EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY EVALUATION

ANXIETY
1. MAY TEST SURPRISE NOT ANXIETY
  1. People may focus on the weapon because they are surprised to see it rather than because they're scared
  2. PICKEL (1998) used scissors, handgun, wallet + raw chicken in a hairdressing salon
    1. EWT accuracy was poorer for high unusualness (chicken + handgun)
2. FIELD STUDIES LACK CONTROL OF VARIABLES
  1. Many things happen to participants in the time between the events and when the researchers next interview them
  2. EXAMPLES: eyewitnesses discuss the event with other witnesses; read/view accounts in the media; police interview my influence their memory
  3. Extraneous variables could therefore be responsible for the inaccuracy of recall over anxiety
3. ETHICAL ISSUES
  1. Creating anxiety in ppts can be unethical as it may subject people to psychological harm
  2. Real life studies can therefore be beneficial as the ppts have already been subjected to the distress
4. INVERTED-U IS TOO SIMPLISTIC
  1. Anxiety has many elements (cognitive, behavioural, emotional, physical) which makes it difficult to define + measure
  2. Explanation assumes one of these is linked to poor performance, but fails to account for other factors, e.g. the effect of the emotional experience of witnessing a crime
5. DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS
  1. Most ppts in a lab study are aware they're watching a staged crime for a reason to do with a study
  2. Reduces validity as they give answers they think the researcher will want to hear
MISLEADING INFORMATION
1. REAL LIFE APPLICATION
  1. Led to important practical uses for the police since inaccurate EWTs can be very serious
  2. LOFTUS (1975) claimed that leading questions can have such a distorting effect that police have to be especially careful with their phrasing
2. ARTIFICIAL MATERIALS
  1. Watching film clips is very different to watching an event in real-life
  2. After real events, people had very accurate recall, even months later
3. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
  1. ANASTASI + RHODES (2006): found that older people were less accurate than younger people
  2. OWN-AGE BIAS, people were better identifying people of their own age
4. DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS
  1. Ppts want to be helpful + attentive, so may guess answers in order to be 'right'
  2. This challenges the validity as people may give inaccurate answers because they want to be helpful
5. LACK OF EXTERNAL VALIDITY
  1. FOSTER ET AL (1994) what you remember in real life can have important consequences compared to research studies
  2. Real eyewitnesses try extra hard to search their memories to get successful convictions
COGNITIVE INTERVIEW
1. SOME ELEMENTS ARE USEFUL
  1. MILNE + BULL (2002) found that each individual element of the CI was equally valuable
    1. Also found that REPORT EVERYTHING + CONTEXT REINSTATEMENT = better recall together than any others individually
      1. Therefore these 2 elements at least should be used to improve police interviewing
2. EFFECTIVE
  1. KOHNKEN ET AL (1999) conducted a meta analysis of 50 studies
    1. Enhanced CI provided more correct information than the standard police interview
  2. Practical benefits to the police using the enhanced version of the CI
3. TIME-CONSUMING
  1. Takes more time than the standard police interview
  2. Also requires special training and many forces have not been able to provide more than a few hours
  3. "Proper" version of the CI is therefore most likely not used
4. UNRELIABLE
  1. Different variations are used so is difficult to draw conclusions in general about the CI
5. PRODUCES AN INCREASE OF INACCURATE INFORMATION
  1. Increase in the recall of incorrect information alongside the increase of correct information
  2. KOHNKEN ET AL (1999): found an 81% increase in correct information but also a 61% increase in incorrect information when CI was compared to the standard interview
  3. Police should therefore treat all collected information with caution

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EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY EVALUATION

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	Created by Albie Quelcuti almost 7 years ago