EWT

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  • Eye witness testimony
    • Misleading info
      • Leading questions - due to phrasing suggests answer
        • Loftus + Palmer - students watch car accident, critical question - how fast were the cars going when they...
          • Verbs = hit, smashed, collided, bumped, contacted
          • Mean speed - contacted - 31.8mph, smashed = 40.5mph, leading question biased recall
        • Response bias - wording no effect on memory, influences decision to answer
        • Substitution - L+P, leading question changed memory, smashed = more likely to report broken glass
      • Post event discussion - co-witnesses discuss crime, testimonies = contaminated
        • Gabbert et al - participants in pairs watched clip of crime different angle, one sees name of book, then discussed crime
          • 71% mistakingly recalled aspects of the crime they could not see, control group = 0%,
            • go along to win social approval or believe they are wrong - memory conformity
      • Evaluation
        • Strength - IRL applications
          • Practical uses for police officers, consequences of wrong EWT = bad, Loftus - police need to be careful on question phrasing, important for legal system + EWs
        • Limitation L+P - artificial materials
          • Clips of accidents different form IRL, Yuille + Cutshall - armed robbery, accurate recall after 4months, little about leading q's in IRL crime
        • Limitation - individual differences in accuracy
          • Anatasi + Rhodes - older less accurate in EWT, all age groups more accurate in own age group (own-age bias), studies = young to identify, old = less accurate = wrong
        • Limitation - demand characteristics
          • Participants wish to be helpful, asked question guess yes, seems more helpful, challenges validity, answers may not reflect memory
        • Limitaion - lacks external validity
          • Foster et al, EWs have more impact IRL, more effort to search memory, not in research, accuracy greater IRL due to seriousness
    • Anxiety - physiological arousal in body, worried thoughts, increased heart rate/sweaty, normal reaction during stress
      • Negative effect
        • Johnson + Scott - believed lab study = not, waiting room, heard argument.
          • Low-anxiety = pen + grease on hands
            • 49% identified from 50photos
          • High-anxiety = breaking glass, paper knife + blood
            • 33% identified
          • Tunnel theory - witness' attention on weapon - source of anxiety
        • Physiological arousal prevents attention to cues
      • Positive effect
        • Fight/flight increases alertness
        • Yullie + Cutshall - IRL shooting Canada, shop owner shot thief dead, 21 witness - 13 took part, interviews held 4-5months after compared to original police interviews
          • Accuracy = no. of details in each account, rate stress on 7 point scale, asked about emotional problems since
          • Very accurate little change, some details less accurate - colour or height, age, weight estimates. Highest stress = most accurate 88% compared to 75%.
      • Contradictory findings
        • Yerkes + Dodson - emotional arousal + performance 'inverted U', Deffenbacher EWT = low anxiety = low accuracy, optimum anxiety level after = decrease
      • Evaluation
        • Limitation - J+S - tests surprise not anxiety
          • Pickel - gun, scissors, raw chicken, wallet, in hairdressers, EWT poor for high usualness, not about effect of anxiety
        • Limitation - field studies lack control
          • PED may occur, extraneous variables responsible not anxiety
        • Limitation - ethical issues
          • Anxiety = psychological harm, IRL studies better no creation, raise questions on conducting this research
        • Inverted U too simplistic
          • Anxiety difficult to measure, cognitive, physiological, behavioural elements, assumes linked to poor accuracy, fails to account for other factors
        • Limitation - demand characteristics in lab
          • Work out question, respond how they believe is helpful, reduces validity
    • Cognitive interview - Fisher + Geiselman
      • Report everything - may trigger other memories
      • Reinstate the context - context dependent forgetting
      • Reverse order - prevent people reporting expectations, prevents lies
      • Change perspective - disrupt expectations of schemas
      • Enhanced CI - Fisher et al
        • When to establish eye contact and relinquish
        • Reduce anxiety
        • Minimise distractions
        • Speak slowly
        • Open questions
      • Evaluation
        • Strength - some useful
          • Milne + Bull, report everything + context reinstatement = better recall, 2 used if not all
        • Strength - effectiveness of enhanced CI
          • Kohnken et al meta-analysis 50 studies, more correct than standard interview, real benefits
        • Limitation - time consuming
          • More time needed to establish rapport, Kebball + Wagstaff CI requires training, unlikely to be used
        • Limitation - unreliable variations of CI
          • Use CI or enhanced, difficult to draw conclusions in general
        • Limitation - increase in inaccurate info
          • Recall incorrect also heightened, Kohnken et al, 81% increase correct, 61% increase incorrect, all info with caution

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