Eyewitness Testimony

Eyewitness Testimony

1. RELIABILITY OF EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS:

   • Anxiety/ stress:
     • Yerkes-Dodson law
       • Optimum anxiety level
       • Too much stress = poorer recall
         • X Yuille and Cutshall found that in a real life incident people had v good recall even though the situ was clearly stressful (blood and weapons involved).
     • Loftus et al: Recall was lower in the violent video version of a bank robbery
   • Post-event contamination:
     • Memory of an event is altered afterwards through questioning or discussion
     • Loftus and palmer: Smashed: 10 mph, Hit: 8 mph
       • Smashed: 32% reported broken glass, Hit: 14% reported broken glass
     • Loftus: People reported a barn when it was mentioned in the question but didn't when it wasn't mentioned in the question.
   • Weapon focus:
     • Weapon involved = poorer recall
       • Lofus: One had a gun and one had a cheque, the gun condition had poorer recall.
   • Leading questions:
   • Context
     • Godden and Baddeley
   • Expectation
     • Howitt: Recollections of tube story distorted by racist assumptions
     • Gruneberg: People believed the (female) mugger was male

2. THE COGNITIVE INTERVIEW:

   • Fisher and Geiselman
     • 1. Context
       • 2. Report everything
         • 3. Report in different orders
           • 4. Report from different perspectives
   • Geiselman et al: Cog. interview = 41.2 correct terms, Standard = 29.4 correct terms
   • X Doesn't work on young children
   • X Unclear whether all 4 features are essential
   • X Enhances recall of events but not people