Eyewitness testimonies & Cognitive Interview

Outline 2 (opposing) explanations for how anxiety can affect recall

• Tunnel theory

  • High anxiety → weapon focus, other details forgotten

• Fight or flight response

  • Increases alertness and memory

Explain what Johnson & Scott’s study suggest about the influence of anxiety on eyewitness testimony

• after a staged argument

• fewer participants were able to identify a person carrying a knife with blood on it

• than a person carrying a pen with grease on it

• This study supports tunnel theory, as focus had been on the weapon

Explain what Yuille & Cutshall’s real life study suggest about the influence of anxiety on eyewitness testimony

• After a real robbery in a gun shop

• Participants who reported higher anxiety during the robbery had better recall than those reporting lower anxiety

• This study suggests higher stress led to increased alertness / recall

Describe Yerkes-Dodson law, including how it applies to memory

• Some arousal (anxiety) is good

• Too much and too little is bad

• Highest recall at moderate levels of arousal (anxiety)

• Lowest recall at low or high levels of arousal (anxiety)

Explain what Parker’s study on the impact of a hurricane suggest about the influence of anxiety on eyewitness testimony

• tested impact of anxiety on recall after hurricane

• IV: anxiety - measured by amount of damage

• DV: recall - measured by amount recalled

• Mothers & Children recalled more at moderate levels than low levels of anxiety

• Mothers recalled slightly more at moderate than high levels

• Children recalled significantly more

• This study broadly supports Yerkes-Dodson law

Identify 2 types of misleading information and explain how misleading information can affect eyewitness memory

• Leading questions

• Post-event discussion

• New, misleading information from questioning or discussion retroactively interferes with original recall

• When information fades / decays people reconstruct memories from a combination of original memories and other (misleading) information

Explain what Loftus & Palmer’s experiment, involving recall of events in a video, showed about the influence of leading questions

• Participants watched videos, including one involving cars

• They were then asked about how fast the cars were going when they …… each other

• The results show leading questions can influence response

Explain what the 2nd part of Loftus & Palmer’s experiment shows

• Participants returned a week later and were asked if they’d seen broken glass (non-existent)

• Participants who’d heard ‘smash’ were more likely to say ‘yes’

• This study shows the genuine effect on memory, (memory compliance)

Explain what Gabbert’s experiment, using videos of crimes, showed about the influence of post-event discussion

• Participants watched videos of a crime from different angles and then discussed what they saw

• 71% of participants recalled aspects of the crime they didn’t actually see

• These results show how participants incorporated aspects of what they had been told into their memories

• This study shows the strong influence of post-event discussion on eyewitness recall

Identify the real-world implications of findings on the influence of misleading information on eyewitness memory

• Miscarriages of justice

  • during police questioning (affecting recall)

    • Witnesses confidence will be largely unaffected

    • Jurors are impressed by eyewitness evidence

Identify the 4 elements of the cognitive interview

• Report everything

• Reinstate context

• Reverse Order

• Change Perspective

Explain how and why report everything and reinstate context are used in the cognitive interview

• Report everything: no matter how minor the detail report it

• Reinstate the context: put yourself mentally back in the situation

• Based on retrieval failure, RE and RC provides context and state cues, so memory is triggered

Explain how and why reverse order and change perspective are used in the cognitive interview

• Reverse order: describe what happened from the end back to the beginning

• Change perspective: Put yourself in the shoes of someone else who was there

• Both RE and CP disturb the effects of schemas on recall, making dishonesty harder

Explain what Kohnken’s study showed about accuracy of eyewitness testimony in the cognitive interview compared to standard interviews

• Meta-analysis of 55 experiments

• 41% increase in accurate recall compared to standard police interviews

• Some increase in inaccurate information

Explain what Milne & Bull’s study showed about the effectiveness of the different components of the cognitive interview

• RE and RC are the most important techniques

• Effective on own or in combination with each other

• Others are less important / effective

Explain the main practical problem with using the cognitive interview during public investigations

• Time Consuming - takes much longer than standard interview to conduct