Anxiety and Eyewitness testimony.

Anxiety and Eyewitness testimony.

1. Deffenbacher- Meta Ananlysis

   • AIM
   • PROCEDURE
     • Carried out a meta- analysis of 18 studies published between 1974 and 1997, looking at the effects of heightened anxiety on accuracy of eyewitness recall.
   • CONCLUSION
     • From these studies it was clear that there was considerable support for the hypothesis that high levels of stress negatively impacted on the accuracy on eyewitness memory
   • FINDINGS
     • they found that heightened stress hd a debilitating effect and eyewitness recall for adults but not for children

2. Loftus et al. Weapon Focus Effect.

   • AIM
     • To see whether the presence of a dangerous weapon would effect eyewitness testimony
   • PROCEDURE
     • Used 2 conditions. One with and one without a weapon
     • In both conditions participants heard a discussion in an adjoining took.
       • Condition 1- a man emerged holding a pen and with grease on his hands.
       • Condition 2- the discussion was rather more heated and a man emerged holding a paperknife covered in blood
   • FINDINGS
     • Condition 1
       • When asked to identify the man from 50 photos, participants in condition 1 were 49% accurate.
     • Condition 2
       • Whereas, participants in condition 2 were 33% accurate
   • CONCLUSION
     • The results suggest that the weapon may have distracted attention form the person holding it and therefore might explain why eyewitnesses somethings have poor recall for certain details of violent crimes.
     • The study supports Johnson and Scott (1979)- Weapons focus effect

3. Christiansen and Hubinette: self report

   • AIM
   • PROCEDURE
     • Questioned 58 real witnesses to bank robberies.
   • FINDINGS
     • Those witnesses who had been threatened in some way were more accurate in their recall, and remembered more details, than those who had been onlookers and less emotionally aroused. this even continued to be true 15 months later
   • CONCLUSION

4. EVALUATION

   • Riniolo: Archival Review
     • In 2003, Riniolo examined the accuracy of archival eyewitness testimony from survivors of the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912.
       • until the wreck was discovered in 1985, it was widely accepted that it had sunk intact despite con tray evidence from eyewitnesses. 75% of the survivors had reported that the Titantic was breaking apart as it sank, a memoir that was eventually vindicated by Robert Ballards Discovery.
     • The accuracy of the Titanic survivors, testimony gives further support to the claim that central details of the event are often recorded accurate even when formed during traumatic conditions
   • Yerkes Dodson Law: Explanation for the contradiction in findings.
     • Accuracy is poor when arousal is either low or high, but better under conditions of moderate arousal. This is know as CURVILINEAR relationship, also know as the Yerkes-Dodson law
   • Stablay: Meta Analysis
     • Showed that the presence of a weapon does indeed reduce the chances of a wines correctly identifying the person holding it, why?
       • Loftus et al. Monitored eyewitnesss' eye movements and found that the presence of a weapon causes attention to be physically drawn towards the weapon itself and away from other things such as the persons face

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