EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY

EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY

1. Misleading Info

   • Post event discussion
     • witness' discuss what they've seen with other witness'. This influences the accuracy of their recall as they combine their memories
     • Gabbert made each participant was the same crime from different viewpoints, then they both discussed the crime
       • 71% recalled things they hadn't seen but had picked up in discussion, in control group which had no discussion 0% did this
   • Leading questions
     • A question which suggests a certain answer due to its phrasing e.g. what colour hat was he wearing?
     • Loftus + Palmer made participants watch clips of a car crash, then asked the 5 groups " how fast were the cars going when they (hit/smashed/contacted/ bumped) each other
       • those who got the more aggressive verbs said the car was travelling faster than those who got the less aggressive verbs said it was
         • response bias explanation- leading questions don't alter the memory but just affect how the person decides to answer
         • substitution explanation- leading question can change person's memory. participants who heard the word smashed later reported broken glass

2. Anxiety

   • anxiety creates physiological arousal --> prevents us paying attention to cues so recall is bad
     • Johnson + Scott: naive participants heard argument then man came out with greasy hands + pen (low anxiety)
     • other group heard same argument + glass breaking man came out with bloody knife (high anxiety weapon focus)
       • participants got 50 photos and had to identify the man, low anxiety- 49% accurate recall high anxiety + weapon focus- 33% accurate recall
         • people pay less attention to cues + details as their attention is draw to the source of their anxiety e.g. bloody knife. This is weapon focus
   • A state of emotional + physical arousal e.g tension + increased heart rate
   • physiological arousal --> increases alertness + awareness to cues (fight or flight)

3. Cognitive Interview

   • a way of interviewing to help witness' retrieve more accurate memories. There are 4 techniques
     • Report everything
       • include every detail no matter how irrelevant as they may act as cues
     • Reinstate context
       • imagine crime scene + its environment e.g. smell weather. this is because of context dependent forgetting
     • Reverse order
       • recall events in a different order to prevent people reporting their expectations rather than what happened
     • Change perspective
       • recall event from other people's perspective, to prevent people reporting expectations
   • Enhanced cognitive interview Fisher et al adding some aspects to make the cognitive interview better
     • like interviewers having frequent eye contact with the witness'; asking open questions; minimising distractions + etc.

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