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Factors Affecting the Reliability of Eyewitness testimony

Factors Affecting the Reliability of Eyewitness testimony. Various Factors Affect the reliability of memory. In pairs, try to think as many of these as possible. Reconstructive Memory. Schemas. We must also remember the role of schema (reconstructive memory- War of ghosts!)

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Factors Affecting the Reliability of Eyewitness testimony

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  1. Factors Affecting the Reliability of Eyewitness testimony

  2. Various Factors Affect the reliability of memory • In pairs, try to think as many of these as possible

  3. Reconstructive Memory

  4. 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….’)

  5. Misleading information: post event

  6. 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. • APRC Loftus and Palmer (1974) • DREEEEAAMSS 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

  7. 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. eg Pickles

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

  9. Recap the 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.

  10. Repression

  11. 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 Levinger and Clark (1961) – Read the study and answer the questions

  12. Violence & Weapons • Pickel – Read and summarize on the study summary sheet

  13. Individual Differences • What other individual differences can you think of that may affect EWT?

  14. How can we improve the reliability of EWT?

  15. 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.

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