Eyewitness testimony

1. Eyewitness testimony

2. Factors affecting eyewitness testimony : Anxiety. • Depending on the incident you may have been scared and this will affect your recall. • Research suggests that frightening situations may affect recall because attention is diverted to e.g. weapons. However: • Hosch & Cooper (1982) compared the accuracy with which Ps could identify the thief from six photographs. The thief had been seen entering the room while the participant was engaged in another task and had apparently stolen either the Ps own watch, another persons calculator, or nothing. • The accuracy of the identification of the thief was 71% 67% & 33%. Having something of their own stolen was most stressful for the Ps but was most successfully recalled.

3. EWT & Anxiety cont… • The Yekes-Dodson law says that performance (e.g....recall) is best in moderately arousing conditions. Performance High Low Medium AROUSAL

4. Evidence.. • Ginet & Verkampt (2007) Varied anxiety using pretend electrodes. • Group 1: Electrodes would give shock • Group 2: Electrodes recording information. • With electrodes attached all Ps watched a road accident. A week later they were tested on recall. • Grp1: Recalled more minor details supporting the U shaped relationship.

5. Evidence.. • A study by Yuille & Cutshall (1986) assessed the level of arousal and accuracy of testimonies from 13 witnesses to robberies or murders. • The general finding was the that witnesses reporting higher levels of arousal recalled fewer facts correctly than the with lower levels. Those with higher arousal were better than those with moderate arousal.

6. But didn’t Freud say anxiety would repress memories? • Yes he did! • Freud proposed the idea that in order to protect the ego (conscience) individuals use motivated forgetting to push away information into the unconscious so that it would not be available to recall. • Evidence for this can be found in a study conducted by Koehler et al (2002).

7. Repression…… • Evidence for : • Koehler et al (2002). • 50 words shown and their Galvanic skin resistance (GSR) recorded to indicate the levels of stress produced by each word. • The words that produced the biggest GSR changes were remembered the worst. • Evidence against: • Hadley & Mackay (2006). • Ps presented with words such as bitch and porn and these words matched in length and frequency with neutral words such as beer and pies.

8. Eyewitness: Misleading information. • Loftus suggested that leading questions effected the recall of the event witnessed. • When the car smashed into the tree Vs. When the car hit the tree. • Same sentence but with differing implications, by using the word smashed there is a hint that speed was greater. • APFCC Loftus and Palmer (1974) • Hint: Findings created these criticisms: • Findings not related to real life (what method was used?) AO2 • Demand characteristics (why might the Participant change their behaviour?) AO2

9. Real life: Ask yourself? • Rodney king (March 1991) • Diana Princess of Wales. (August 1997) • Jean Charles de Menezes (August 2005) • All of the above have caused much debate surrounding witness testimonies, research and ask yourself.... • What could have affected the witness testimonies?

10. Children as witnesses:The age of the witness. • Children may be required to give evidence either as witnesses or in some cases as victims. • How much is actually remembered? • How accurate is the memory? Can they ever be reliable in a courtroom?

11. Children as witnesses • One of the major issues with using children as witnesses is the language used: • Carter et al investigated language style & age & found children aged 5-7years old were more likely to make errors. • The more legalese the language used the more errors were made.. • ‘To the best of your knowledge x hit….’ (formal language) vs. • ‘X hit you didn’t she?’ (informal language). • It should be noted the use of tags may also lead to errors being made. • A tag is the leading part to the question…didn't she/didn’t you etc..

12. Children as witnesses • Further evidence to support the suggestion that children may be unreliable in court comes from: • Samuel & Bryant (1984) –Children in experimental settings often change their answers if they are asked the same question twice. • Lewis et al (1995)- Children susceptible to leading questions, in this investigation Children aged 3 & 4 were shown photos of adult males arranged in a line, when subsequently asked is this your daddy 29% misidentified the photograph labelled ‘daddy’. • All research should be considered carefully thinking about the methodology used and the application of the findings.

13. Adults as witnesses OAPs lets tackle them first! Investigations have shown that officers perceived those over the age of 60 to be less reliable& thorough than younger adults. Certainly studies on recall of words and fairly straightforward memory tests lend support to this belief.

14. Adults as witnesses • Brimacombe et al (1997) • (1) Showed elderly and younger adults a video of a crime. The older adults less accurate than younger. • (2) The recording of their testimonies were viewed by other Ps, they were rated as less credible. • (3) The testimonies were transcribed and judged by Ps who were give false information about the age of the witness…..The doubts remained even when the Ps did not know their age...What does this tell you??

15. Schemas • We must also remember the role of schema (reconstructive memory- War of ghosts!) • Schemas can have a huge effect on what information is recalled and how!! • Racial stereotypes (Allport & Post) • Cant quite recall so we add in the rest to ensure it makes sense. • Distort information to fit in with existing thoughts (‘People from that area are all like that….’)

16. Could how the witnesses are interviewed also affect testimony? • The ideal cognitive interview should allow the witness to: • Recreate the internal and external state. • Report everything that can be remembered. • Provide details of the incident in different orders. • Provide details of the incident from different perspectives.

17. Cognitive Interviews • Geiselman et al tested the effectiveness of cognitive interviews (CI) by comparing it wit standard police interviews. • 89 students were shown police training videos. They were then interviewed 48 hrs later by police officers using standard interview procedures or the CI. The following results were recorded. • No. of correct items recalled. • No. of errors (e.g....Colour of coat). confabulated items (items not in the video i.e. Made up!)

18. Results The students recall was greater with the cognitive interview however the error rates were very similar. Another word of caution the students who watched this film were university students...hence this could be construed as artificial.

19. Evaluation • The cognitive interview has been shown as useful for interviewing children (Holliday, 2003). • Bererian & Dennett (1993) – A comparison of a number of studies using CI- they found in all cases the CI provides more accurate information than other procedures.