eye witness testimony

eye witness testimony

1. age

   • children and EWT
     • Pozzulo & Lindsay
       • meta analysis
       • findings
         • <5y/o = less likely to pick culprit out of a line-up
         • 5<x<13 y/o = as good as adults at correct identification in a line up when culprit was present
         • <13 y/o = more likely than adults to pick someone out of a lineup when culprit was not present - more sensitive to the social demands to make a choice
     • Gross and Hayne
       • better to ask children to draw pictures as memory may be more visual than verbal.
       • children taken to cadbury world. some were asked to draw what they saw, others weren't. drawing group remembered 30% more than verbal group after 1day/ 6 months
   • older adults and EWT
     • Dodson & Krueger
       • 4% of younger adults produced false memories when given misleading info vs 43% older adults
       • older adults are more susceptible to misleading info and are confident of these false memories
       • showed a video to younger and older adults, who later completed a questionnaire which misleadingly referred to events not shown on the video.
     • Brewer et al
       • older people are more likely than younger adults to choose someone out of a line-up when the culprit is not there. in addition, older people are more strongly influenced by misleading questions
     • own age bias - more accurate identification when culprit is of a similar age to you

2. anxiety

   • Loftus - weapon focus
     • group 1 - overheard an argument and saw someone come from the conversation holding a blood covered letter opener
     • group 2 - overheard a harmless conversation then saw someone come from the conversation holding a pen
     • findings
       • 33% of group one were able to identify the culprit vs 49% of group two
       • group 1 focused on the weapon, and so didn't notice other things such as the face of the culprit
     • however, Pickle found no weapon focus in a shooting range study - could have just been because the letter opener was unexpected
     • used independent measures design
       • individual differences may have effected the results
     • lab study
       • lacks mundane realism and ecological validity

3. misleading information

   • Loftus & Palmer
     • car crash video
       • group 1 - asked how fast the car was going when it "hit" the other car
       • group 2 - asked how fast the car was going when it "smashed into" the other car
       • found group 2 said that the car was going faster on average than group 1
       • asked one week later if they saw glass, 32% of group 2 said yes vs 14% of group 1
       • shows that "trigger" words can change your perception of an event
     • however ...
       • Yuille & Cutshall
         • questioned misleading information in real life. They said it was less likely
         • interviewed people who had witnessed a shooting months later, and found that the information they gave was still accurate
         • memory did not get worse with time and was not distorted by misleading information
         • more external validity as it was a real life situation