Eyewitness Testimony

Eyewitness Testimony

1. Misleading the witness - Loftus

   • The Barn Study
     • 150 ps shown a film of car accident
     • ps split up into 2 groups and asked 10 questions about the film
     • First group were given questions that were consistent with the film they had watched e.g. how fast was the car going when it passed the STOP sign
     • 2nd group were given the same questions with the exception of one e.g. how fast was the car going when it passed a barn on the country lane
       • No barn = misleading information
     • After one week, ps were asked another 10 questions
     • Last question = Did you see a barn?
     • More of 2nd group answered yes there was a barn
       • only 2.7% of the 1st group gave the incorrect answer yes
         • 17.3% of the second group that had been misled answered yes
   • The Red Purse Study
     • Loftus found that ps are not susceptible to obviously incorrect information
     • Ps watched a slide show of a large red purse
     • Then read a Professor's account of the theft that included several errors
       • e.g. the purse was brown
     • When tested, ps resisted this false info & correctly said that the purse was red
     • Obviously suggests that information which is obvious and central is less subject to distortion

2. The influence of anxiety on EWT

   • Yerkes-Dodson Law
     • an increase in arousal improves performance but only up to a point
     • Once arousal has passed a critical point = optimum; performance tends to drop
   • Violent crime experiment - Loftus and Burns
     • some ps saw a version with an extremely violent scene (a young boy being shot in the face)
     • when questioned about events in film; those ps who saw the non-violent film recalled more than the participants who saw the violent crime film
   • Weapon focus - Loftus et al
     • showed ps a series of slides of a customer in a restaurant
       • one version had a customer holding a gun, another same but customer holding chequebook
         • ps were less likely to identify the customer in an identity parade than those who saw the chequebook version
     • when a person witnesses a crime in which a weapon is used, their attention focuses on weapon
       • Direct Threat

3. The Influence of age on EWT

   • Find that the younger the EWT

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