eye witness testemonys

eye witness testemonys

1. EWT

   • the evidence provided by people present at the scene of the incident
   • when encoding an event witnesses go through 3 stages
     • encoding the event stores the event retrieves the event

2. leading question

   • a question which influences participants and implies a particular answer
     • eg "how many shots were fired?"

3. validity and reliability

   • validity is how accurate something is
     • whether it is true
   • reliability is how consistent something is
     • reserchers show that EWT arnet as reliable as they may seem
   • unreliable studies lack validity

4. post event discussion

   • because of doubt and lack of confidence in themselves EW's can be subject to post event discussion and change what they throught they saw to what someone else said they saw
     • this information could be wrong and manipulate and change the results of the EWT

5. anxiety

   • the Yerkes-Dodson law
     • shows that too much or too little stress/anxiety gives low recall results however a middle ground shows to have high recall results
   • the weapon study

6. ethical issues with testing realiablitly and/or validity of EWT

   • stress
     • emotional trauma or harm
   • lack of informed concent
   • lack of ecological validity

7. the cognitive interview

   • report everything
   • reinstate context
   • change perspective
   • reverse the order