Eye Witness Testimony

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What is an Eye Witness Testimony (EST)?
Evidence provided by a witness about a significant event, such as a crime or incident.
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What do all types of testimony rely on?
memory
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Why is study into testimony so importanmt?
In some cases, matter of life or death, e.g. life in prison.
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State a case study example of an EWT you studied that 'went wrong'
Ronald Cotton was accused of ****** Jennifer Thompson. JT picked him out in a line up of suspects. RC was given 2 life sentences + 50 years. DNA tests proved it was not RC after 11 years of imprisonment. Real culprit was Bobby Pool
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What are the two factors that can influence the accuracy of EWT?
Anxiety and Misleading Info & Questions
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What is meant by the term anxiety?
referring to a state of emotional arousal
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How would you describe anxiety?
a feeling of apprehension and uncertainty
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When can you feel anxious?
Can occur in a situation that is a real or anticipated threat
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How do researchers suggest that anxiety affects the accuracy of EWT?
High levels of anxiety can reduce accuracy of EWT & Anxiety increases focus and attention
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What have the findings of Loftus' research into the effect of anxiety on EWT come to be known as?
The Weapon Focus Phenomenon; something that distracts from environment around, beacuse they're aware the weapon can cause them injury and is dangerous.
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How can Loftus' research be criticised for its ecological validity?
A lab experiment, artificial situation. Researchers studied 13 witnesses to an actual crime and found that their recall was very accurate, despite the passing of time. So anxiety has different impact on set-up lab studies than on real life studies.
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How does the Yerkes-Dodson IUH support that anxiety affects accuracy of recall?
Suggest low levels of anxiety produce low levels of recall. Memory becomes more accurate as the level of anxiety increases, as you would expect from the graph. Maximum accuracy is achieved when optimum level of anxiety is reached
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What did Loftus & Palmer find about their FIRST experiment into the effected if misleading info on EWT?
Leading questions appeared to affect the response given by participants
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What did Loftus & Palmer find about their SECOND experiment into the effected if misleading info on EWT?
The leading question did change the actual memory of the participant of the event
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To evaluate Loftus & Palmer; what is another reason why memory was affected by misleading info?
Due to constructive nature of LTM, leading questions actually change a witness' perception of the event, resulting in a false memory being stored.
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How can individual differences influence recall accuracy (eval - Loftus & Palmer)?
Some people don't have false memory of the event, bur rather the retrieval of info from LTM is being influenced by the misleading info.
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What is the Cognitive Interview?
a method of interviewing eyewitnesses to help them retrieve more accurate memories
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When was the cognitive interview developed, and by who?
Gieselman in 1992
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How does the cognitive interview improve the accuracy of EWT?
It reduces eyewitness anxiety, it minimises distractions, it gets the witness to speak slowly and enables open-ended questions to be asked.
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What are the 4 techniques used in the cognitive interview?
Context Reinstatement, Report Everything, Recall in different Order, Recall from a different Perspective.
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How does Context Reinstatement work?
The witness should return to the crime scene and imagine their environment, e.g. weather, emotions, and views.
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How does Report Everything work?
The witness should report every detail of the event, even i they feel the detail is insignificant, irrelevant, or even if they are not completely confident in the detail.
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How does Recall in a different Order work?
Recalling the event in a different order, e.g. end to start. Prevents people from reporting 'expectations' of how an event happened.
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How does Recall from a different Perspective work?
Recall incident from another persons view. To disrupt the effect of expectation and schema upon recall.
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How did Fisher further demonstrate the effectiveness of the cognitive interview?
In Miami, trained detectives to use CI techniques with genuine crime witnesses and found that its use significantly increased the amount of info recalled. Suggesting high ecological validity
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How did Kebbell criticise the supporting research of Fisher for the effectiveness of the cognitive interview?
Fishers research has cultural bias- Kebbell carried out a survey of police officers in UK and found that there was a widespread use of CI, but however they said they rarely used the CP and RO techniques, but just used the RE and CR techniques.
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Card 2

Front

What do all types of testimony rely on?

Back

memory

Card 3

Front

Why is study into testimony so importanmt?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

State a case study example of an EWT you studied that 'went wrong'

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What are the two factors that can influence the accuracy of EWT?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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