Eyewitness Testimony.

Eyewitness Testimony.

1. Loftus and Palmer.

   • Loftus and Palmer investigated how misleading information could distort eyewitness testimony.
   • 45 American students were gathered from an opportunity sample/
   • It's a lab experiment with 5 conditions. It is an independent measures design.
   • P's were presented with slides of a car accident and were asked to describe what they saw, as an eyewitness.
   • They were asked a specific question about the speeds of the cars.
     • ''How fast were the cars when they hit/smashed/bumped/collided/contacted eachother?''
   • Findings: The estimated speed was effected by the verb used.
   • P's who were asked the ''smashed'' question thought the cars were going faster than those who were asked the ''hit'' question.
   • The P's in the ''smashed'' condition reported the highest speeds followed by ''collided'', ''bumped'', ''hit'' and ''contacted''
   • - Lacks mundane realism as witnessing a real life car accident has more of an emotional impact (lacks ecological validity).
   • - Use of students doesn't represent the general population. Students do not have great knowledge of cars and driving, so they are more affected by the verb used.
   • + It's easy to reproduce/has reproducibility.

2. Age.

   • Young children are more likely to yield to social pressure, especially when in the presence of an authority figure.
     • This may be because their cognitive abilities are not well developed yet.
   • Children ages 6-15 years failed to understand one third of questions asked by lawyers.
     • This may be due to the formal language used.
   • In experimental settings, children tend to change their answer if asked the same question twice.
   • Dodson and Kreugar (2006).
     • Asked college students and older p's aged (60-80) to watch a 5 minute video of a burglary.
       • They were then asked to answer 24 yes/no questions. 8 of which referred to details not in the video (misleading information).
         • The old p's and young p's both made similar errors. The old p's were more confident with their mistakes, claiming to have seen things not in the video.
     • + Important real life applications.
       • + Juries tend to be influenced by confident witnesses rather than uncertain ones.
         • + This means that juries would be more influenced than the older p's rather than the younger ones due to the high confidence levels.
   • Poole and Lindsay.
     • 1). Children aged 3-8 watched science experiment.
     • 2). Parents told children a story including some element of science experiment. New info included though.
     • 3). Children questioned about science experiment.
       • They incorporated much of the new info from the story into their answers.
         • Older children revised their account of the science demonstration and removed any post event information.
           • Younger children were not able to do this.
             • Young children weren't able to distinguish where the information came from. Children are poor at source mentoring.
     • + High ecological validity.
       • Can be generalised and applied to real life situations.
   • Flin et al.
     • Staged an incident and questioned children and adults about it a day later and again 5 months later.
     • Both groups did equally well when questioned after a day.
     • Five months later, the children forgot significantly more than adults.
     • Children should be questioned as soon as possible after the event