| Anxiety has positive effect | Yuille and Cutshall
Ppts witnessed actual shooting in a gun shop, owner shot down thief. Interviewed 4-5 months after the incident, asked to rate anxiety levels in a 7 point scale, and any aftereffects they felt, compared this to police interviews.
Findings - Witnesses were very accurate with their details and there was very little change. Ppts with highest stress levels were most accurate - 88% compared to the less stressed group |
| Misleading Information | Incorrect information given to eyewitness usually after the event, many forms such as leading questions and post event discussion |
| Research on leading questions | Loftus and Palmer
Procedure - 45 ppts, watched a video of car accidents. Then they asked a critical question(leading), ppts were asked “How fast were the cars when they ___ each other” and used different verbs of different severity. contacted, hit, bumped, collided, smashed
Results - The softer word contacted resulted in a slower speed than smashed, the leading question biased the eyewitness |
| Research on post event discussion | Gabbert et al
Procedure - studied ppts in pairs, each ppt watched the same video of the same crime but from different points of view. Then the ppts discussed what they had just seen individually.
Results - 71% of ppts mistakenly recalled aspects of events that they did not see but picked up from discussion. Evidence of memory conformity. |
| EVALUATION of misleading information as factor effecting eyewitness testimony | - Real life application - important practical uses in police/justice. Shows that psychologists can play a big part in the legal system and improve accuracy of convictions/avoid misconvictions.
- Lacks mundane realism - ppts in both experiments simply watched a video, this does not reflect real life scenarios. Research ppts are less motivated to be right as it is only an experiment not an important police investigation |
| Anxiety | State of emotional and physical arousal, normal reaction to stressful situations but can decrease accuracy of eyewitness testimony |
| Anxiety has negative effect (Weapon Focus) | Johnson and Scott
Procedure - Ppts believed they were taking part in a lab study
Results - In low anxiety conditions, 49% of them could recognize the correct man. High anxiety condition, only 33%. Ppts practiced tunnel theory where they could only focus on the bloody knife, this is why it's called weapon focus. |
| Anxiety has positive effect | Yuille and Cutshall
Ppts witnessed actual shooting in a gun shop, owner shot down thief. Interviewed 4-5 months after the incident, asked to rate anxiety levels in a 7 point scale, and any aftereffects they felt, compared this to police interviews.
Findings - Witnesses were very accurate with their details and there was very little change. Ppts with highest stress levels were most accurate - 88% compared to the less stressed group |
