Eyewitness Testimony (EWT) - created from Mind Map

3 Stages Encodes into LTM details of event Witness retains information for a period of time. Memories may be lost or modified Witness retrieves memory from storage

Accuracy Loftus and Palmer (1974) To see if leading questions affected accuracy Estimated speed was correlational to the severity of the adjective 'Critical question'

Factors that influence accuracy Anxiety Age of witness Weapon focus High and low levels of anxiety impact EWT badly Curvilinear relationship Yerkes-Dodson Law (1908) Arousal may focus the witness on more central details than peripheral details Loftus et al (1987) Suggested that the weapon distracted attention from the person holding it Explains why some EWT have poor recall for violent crimes Age differences Own age bias Parker and Carranza (1989) Yarmey (1993)

Memon et al (2003)Compared primary students and college studentsTask was to identify target in a mock crimeKids had higher rate of choosing, but were more likely to make errorsStopped 651 adults and asked them to recall a young womenFound no significant difference between ageStudied accuracy between 16-33 and 60-82When the delay was short 35mins) there was no differenceWhen the delay was longer (2weeks) the older witnesses were much less accurateSuperior memory for faces within age groupAnastasi and Rhodes (2006) used 3 age groups (18-25, 35-45, 55-78)All age groups were most accurate with identifying their ownShown photographs that'd fit within each age group

Eyewitness Testimony (EWT)