Eyewitness Testimony

Eyewitness Testimony

1. Role of Anxiety

   • Weapon Focus
     • Loftus
     • Man with pen in one clip, knife in another
     • 49% identified man with pen
     • 33% identified man with knife
   • Real-Life Events
     • Yuille & Cutshall
     • Interviewed after armed robbery
     • Accurate months later
     • Leading questions had no effect

2. Testing Witnesses

   • More accurate if there is no forced-choice
     • Asked to describe instead of being shown pictures
   • More accurate if given cues
     • Difficult to do in real-life events

3. Leading Questions

   • Loftus & Palmer
   • How fast were the cars going when they ___?
     • Hit, collided, smashed, bumped, contacted
   • Was there broken glass?
     • Smashed group said yes
   • Different words leaded the answers

4. Age of Witness

   • Children
     • Ceci & Buck
     • Peer pressure
     • Change their mind more readily
     • Susceptible to leading questions
     • Use stereotypes more
     • More interviewer bias
     • More like to use imagination

5. Consequences

   • Real life
     • Wrong information could lead to serious consequences
     • More pressure to remember event
   • No real consequences in labs

6. Role of Schemas

   • General gist of event
   • Cohen
   • Ignore things not in existing schemas
   • Distorted to fit in with expectations
   • Use schemas for guesses
   • We fill in missing information