Eye Witness Testimony

Eye Witness Testimony

1. Reconstructive Memory

   • EW's memory of a crime is reconstructed based on schemas
   • Leading Questions: See Loftus & Palmer

2. Weapon Focus: concentration on a weapon to the exclusion of other details of a crime

   • Anxiety & arousal makes us focus on weapon: Loftus et al 1978: when people are in stressful situation their attention is focused towards most feared objecy
   • Unusualness makes us focus on weapon: Pickel 1998: man walked into salon with either gun, waller, scissors, raw chicken. Presence of gun or raw chicken resulted in poorest recall of man (high unusualness)
   • :) evidence: Loftus 1987 showed ps slide of man in restaurant with a gun or cheque book. Ps shown man with gun less able to identify man in identity parade than those who had seen cheque book
   • :( contrasting evidence: Wagstaff 2013 investigated information obtained about real life events. Coded police interviews of victims/witnesses of robberies/ assaults/ rapes - found no evidence on weapon presence on feature accuracy

3. Arousal/ Anxiety

   • Yerkes-Dodson Law 1908: An increase in physiological arousal improves performance on any given task up until a certain point. Once arousal passes optimum point, performance tends to decline
   • Catastrophe Theory: Along side high physiological arousal, feelings of anxiety become so intense that a sudden catastrophic drop off in performance occurs
   • See Valentine & Mesout
   • :) evidence (V&M) :) applications to criminal justice system
   • :( conflicting evidence: Yuille & Cutshall 1986 studied EW;s to real bank robbery - people who experienced more stress (eg threat victim) recalled more detail of event

4. Individual Differences

   • Gender: Valentine & Mesout 2008: females show higher levels of anxiety in stressful situations - reduced accuracy in EWT
   • Age eg children: Gary et al 1994: older brother convinced 14yr old sibling that he had been lost in a shopping mall as a child. After about 2 weeks the 14ye old could 'recall' events such as being rescued by elderly man - false memory
   • Differences in schemas