Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Factors Affecting The Accuracy Of EWT
- Reconstructive Memory
- Schemas
- Bartlett: memory is not always
a complete reproduction of an
event. We reconstruct various
pieces of info and use
schemas to fill in the blanks
- Schemas are small packets of
information that we build up
about the world that helps us
make sense of it
- Carmichael: Drawing
of an object. P was
asked to draw either 'a'
or 'b'. Their visual
representations were
altered by language,
so a schema affected
our memory
- Not a real life situation
- Allport and Postman:
Invesitgated stereotypes.
Black man without knife
but P's recalled that he
did, shows that
stereotypes can effect
EWT
- Not a real life situation
- Tuckey and Brewer: video
of a bank robbery. P's were
better at remembering
stereotypical bank robbery
things "male robber,
getaway driver" showing
that stereotypes affect
EWT
- P's were also good
at remembering
counter-stereotyped
information
- Tuckey and Brewer,
Cohen and Allport and
Postman were all Lab
Experiments which do
not reflect real life.
Would P's react the
same way in a real-life
setting
- Allport and Postman
only used white P's.
Can't generalise to
other cultures. Other
cultures may have
different schemas
- Allport and Postman
took place in 1947.
This is old data,
schemas may have
changed over the
years
- Ethical issues
within the studies.
Invasion of
privacy, lack of
informed consent
- Leading Questions
- Loftus and Palmer: found
that Leading Q's affect
EWT as they provide
'post-event' info which is
integrated with the
original percepton
- Speed is complex
thing to judge, so
P's more prone to
be led by LQs
- Loftus and Zanni: Did you see
a/the broken headlight? 7%
reported seeing 'a', 17%
reported seeing 'the'. LQs can
make Ps question whether
they actually saw somethin
- Video, doesn't
reflect real life
- Loftus: 98% of P's could
remember the colour of the
bag, and their statements
were not changed, even
when experienced to LQs
- Colour is more
objective to
speed estimates
- Alot of the studies are
in artificial settings.
Generalisability issues
- Yullie and Cutshall: interviewed 13
people who witnessed a real life
robbery. Included to LQs and found
P's were not led by LQs which could
show that EWT is not affected by
LQs in real life situations
- Cognitive interviews
have come about a result
of research into leading
questions. Successful
applications
- The Role of Emotion
- Does emotion improve
or impede memory?
- Freud would say
repressed memories
which are high in emotion
would be blocked out if
they are too painful or
traumatic
- Deffembauer: meta-analysis
on studies of EWT and found
that high stress had a
negative impact on recall
- MacLeod: 379 EWT
reports of assualts
compared to crime with
no injury. No overall
difference between
accuracy of recall
suggesting emotion
does not make a
difference to recall
- Issues with privacy
- Christianson and
Hubinette: found
witnesses for real bank
robberies who had been
threatened had better
recall than onlookers
- high ecological validity
- Yullie and
Cutshall: emotion
enhances your
recall of an event
- Brown and Kulik: flashbulb
memories, long lasting
memories which occur during
heightened emotion. Such as
JFK's assassination, 9/11 etc.
People are able to recall what
they were doing at the time
which supports the idea that
emotion improves memory
- Odiniot: interviewed 14
witnesses of a robber. 84%
of information recalled was
correct, and those who
reported heightened
emotion had better recall
- Talarico and Rubin: 54
students recalled
memories of 9/11 then of a
less emotional events.
Their recall (at periods of
1, 6 and 32 weeks) hardly
differed for each event
- P's reported
their 9/11
recall as
much more
vivid
- Loftus: Weapon Effect,
showed a series of slides of a
customer in a resturant. In one,
customer had a cheque book,
in the other a gun. P's were
less likely to identify the
customer if he had the gun,
which shows emotional scenes
can throw our EWT
- Johnson and Scott: P's
heard an argument then
a man came in holding
a gun/grease-covered
pen. 49% in pen
condition identified the
man, 33% in gun
identified. This
supports Loftus study
- higher
ecological
validity
- More
emotionally
involved
- Evaluation
- Different people
experience different
emotion. How can
we generalise?
- What is emotion?
Are we measuring
fear, anger, anxiety
- Yerkes Dodson Curve
shows the relationship
between emotional
arousal and level of
performance
- Weapon Focus doesn't
always have an effect.
Yullie and Cutshall found
weapon effect did not
happen
- Weapon effect is
dependent upon the
length of time of the
event. Hostage
situations would give
the P longer to identify
the criminal