Eye Witness Testimony

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Eye Witness Testimony

• EWT

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Eye Witness Testimony -1

• AO1 - outline what is meant by the terms EWT and
  Leading questions
• A01/2 -Discuss the factors that affect the
  accuracy of EWT (leading questions, anxiety, age
  of witness)
• Evaluate the impact of misleading information
  on EWT

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Eyewitness Testimony

• Reconstructive memory
• Schema driven errors
• Effect of leading questions
• Other factors
• Weapon focus
• Effects of anxiety/arousal
• Age of witness

www.psychlotron.org.uk
4
Reconstructive Memory

• Bartlett (1932)
• Memory is not a direct record of what was
  witnessed
• What is encoded and how it is retrieved depends
  on
• Information already stored in memory
• How this info is understood, structured and
  organised

www.psychlotron.org.uk
5
Reconstructive Memory

• Schemas
• Knowledge structures that relate to commonly
  encountered objects, situations or people
• Enable us to predict events, make sense of
  unfamiliar circumstances, organise our own
  behaviour
• Act as filters to perception recall

www.psychlotron.org.uk
6
Computer Information Processing
BANG!
Can you wreck a nice beach?
www.psychlotron.org.uk
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Schema Driven Processing
Yes. I can recognise speech.
www.psychlotron.org.uk
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Bartlett (1932)
www.psychlotron.org.uk
Bartlett (1932)
See also Carmichael et al (32) p 32 Exploring
Psychology
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EWT Schema Driven Errors

• Witnesses to crimes filter information during
  acquisition recall
• Their schematic understanding may influence how
  info is both stored retrieved
• Distortions may occur without the witness
  realising

www.psychlotron.org.uk
10
EWT Schema Driven Errors

• Past experiences
• Assumptions about what usually happens
• Stereotypes beliefs about crime criminals

www.psychlotron.org.uk
11
Look at this picture
12

• Write down a description of what is happening in
  the picture

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Factors that affect Eye Witness Testimony

• Stereotypes - Allport and Postman (1947)
  Participants shown a cartoon of a black and a
  white man on a subway train. Most recalled that
  the black man had the razor in his hand. The
  razor was actually in the white mans hand.
  (stereotype more prone to violence).
• Conclusion When an actual perceptual fact
  doesnt match our expectations, we trust our
  expectation more than the real situation.
• We see what we expect to see and this forms the
  basis for the memory for an event.

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EWT Leading Questions

• Loftus (1970s onwards)
• Effect of leading questions on recall
• Leading questions introduce new information
• Leading info may activate wrong schemas in
  witness mind
• Consequently, witness may recall events
  incorrectly

www.psychlotron.org.uk
15
Factors that affect reconstructive memory

• How witnesses are interviewed leading
  questions, facial techniques, tone of voice of
  interview may unintentionally communicate their
  expectations (what they want to hear).

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Eye Witness Testimony

• Elizabeth Loftus (70s) Research)
• Illustrated the reconstructive nature of memory.
• Star Study Loftus and Palmer (1974)

http//www.youtube.com/watch?v8hwEUaOeuFQ
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The role of misleading questions?

• In her research Loftus showed that memories can
  be affected by the wording of questions.
• A leading question is a question about an event
  that is phrased in such a way as to prompt a
  particular answer.
• Information is provided in the question (i.e.
  after the event) which may distort the accuracy
  of the memory.

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Do people believe EWTs?

• Loftus (1974) shows that people tend to believe a
  suspect is guilty if there is an eyewitness.
• So it is very important that psychologists find
  out why EWT is inaccurate and how to improve
  accuracy.

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Loftus and Palmer (74)

• Read about this classic research in your text
  book
• Draw a graph of the results
• What conclusion can be drawn from this research?
• What does is suggest about the accuracy of EWT?
• Any problems with this piece of research?

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EWT Leading Questions

• Loftus studies using film/video/slides road
  accidents
• How fast were cars going when they hit or
  when they smashed?
• Smashed led to higher speed estimates
• Loftus and Zanni (1975)
• Did you see a/the broken headlight?
• The produced more affirmative (incorrect)
  responses

www.psychlotron.org.uk
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EWT Leading Questions

• Loftus research usually lab based
• Restricted samples (students)
• Artificial stimuli (slides, videos, not real
  events)
• Potential for demand characteristics to influence
  responses
• No legal/moral consequences for inaccurate
  answers. (Foster et al (1994) witnesses more
  accurate in recalling memory of a bank robbery
  when they were led to believe their testimony
  would influence a real trial.)

www.psychlotron.org.uk
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What other factors affect Eye Witness Testimony?

• Anxiety

If you were a witness to a crime How would you
feel?
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What other factors affect Eye Witness Testimony?

• Age of witness
• Can we rely on the testimony of children and
  older people?

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How does anxiety and age of witness affect EWT?
Over to you..

• You will be given one of the above to research
  using the text book.
• Produce a bullet point summary
• to report your findings back to the other group.

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Anxiety Weapon Focus

• When a weapon is used to threaten a victim, their
  attention is likely to focus on it
• Consequently, their recall of other information
  is likely to be poor

www.psychlotron.org.uk
26
EWT Arousal Effects

• Memory is most effective at moderate arousal
  levels
• If the witness was in a state of extremely low or
  high arousal then recall may be poor

performance
arousal
www.psychlotron.org.uk
Graph to show the Yerkes-Dodson Law that says
that performance is best in moderately arousing
conditions
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Yuille and Cutshall (86)

• Assessed level of arousal and accuracy of
  testimonies from 13 witnesses to real robberies
  or murders.
• Less accurate recall when levels of arousal were
  high than low, BUT very high arousal led to
  better recall than moderate.
• Does not match Yerkes-Dodson Law
• Could be explained by how close (proximity)
  witnesses were to the crime
• Closest are more stressed, but have better view

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Freud (1894)

• Repression motivated forgetting
• Traumatic memories become inaccessible (in
  unconscious) to protect us from being upset by
  them.
• Conflicting evidence for this theory
• See p 31 Exploring Psychology

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Age of Witness and EWT

• Children
• Brennan and Brennan (88)
• 6-15 year olds failed to understand 1/3 of
  questions asked by lawyers.
• More correct answers when asked more simple
  questions (Carter et al 96)
• Tags didnt she added at end led to more
  yes answers than when tag not there (Krackow and
  Lynn 03)

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Age of Witness and EWT

• Children
• Children often change answers if question
  repeated. (Samuel and Bryant, 84. Blades and
  Krahenbuhl, 06)
• Memon et al (06) positive, but not negative
  stereotypes affect childrens judgements about
  people.
• Defendents with more positive stereotype less
  likely to considered guilty.

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Age of Witness and EWT

• Thinking Critically about psychology p 36
• How does Memon et als research findings help to
  explain why Ian Huntley was able to get away with
  the crime for so long? When he was interviewed
  on TV at the time of the murder he wasnt
  considered a suspect

Ian Huntley (2003) Soham murders
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Age of Witness and EWT

• Older Adults as Witnesses
• Assumption by police and society that Memory
  fails with age, so less reliable Eye witnesses.
• Backed up by
• (Holliday, 05), Brimacombe et al (97), Wright
  and Holliday (07)
• Age of witness made no difference in cognitive
  interviews (next lesson!!)

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Plenary

• Answer the following questions
• What type of experiments were those carried out
  by Loftus in the 70s?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of her
  research?
• Find examples of ethical issues raised during EWT
  research. How could they be addressed?

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Homework

• Summarise the work you have covered today as
  bullet points of the main points or a mind map.
• Include Definition of leading questions, EWT,
  weapon focus, Yerkes-Dodson Law
• - The research of Loftus (1974), Loftus and
  Zanni and Yuille and Cutshall (pros and cons,
  ethics e.t.c)
• - the affect of leading questions, age and
  anxiety on EWT
• Finish the Case of Wrongful Conviction activity
• What does this task highlight about the impact of
  misleading info, age and anxiety on EWT?

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Eye Witness Testimony -

• AO1 - Describe the cognitive interview technique
  and understand its rationale
• A01/2 - Describe and evaluate evidence that
  underpins our understanding of EW
• AO2 - Discuss the impact of misleading
  information on EWT

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The Cognitive Interview

• In the light of the work of Loftus on the
  importance of Leading Questions in the 70s
  Police needed to change questioning techniques.

37
The Cognitive Interview

• Also EWT typically takes place in a different
  context to acquisition (scene of the crime)
• Lack of retrieval cues (state and context) can
  inhibit recall
• Reconstruction of the events (either imagination
  or simulation) can lead to enhanced recall
• This is one of the elements of the Cognitive
  Interview

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The Cognitive Interview

• Geiselman et al (1985) identified 4 key
  principles for the cognitive interview.
• In pairs use p 37 of Exploring Psychology and p14
  of your revision guide to find out what those 4
  key principles are, plus the principles of the
  Enhanced CI (Fisher et a, 87)
• Each study 4 and report back to your partner.
• Fill in the worksheet, use as a revision tool.

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The Cognitive Interview

• Try it for yourself.
• Work in fours 2 of you will be the interviewers
  and the other 2 the witnesses
• Use the incident from the video
• Either ask direct interrogative questions (see
  sheet)
• Or Use a Cognitive interview technique (see
  sheet)
• Compare the accuracy of the recall.

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The Cognitive Interview

• Outline the pros and cons of the CI, using
  research studies
• Fisher et al (87)
• Geiselman (86)
• Geiselman and Fisher (97)

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The Cognitive Interview

• Pros lots of studies (in real and lab
  situations) have shown that CI produce more
  forensically rich information .
• Cons Can be time consuming some elements
  missed out (Thames Valley Police)
• - Insufficient training (Memon et al 94)

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Plenary
Think LoP

• Create a poster, leaflet, or mind map of what you
  have learnt about what factors can affect Eye
  Witness Testimony and recommendations for how
  best to make EWT testimonies as accurate as
  possible.
• Think about your audience. Select the most
  important points. Have a balanced view.