Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Factors affecting Eyewitness Testimony - Coggle Diagram
Factors affecting Eyewitness Testimony
Leading Questions
Questions which suggest as certain answer
Retroactive Interference:
New incoming information can become integrated with and confuse prior existing knowledge
Loftus and Palmer (1974)
Watched film clips of car accidents and then gave them questions about the accident
Critical question: ''About how fast were the cars going when they …. each other?’''
Bumped = 34.0 mph
Hit = 38.1 mph
Collided = 39.3 mph
Smashed = 40.8 mph
Contacted = 31.8 mph
Sample: Students
Loftus and Zanni (1975)
Results
2) 7% said they did see a broken headlight
1) 17% said they did see a broken headlight
Conclusions
1 word can make EWT less accurate
Using definitive or leading questions in an interview can lead to the creation of false memories by the eyewitnesses
Method
1) "Did you see a broken headlight?"
2) "Did you see the broken headlight?"
Participants were shown a clip of a car accident, then asked one of two questions...there was NO broken headlight
Yuille and Cutshall (1986)
Results
There was little change in amount or accuracy of recall over 5 months
Some aspects of color memory and age, height, and weight estimations were found to be erroneous
The witnesses were highly accurate in their accounts
Eyewitnesses resisted leading questions
Stress levels at the time of the event appeared to have no negative effects on subsequent memory
Method
All of the witnesses were interviewed by the investigating police
1 person was killed and another was seriously injured
13 witnesses (aged 15–32 yrs) agreed to a research interview 4–5 months after the event
21 witnesses observed a shooting incident
Eyewitness accounts provided in both the police and research interviews were analyzed
Post Event Discussion
Repeat Interviewing
Being interviewed by the police and then in a court of law could create subtle differences in recall of events
Police record interviews to minimise the risk of reconstructive errors
Repeated interviewing could potentially damage the original memory of events, due to the reconstructive nature of memory
Conformity
They could potentially change their testimony consciously or unconsciously
High pressure environments like a court, naturally we have a drive to feel accepted, and if we were to meet other EW we could change our testimony
EWs have a desire to be both correct and accepted
Retroactive Interference → Publicity
New information may interfere with your memory of the original event, the accuracy of your memory could get called in for questioning
Some countries, prohibit pre-trial publicity as it is seen as a potential risk for EW and jury members
If you witness a crime and then you hear about it e.g. on the news (TV / Radio) or even just in conversation
Anxiety
Research Support
Yuille and Cutshall (1982)
Loftus and Burns (1982)
Johnson and Scott (1979)
Deffenbacher et al. (2004)
Weapons focus effect
witnesses/victims tend to focus solely on the weapon as that is the main cause for their anxiety and the main threat present
difficulty recalling information about other factors, such as the description of the offender
they tend to remember details about the weapon
The Yerkes-Dodson Law
performance and arousal are directly related
increase in arousal to a certain level can help to boost performance
Overview
state of high arousal
some may have a naturally more anxious personality
likely if there is a threat or danger present
