve EWT and enhance recall
• Techniques used in the cognitive interview

  1. Recall everything

  2. Recall the events in reverse order

  3. Reinstate the context

  4. Change the perspective
• Fisher (1999)


  • The CI was found to produce 46% more detail and was 90% accurate than standard police interviews
• Milne and Bull (2002)


  • 'Report everything' and 'reinstate the context' are better at producing recall than the other two elements of the CI