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20 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
- 3rd side (hint)
What is an Eyewitness Testimony?
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Evidence provided in court by a person who was witnessed a crime/incident w/ a view to identifying the perpetrator of the crime. - Can be affected by many things - leading q's & misleading info. |
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What is a Leading Question? |
Suggests to the witness what answer is desired or leads them to a desired answer. |
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What is post-event discussion?
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Any info discussed after the event has happened which could influence a person's memory of the event
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Aim and Procedure of Loftus & Palmer's Experiment (Leading Q's)
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Aim - To investigate the effect of leading questions in distorting the accuracy of EWT. Procedure - Lab experiment & independent groups design - 45 American students shown 7 different films of car accidents. - Pp's given questionnaire after which asked them to describe the accident. - One critical question: "How fast were the cars going when they __ each other?" - Pp's divided into 5 groups. - 5 different verbs: hit, smashed, collided, bumped & contacted. - IV = Wording of the Q - DV = Speed Reported by the pp's. |
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Findings & Conclusion of Loftus & Palmer's Experiment (Leading Q's)
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Findings - Estimated speed affected by verb used. - Highest speed (40.8 mph) = smashed - Lowest speed (31.8mph) = contacted Conclusion - Leading Q's affected the pp's memory for the event - Language can have a distorting effect on EWT = can lead to inaccurate accounts of witnessed events. - Possible that original memory can be reconstructed so can't conclude w/ confidence = Important implications for questions used in police interviews of EW |
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A & P of Gabbert et al's Experiment (Post-event discussion)
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Aim - To investigate the effects of post-event info in distorting the accuracy of EWT. Procedure - Pp's split into pairs. - Each pp watched a vid of same crime but from different viewpoints. - Each pp could see elements in the event that others couldn't. - Both pp's then discussed what they saw before individually completing a test of recall. - Control group = no discussion before the recall task. |
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F & C of Gabbert et al's Experiment (Post-event discussion)
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Findings - 71% mistakenly recalled aspects of event they didn't see but picked up in post-event discussion. - 0% in control group. Conclusion - Witnesses often go along w/ each other, to win social approval or b/c they believe other witnesses are right & they are wrong.
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Strength of Research into Misleading Info: Reliability
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- Several studies into EWT & regularly found similar results. - Used a range of controlled experiments, illustrated different examples of EWT. - B/c of control over extraneous variables = easy replicate. = researchers using identical procedures should produce similar results. - Misleading info negatively affects EWT. |
- Several studies - Control - Why is it easy to replicate? - How does misleading info affect EWT. |
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Limitation of Research into Misleading Info: Lacks Validity |
- Loftus's research = artificial - used a vid not same as real incidents. - Difficult to reproduce real life EWT conditions in a lab, for various practical & ethical reasons. - Real incidents happen unexpectedly & in an atmosphere of high tension. - May be recalled different to lab settings. - Foster et al found if pp's thought they were watching real life robbery important to real trial = identification of robber was more accurate. - Controlled setting = may lack validity, in turn may undermine the finding. |
- How is Loftus' research artificial? - Why is difficult to reproduce real life EWT conditions in a lab? - Atmosphere of real incidents... - What did Foster et al find (pp's thought they were watching a real incident)? - How may a controlled setting affect validity? |
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Limitation of Research into Misleading Info: Contradictory Real Life Research
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- Yuille & Cutshall studied real life shooting outside in a gun shop in Canada. - Examined witnesses recall of a real-life crime. - Suggested important info can't be distorted. - Weapons Effect - pp tend to focus on weapon rather than other details. - May explain why accuracy in recall of an event is poor b/c witness only focuses on one detail, weapon. |
- Yuille & Cutshall - gunshop - What did they examine? - What did they suggest? - What is the Weapons Effect? - What may this explain? |
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Limitation of Research into Misleading Info: Ethical Issues
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- Psychologists can't induce unnecessary psychological harm in research & must gain informed consent from pp's to take part. - One important variable is anxiety, unless this occurs naturally it is likely that methods used may cause mild harm, especially to children. = ethically, much research may be questionable. |
- Psychological harm - Pp's must give... - What may induced anxiety cause? - Questionable. |
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What can be the effect of being in an emotion state due to anxiety.
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May negatively affect how we store info therefore affecting how accurately we recall info.
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At what anxiety level in EWT most accurate? |
Medium Anxiety High Anxiety/Low anxiety = poor recall. |
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A & P of Loftus et al's Experiment (effect of anxiety on accuracy recall.) |
Aim - To whether high levels of anxiety will affect accuracy of recall. Procedure - 2 conditions: w/ weapon & w/out - Pp's asked to sit outside lab where they thought they heard a genuine discussion between 2 people. - Low anxiety (no weapon) - peaceful about office equipment. At end, man emerged holding pen w/ grease on hands. - High anxiety (weapon) - heated convo & heard breaking glass. Man emerged holding a knife w/ blood on hands. - Pp's asked to identify man from 50 photos. |
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F & C of Loftus et al's Experiment (effect of anxiety on accuracy of recall)
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Findings - Low anxiety condition = 49% able to accurately identify man holding pen. - High anxiety = 33% accuracy Conclusion - Weapon may have distracted attention from the person holding it. - Might explain why EW sometimes have poor recall for certain details of violent crimes involving weapons (heightened anxiety) |
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P, F & C of Loftus & Burns' Experiment (violent & non-violent condition)
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Procedure - Controlled study - Pp's watched a film of a simulated robbery. - Some watched non-violent version & others violent version. Findings - When questioned after, those in non-violent condition = recalled significantly more details for crime than those in violent. Conclusion - Shock of event had heightened arousal & therefore disrupted memory storage of details before & after violent scene. |
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Strength of Research into Anxiety: Reliable
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- Several studies into EWT & regularly found similar results. - Used a range of controlled experiments, illustrated different examples of EWT. - B/c of control over extraneous variables = easy replicate. = researchers using identical procedures should produce similar results. - High anxiety negatively affects EWT. |
- Several studies into EWT & regularly found similar results. - Used a range of controlled experiments, illustrated different examples of EWT. - B/c of control over extraneous variables = easy replicate. = researchers using identical procedures should produce similar results. - Anxiety info negatively affects EWT. |
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Limitation of Research into Anxiety: Lacks Validity
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- Loftus's research = artificial - used a vid not same as real incidents. - Difficult to reproduce real life EWT conditions in a lab, for various practical & ethical reasons. - Real incidents happen unexpectedly & in an atmosphere of high tension. - May be recalled different to lab settings. - Foster et al found if pp's thought they were watching real life robbery important to real life = identification of robber was more accurate. - Controlled setting = may lack validity, in turn may undermine the finding. |
- How is Loftus' research artificial? - Why is difficult to reproduce real life EWT conditions in a lab? - Atmosphere of real incidents...- What did Foster et al find (pp's thought they were watching a real incident)? - How may a controlled setting affect validity? |
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Limitation of Research into Anxiety: Ethical Issue
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- Psychologists can't induce unnecessary psychological harm in research & must gain informed consent from pp's to take part. - One important variable is anxiety, unless this occurs naturally it is likely that methods used may cause mild harm, especially to children. = ethically, much research may be questionable. |
- Psychological harm - Pp's must give... - What may induced anxiety cause? - Questionable. |
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Limitation of Research into Anxiety: Lacks Real Life Application
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- Loftus's research has been criticised as it doesn't reflect real life, so lacks ecological validity. - Christianson & Hubinette - natural experiment. - Found emotional arousal may actually enhance the accuracy of memory. - Questioned 110 real witnesses to 22 real bank robberies. - Found witness who had been threatened were much more accurate in their recall than onlookers (less emotionally aroused). - Concluded that pp are good @ remembering highly stressful in real life rather than artificial surroundings. |
- Why has Loftus' research been criticised? - Christianson & Hubinette - What did they find out about the effect of emotional arousal on accuracy f recall. - One sentence on procedure. - What did they find specific to the study (witnesses who had been threatened...). - What does this show? |