Effects on eyewitness testimony

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YARNEY - Age differences

Found that older adults (45-65) were less confidant at picking a confederate and were generally less accurate.

Johnson and Scoot - Children as eyewitnesses

Children were more likely to pick some one out of a line up than adults but they were also more likely to make errors

Anxiety on eyewitness testimony

Johnson and Scott - lab experiment

ppts saw a man run through a room with either a grease pen or a bloody knife in their hand.

Accuracy of recognizing the suspect was 49% when holding the grease pen and 33% with the bloody knife.

He tested for weapons focus effect which is where attention is focused more on the center of the event not the details of the person.

Anxiety enhances recall - Christianson and Hubinette

Questionnaire - 58 real bank robbery witnesses

Found that the greater the threat the more details were remembered - onlookers were less anxious