reliability of eyewitness testimony evidence (Ao1)

What % of wrongful conviction cases have been put down to mistaken eyewitness identification?

• 29%

• 49%

• 69%

• 89%

What is a social implication of wrongful convictions?

• It reduces society's trust in the justice system

• It leads witnesses to feel guilty

• It costs taxpayers money to fund re-trials and compensation

• It allows for real offenders to be caught quickly

Topic 1: Post - event information - Loftus and Palmer showed that people can be influenced by information they receive after the event - how many people saw broken glass in the smashed condition?

• 7

• 6

• 16

• 34

Topic 1: Post - event information - Loftus and Palmer also show that people are not always influenced by information they receive after the event - how many people did not see broken glass in the smashed condition?

• 7

• 6

• 16

• 34

Topic 2: Role of emotion - Christianson and Hubinette (1993) interviewed real witnesses of bank robberies, what witnesses were more accurate in their recall of the robbers’ clothing and behaviour?

• Customers in the bank

• Employees that were working from home

• Employees who had been directly threatened or subjected to violence during the robberies.

• Witnesses who were closest to the robbers

Topic 2: Role of emotion - What defence mechanism does Freud suggest is used when memories are too painful / traumatic for us to deal with?

• Displacement

• Regression

• Projection

• Repression

Topic 3: Children as witnesses - Pozzulo & Lindsay (1998) when presented with a lineup of suspects where the suspect was present, what did they find?

• Adults were less likely to make correct identifications

• Children aged 4-7 were less likely to make correct identifications

• Children aged 4-7 were more likely to make correct identifications

• Children aged 5-16 were less likely to make correct identifications

Topic 3: Children as witnesses - What did Davies et al (1989) conclude about children between the ages of six and seven, and ten and eleven?

• They do not deliberately “make things up” nor do they lie during questioning. 

• They are often inaccurate in their testimony due to their age

• They do not understand right from wrong so cannot testify

• They can always communicate what they saw

Topic 4: Reconstructive memory - What does Loftus conclude from her experiments about why memory is reconstructive?

• information gained during the event is merged with information after the event.

• Our answers are influenced by leading questions, not our memory

• real eyewitnesses memory is not reconstructive

• information gained after the event is merged with what we are told to believe

Topic 4: Reconstructive memory - Yuille & Cutshall (1986) questioned witnesses of a real-life robbery - How many of the witnesses had accurate accounts of the event despite being asked two misleading questions?

• 3 out 13

• 5 out of 13

• 10 out of 13

• 13 out of 13