Zusammenfassung der Ressource
EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY EVALUATION
- ANXIETY
- MAY TEST SURPRISE
NOT ANXIETY
- People may focus on the
weapon because they are
surprised to see it rather
than because they're scared
- PICKEL (1998) used scissors,
handgun, wallet + raw chicken
in a hairdressing salon
- EWT accuracy was poorer for
high unusualness (chicken +
handgun)
- FIELD STUDIES LACK
CONTROL OF VARIABLES
- Many things happen to
participants in the time between
the events and when the
researchers next interview them
- EXAMPLES: eyewitnesses discuss
the event with other witnesses;
read/view accounts in the media;
police interview my influence their
memory
- Extraneous variables could
therefore be responsible for
the inaccuracy of recall over
anxiety
- ETHICAL ISSUES
- Creating anxiety in ppts can be
unethical as it may subject people to
psychological harm
- Real life studies can therefore be
beneficial as the ppts have already
been subjected to the distress
- INVERTED-U IS TOO SIMPLISTIC
- Anxiety has many elements (cognitive,
behavioural, emotional, physical) which makes
it difficult to define + measure
- Explanation assumes one of these is
linked to poor performance, but fails to
account for other factors, e.g. the effect of
the emotional experience of witnessing a
crime
- DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS
- Most ppts in a lab study
are aware they're watching
a staged crime for a reason
to do with a study
- Reduces validity as
they give answers
they think the
researcher will want
to hear
- MISLEADING INFORMATION
- REAL LIFE APPLICATION
- Led to important practical uses
for the police since inaccurate
EWTs can be very serious
- LOFTUS (1975) claimed that leading
questions can have such a distorting
effect that police have to be especially
careful with their phrasing
- ARTIFICIAL MATERIALS
- Watching film clips is
very different to
watching an event in
real-life
- After real events,
people had very
accurate recall, even
months later
- INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
- ANASTASI + RHODES (2006):
found that older people were
less accurate than younger
people
- OWN-AGE BIAS, people
were better identifying
people of their own age
- DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS
- Ppts want to be helpful + attentive, so may guess answers in order to be 'right'
- This challenges the validity as people may give
inaccurate answers because they want to be helpful
- LACK OF EXTERNAL VALIDITY
- FOSTER ET AL (1994) what you remember in real life
can have important consequences compared to
research studies
- Real eyewitnesses try extra
hard to search their memories
to get successful convictions
- COGNITIVE INTERVIEW
- SOME ELEMENTS ARE USEFUL
- MILNE + BULL (2002) found that
each individual element of the CI
was equally valuable
- Also found that REPORT EVERYTHING +
CONTEXT REINSTATEMENT = better recall
together than any others individually
- Therefore these 2 elements at least
should be used to improve police
interviewing
- EFFECTIVE
- KOHNKEN ET AL (1999) conducted a
meta analysis of 50 studies
- Enhanced CI provided more correct
information than the standard police
interview
- Practical benefits to the police
using the enhanced version of
the CI
- TIME-CONSUMING
- Takes more time than the standard police interview
- Also requires special training and
many forces have not been able to
provide more than a few hours
- "Proper" version of the CI
is therefore most likely
not used
- UNRELIABLE
- Different variations are used so is difficult to
draw conclusions in general about the CI
- PRODUCES AN INCREASE OF
INACCURATE INFORMATION
- Increase in the recall of incorrect
information alongside the increase
of correct information
- KOHNKEN ET AL
(1999): found an
81% increase in
correct information
but also a 61%
increase in
incorrect
information when
CI was compared
to the standard
interview
- Police should therefore treat all
collected information with
caution