Flashcards
Factors affecting EWT
Cards in this deck (8)
- 1Which factors affect eyewitness testimony?Leading questions, post-event discussion and anxiety.
- 2Explain a study into how leading questions affect EWT.Loftus and Palmer: ppts. watched film clips of car accidents and were given questions about it. Critical question (leading question) was: 'About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?' Five groups of ppts. given different verbs ( hit, contacted, collided, bumped, smashed). Mean estimate for contacted: 31.8mph. Mean estimate for smashed: 40.8mph.
Leading question biased the eyewitness recall of the event. - 3Why do leading questions affect EWT?1) Response-bias explanation: Wording of question has no real effect on the ppts' memories, just influences how they decide to answer.
2) Substitution explanation: Wording of leading question actually affects ppts' memories. - 4Explain a study into how post-event discussion affects EWT.Gabbert et al. studied ppts. in pairs. Each ppt. watched a video of the same crime, but from different viewpoints. Both ppts. then discussed what they had seen before individually completing a test of recall.
71% of ppts. mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they had not seen, but picked up during discussion. Corresponding figure in control group where there was no 0%.
Memory conformity. - 5Explain a study into the negative effects of anxiety on recall.'Anxiety creates physiological arouses in the body which prevents us paying attention to important cues.'
Johnson & Scott: ppts. believed they would be taking part in a lab study. While seated in a waiting room, ppts. heard an argument in the next room. Low anxiety condition: man walked through waiting area with pen and grease in his hands. High anxiety condition: man had knife covered with blood.
Ppts. later picked out the man from a set of 50 photos. High anxiety condition: 33% correct, low anxiety condition: 49%.
Tunnel theory of memory argues that a witness's attention focuses on the weapon, as it is a source of anxiety. - 6Explain a study into the positive effects of anxiety on recall.'Fight or flight response is triggered which increases alertness and improves memory.'
Yuille and Cutshall:
Real life shooting, shop owner shot thief dead. 21 witnessed & 13 agreed to take part. Interviews held 4-5 months after & compared with original police interviews made at time of shooting. Number of details determined accuracy. Witnesses asked to rate how stressed they were at time of incidents and asked if they had any emotional problems since then.
Ppts. who reported highest level of stress were most accurate (88% compared to 75% for the less-stressed group). - 7What can explain the contradictory findings of the studies into the effects of anxiety?Yerkes and Dodson: relationship between emotional arousal and performance looks like inverted U. Lower levels of anxiety produce lower levels of recall accuracy. Memory accuracy improves as level of anxiety increases. After certain point, more stress experiences, causes recall accuracy to fall.
- 8Evaluate studies into effect of anxiety on EWT.- Weapon focus effect may not be relevant: Pickel experiment using scissors, handgun, wallet, raw chicken. EWT less accurate with chicken than handgun.
- Field studies lack control e.g. post-event discussion.
- Ethical issues: protection of ppts.
- Inverted U explanation is too simplistic: anxiety is difficult to measure accurately.
- Demand characteristics in lab studies.
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- Flashcards on Factors affecting EWT, created by Jameela Princess on 13/03/2018.
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- Jameela Princess
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