1747778
Age as a factor
affecting eye
witness testimony
- Children as witnesses
- STUDY ONE
Warren et al (2005)
- Children are more
vulnerable to
leading questions
- Procedure: Reading out a
story to a group of children
and adults. Asked 20
questions with 15 of them
being misleading questions
- Findings: Children
appeared to be more
influenced by leading
questions than adults
- Conclusion: Age may be a
factor in EWT with children
more prone to influences
than older people
- Evaluation
- Doesn't specify the age of
the children i.e. is there a
range of ages? If so is this
reliable to generalise this?
- The experiment was carried
out in a lab so are he children
likely to react to this e.g. will
it evoke anxiety?
- Demand
characteristics -
adults will pay more
attention as they
know (or suspect)
they will be asked
questions at the end
- Extraneous
variable/Individual
differences - child is
not likely to such a
high attention span
- Doesn't specify the age of
the children i.e. is there a
range of ages? If so is this
reliable to generalise this?
- Procedure: Reading out a
story to a group of children
and adults. Asked 20
questions with 15 of them
being misleading questions
- STUDY TWO
Carter et al -
Formal language
can have an effect
as childen have
problems
understanding the
formal language
used in inerviews
by police
- Investigated
language
style and
age
- Findings: children aged 5-7 made
the most errors and more formal
language caused more mistakes.
Question tags ma also lead to errors
in a child's EWT. This pushes the
witness to make a desired decision
- Evaluation
- Cannot generalise to all
children as some may
have been brought up
to speak 'formally'
- Small age range
- More detail from
research to make
clear conclusions
- Real world
applications so
it can be useful
to the police
- Might have been
anxiety that led
to the errors
- Cannot generalise to all
children as some may
have been brought up
to speak 'formally'
- Investigated
language
style and
age
- STUDY THREE
Samuel and
Bryant (1984) -
Children may be
unreliable in
court cases
- Procedure: Conservation task. Split
into groups and either asked the
same question as before and after
the transformation or just after
- Findings: The same question before and after were
likely to change their original answer. May be due
to children being used to being asked another
question after getting it wrong e.g. in school
- Conclusion: Children may
be unreliable in court
cases, depending on the
wording of a question
- Evaluation
- Can be applied to the
real world so good
ecological validity
- Individual differences
e.g. IQ of children
- Lab experiment
so affects validity
- Social desirability effect
might be the reason they
changed the answer
rather than because it
was repeated twice
- Can be applied to the
real world so good
ecological validity
- Procedure: Conservation task. Split
into groups and either asked the
same question as before and after
the transformation or just after
- STUDY FOUR
Lewis et al (1995) -
Children may be
unreliable in court
cases
- Procedure: Children aged 3-4
were shown photos of adult
males in a line and one photo
said 'Daddy' underneath
- Findings: 29% of children
misidentified the photo
labelled 'Daddy'
- Conclusion: Questions need
to be detailed enough that
they don't make mistakes
- Evaluation
- Identifying photos is not the
same as real life identification
- Social desirability effect -
children pick one at random
to 'impress' the experimenter
- Didn't consider
the relationship
with the father
- Good real world
applications
- Identifying photos is not the
same as real life identification
- Procedure: Children aged 3-4
were shown photos of adult
males in a line and one photo
said 'Daddy' underneath
- STUDY ONE
Warren et al (2005)
- Children are more
vulnerable to
leading questions
- Adults and EWT
- STUDY FIVE Memon et al (2003) -
Officers say that any witness over
60 is less accurate and reliable
when giving EWT than someone
who is younger. May mean police
treat over 60s differently because
they believe they are less reliable
and may have to simplify the
wording of a question
- Procedure: Studied accuracy of young
(16-33) and old (60-82) eyewitnesses
- Findings: Delay under 35 mins there is
no difference in accuracy between the
two age groups. Delay of one week
then the older group are less accurate
- Evaluation
- The week delay can
create false memories
- The experimenter cannot control
if they talk to other participants
- Research is socially sensitive as this
puts them at a disadvantage
- Individual differences
- The week delay can
create false memories
- Procedure: Studied accuracy of young
(16-33) and old (60-82) eyewitnesses
- STUDY SIX
Antasi and
Rhodes (2006)
Own age bias
- Procedure: Individuals from 3 age groups (18-25,
35-45, 55-78) were all shown 24 photos representing
the 3 different age groups which they had to rate for
attractiveness. They were then given a short 'filler'
activity, shown 48 photos (24 of which they had seen
previously and 24 which were used as distractors)
- Findings: Correct recognition rates
showed that young and middle-aged
participants were significantly more
accurate than the older participants.
All 3 age groups were more accurate
in identifying photographs from
their own age group.
- Conclusion: Own-age bias (alo the case for own-race bias)
means you are more likely to recognise someone from your
own age range Differential experience hypothesis - the more
contact we have with members of a particular age/ethnic
group, the better our memory would be for such induviduals
- Evaluation
- Wide age ranges
- Not considered over
75s and under 18s
- Real world applications
- Idenitfying photographs and rating them for
attractiveness is different to real life identification
- Wide age ranges
- Procedure: Individuals from 3 age groups (18-25,
35-45, 55-78) were all shown 24 photos representing
the 3 different age groups which they had to rate for
attractiveness. They were then given a short 'filler'
activity, shown 48 photos (24 of which they had seen
previously and 24 which were used as distractors)
- STUDY FIVE Memon et al (2003) -
Officers say that any witness over
60 is less accurate and reliable
when giving EWT than someone
who is younger. May mean police
treat over 60s differently because
they believe they are less reliable
and may have to simplify the
wording of a question
Want to create your own Mind Maps for free with GoConqr? Learn more.