Memory - Eye Witness Testimony

Memory - Eye Witness Testimony

1. A description given by witnesses of an event they have experienced

   • includes identification of people, speed of vehicles, weather conditions
     • critisisms of the EWT
       • ethical issues to those decieved
       • lab experiments = draw conclusions about cause and effect
         • lack external validaty
           • not useful to how EWT works in real life
       • harder to distort key details
       • practical implications

2. Factors effecting the EWT

   • Anxiety
     • Loftus
       • effect of anxiety on EWT
         • Two conditions
           • low condition, normal talking and a pen
             • hostile heated argument, breaking glass and crashing chairs, paper knife in blood
               • 33% recall
             • 49% recall
     • loftus and Burns
       • showed pps a violent or non violent film
         • those who saw the boy shot in the face had less accurate recall
           • this is weapon focus
     • Christianson and Hubinette
       • questioned 58 real witnesses to a bank robbery
         • witnesses who had been threatened = better recall
           • anxiety and accuracy of EWT is like an inverted U. This means that medium arousal improves accuracy of EWT, but high arousal makes it worse.
   • Misleading information
     • Leading questions
       • loftus and palmer
         • pps were shown a 30 second video of two cars colliding
           • pps where then asked how fast the cars were travelling
             • asked a week later about the broken glass 32% said yes if they were in the ‘smashed’ condition compared to 14% in the ‘hit’ condition.
       • Yuille and Cutshall
         • interviewed 13 witnesses of an attempted theft in a gun shop
           • shopkeeper shot and killed the theif
             • four months later, the witnesses account were highly accurate
               • not effected by misleading information
   • misleading information
     • Post event discussion
       • Gabert et al
         • pps watched the same crime, filmed from different povs
           • the films were discussed afterwards
             • 71% recalled information they hadn't seen
               • in control group, none recalled false events
                 • conformity due to social desirability

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