Eyewitness Testimony

Flashcards on Eyewitness Testimony, including factors affecting accuracy and techniques for improving recall.

What is eyewitness testimony (EWT)?

Eyewitness testimony (EWT) refers to the ability of individuals to recall information from something they have seen or observed themselves.

Name four factors that can affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony (EWT).

Reconstructive memory, leading questions, post-event discussion, and anxiety.

What is confabulation in the context of eyewitness testimony?

The addition of false details to a memory of an event.

What is the greatest contributing factor to wrongful convictions?

Eyewitness misidentification, playing a role in more than 70% of convictions overturned through DNA testing worldwide.

What is reconstructive memory according to Bartlett's theory?

Recall is subject to personal interpretation dependent on our learnt/cultural values and the way we make sense of the world.

What are schemas?

Schemas are mental units of knowledge that correspond to frequently encountered people, objects, or situations and can distort unfamiliar information.

What are leading questions?

Leading questions are any questions that indicate or 'lead' the witness to give a specific or desired answer and are discouraged as they can distort the accuracy of memory.

Give an example of a leading question.

"The perpetrator was wearing a blue hoodie, wasn’t he?" instead of asking for a description.

What is post-event discussion (PED)?

Post-event discussion (PED) involves witnesses of an event discussing it with other co-witnesses, which can change the memory of one or more of the witnesses.

How does anxiety affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony?

Anxiety can have both a positive and negative impact on memory recall, as described by the Yerkes-Dodson Law.

What does the Yerkes-Dodson Law state about anxiety and memory recall?

Lower levels of anxiety will produce less accurate recall; memory becomes more accurate as anxiety increases to an optimal level, after which accuracy decreases.

What is the danger of the standard interview technique?

Loftus claims that there is a danger of leading questions which are likely to lead to memory distortion.

What is the Cognitive Interview Technique (CIT)?

The cognitive interview technique (CIT) incorporates psychological research to develop an interview suitable for police investigations; the primary purpose of the interview is achieving the best evidence, or best memory recall.

Name the four main techniques involved in the Cognitive Interview Technique (CIT).

Context reinstatement, in-depth reporting, recall in a different temporal order, and reporting from different perspectives.

What is context reinstatement?

Trying to mentally recreate an image of the situation, including details of the environment and the individual’s emotional state.

What is Tulving’s encoding specificity principle?

Trying to match the eyewitness’ external or internal state to the state experienced at the time of the offense in order to enhance recall.

What is in-depth reporting?

Encouraging the witness to report all the details about the event, even though they may seem unimportant. Memories are interconnected; therefore, recollection of a small item may trigger other memories.

Why is recall in a different temporal order important?

Recalling the events in a different order prevents our pre-existing schema, as well as dishonesty, as it is more difficult for witnesses to give an untruthful account if they reverse it.

What is the purpose of reporting from different perspectives?

To disrupt the effect that schemas have on recall.

What is the Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI)?

An interview where the witness is put at ease and allowed to take a dominant role to give as much information as they can, including minimizing distractions and using appropriate eye contact.

How do people store information in memory?

People extract the underlying meaning of information and store it in a way that makes sense to them, rather than storing it exactly as presented initially.

Describe the standard interview technique used with eyewitnesses.

The standard interview technique involves a period of free recall, followed by specific questions, during which the interviewer may interrupt the witness to ask about specific details.

What were some of the changes that were made to create the Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI)?

• Minimizing distractions

• Using appropriate eye contact

• Encouraging the eyewitness to relax and speak slowly

• Pausing between responses and the next question

• Following up with interpretative questions

• Avoiding personal and judgmental comments

• Reviewing the witness's description of events.

Is there supporting evidence for Reconstructive Memory?

Yes, Tuckey and Brewer gathered info about people’s bank robbery schema, which included the robbers being male, disguised, wear dark clothes, demand money, and a getaway car. They then asked eyewitnesses to recall the details of a simulated crime and found that they interpretated ambiguous info in a way that made it consistent with their crime schemas. they made errors based on their schema, and not the simulated crime.

How does Reconstructive memory suffer from ethical implications?

Research is socially sensitive, it can positively impact social policy in the criminal justice system as it increases awareness of the threat of reconstructive memory on eyewitness memory

What is a strength of research into reconstructive memory?

It’s usually high in mundane realism, such as Bartlett’s study on how stories adapt when passed on.

Which study supports leading questions?

Loftus & Palmer (1&2)

What was Loftus and Palmer’s experiment 1?

An opportunity sample of 45 American students were shown 7 films of car crashes ranging from 5-30 seconds. The PPs were split into 5 groups and asked to describe the videos, as well as how fast the cars were going when they smashed, bumped, collided, contacted, or hit. They found that ‘smashed’ had the highest speed estimate at 40.8 mph, whereas contacted had the lowest at 31.8.

What were Loftus & Palmer’s 2 possible explanation for the findings from experiment 1?

• Response bias - leading questions may have impacted speed estimate, but didn’t distort memory

• Substitution explanation - critical word distorted memories and changed person’s perception, altering the memory

What was Loftus & Palmer’s experiment 2?

Investigated whether experiment 1 was due to response bias or substitution. A sample of 150 American students watched a 1-minute car crash clip and were then split into 3 groups. Groups 1 and 2 were asked '‘how fast were they going when they smashed/hit’ and group 3 had no question. A week later, they were then asked 10 follow-up questions, including ‘did you see any broken glass?’ (there was none. PPs in the ‘smashed’ condition were more likely to sat yes (no difference with the other groups). Therefore, supporting the substitution explanation.

Is there practical application for Leading questions?

Yes, the cognitive interview uses psychological research and uses 4 techniques.

How does Leading question suffer from ethical implications?

Research into leading questions is socially sensitive, its positively impacted social policy by leading to the official banning of leading questions in the justice system.

How does Leading questions suffer from cultural bias?

Loftus & Palmer’s sample was American student only, meaning that findings cannot be generalised to other cultures. Therefore it’s ethnocentric as it was assumed that results would similar, however, USA is an individualistic culture and leading questions may affect collectivist cultures differently.

Is there any contradictory evidence for leading questions?

Yes, Yuille & Cutshall (1986) found that in a real shooting incident, leading questions had minimal impact on witnesses' accurate recall months later, contradicting Loftus & Palmer's findings.

Weakness of Loftus & Palmer?

Didn’t control for PP variables, e.g the level of driving experience.

Is there an supporting evidence into Post-event discussion?

Yes, Gabbert showed PPs a clip of a girl stealing money from a wallet and tested their recall of the offense (either individually or in co-witness pairs). PPs in pairs had unknowingly seen different perspectives of the same crime, and only one person had witnessed the girl stealing. The co-witness pairs discussed the video, and afterward, all PPs completed a questionnaire individually. Gabbert found that 71% of paired participants recalled information they had not personally seen; 60% claimed that the girl was guilty, even though they didn’t witness it.

Is there any supporting evidence for the positive effects of anxiety?

Yes, Yuille and Cutshall studied 21 civilians who witnessed a real shooting in Canada, categorizing them as central (directly involved) or peripheral (nearby). They were interviewed 4-5 months later, with one group receiving a question including 'a' and another 'the' regarding the thief’s car. The witnesses were further asked to rate how stressed they felt at the time of the incident on a 7-point scale. Y&C found that participants were equally accurate in their interviews months after the incident; 85% of central witnesses were accurate compared to 79% of peripheral witnesses, which suggests that high levels of anxiety in the central witnesses improved their recall.

What level of ecological validity does Yuille & Cutshall have?

High as they were witnesses of a real shooting. High experimental realism as it was a real event.

Is Yuille and Cutshall affected by ethics?

Yes, PPs may have suffered from psychological harm from the shooting and so bringing it back up may not be appropriate.

Is there any supporting evidence for the negative effects of anxiety?

Yes, Johnson and Scott conducted a field experiment while seated in a waiting room, participants heard an argument in the next room. In the low anxiety condition, a man walked out holding a pen in greasy hands; in the high anxiety condition, PPs heard breaking glass and a man walked out holding a bloody paper knife. The PPs had to choose the man from 50 photos and results showed that 49% of participants in the low anxiety condition identified the man, compared to 33% in the high anxiety condition, suggesting that anxiety can decrease accuracy past the optimal level (as suggested by Yerkes-Dodson Law).

Is there practical application for the negative effects of anxiety?

Yes, The enhanced cognitive interview minimizes eyewitness anxiety to improve memory recall by letting the witness take control. Techniques include appropriate eye contact, minimizing distractions, avoiding judgmental comments, and tailoring language to the witness to reduce anxiety.

How does the negative effects of anxiety suffer from ethical implication?

It’s socially sensitive as it raises awareness on how anxiety negatively affects the accuracy of memory, especially in eyewitness testimony in the justice system.

How does Johnson & Scott’s study suffer ethically?

Deception - they decieved the PPs by carrying out the study (in the form of a field experiment) in the waiting room before the believed laboratory experiment.

Strengths of the decpetion carried out in Johnson & Scott’s study

• Low demand characteristics as they carried out the study (in the form of a field experiment) in the waiting room before the believed laboratory experiment

• High ecological validity (both mundane and experimental realism)

Is there any supporting evidence for the Cognitive Interview?

Yes, Fisher conducted a field experiment in Florida involving 13 detectives interviewing eyewitnesses. 7 detectives were trained in the Cognitive Interview Technique (CIT), while 6 weren’t. Real interview tapes were recorded and analyzed by blind researchers. Findings were that 63% more information was gathered by the trained officers, suggesting the cognitive interview's superior utility in police investigations compared to standard interviews.

Is there any supporting evidence for the Enhanced Cognitive Interview?

Yes, Köhnken conducted a meta-analysis of 50 studies investigating the enhanced cognitive interview and found that the ECI consistently provided more correct information than the standard police interview.

Is there any Practical application for the cognitive/enhanced cognitive interview??

Yes, cognitive conviction as the cognitive and enhanced cognitive interviews improve the likelihood of catching and charging offenders by increasing the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies. This enables law enforcement to handle offenders more effectively

Strength of Fisher’s study on the cognitive interview

High in mundane realism as it involved real eyewitnesses in natural conditions