Yuille & Cutshall
Aim: To look at the accuracy of EWT to assess changes over time (immediately compared to 4-5 months later). To look at how susceptible eyewitnesses are to distortion by including leading questions
Procedure: 13 witnesses (aged 15-32) agreed to take part in the research interview which lasted 45-90 mins. Interviews were recorded and transcribed and followed the police procedure
They were also given two misleading questions – half were asked if they had seen the busted headlight on the thief’s car while others asked if they had seen a busted headlight (there wasn’t)
The 2nd misleading question asked half the p’s if they had seen the yellow quarterpannel on the car and others if they had seen a yellow quarterpannel (it was blue)
Witnesses were also asked to rate 1-7 how stressed they felt
The information was then scored into quantitative data using a content analysis method (identifying categories and tallying the details)
Findings: Total Number of Errors: Police interview = 107.5 compared to Research interview = 198.5
In the police interviews 84.56% of the central witnesses were accurate, compared with 70.31% of the peripheral group. The wording had no effect on the witnesses. The victims closest to the thief and store owner reported the greatest amount of stress, and reported difficulty sleeping after.
Conclusion: Most witnesses were accurate in their accounts even 5 months after the event had occurred. This questions the view that EWT is unreliable. It also questions the effects of misleading questions, contradicting many lab experiments
Evaluation
Generalisability: Problems in generalising from a unique and specific incident - it could be a flashbulb memory, so may be unfair to use these findings to criticise lab experiments.
Reliability: Problems with the scoring e.g. “he looked like he was in his early 20s’ was scored as incorrect (even though he did look like he was in his early 20s’) because he was 35! Researchers took great care with counting details from real incident to make sure that witness testimonies did not alter what ‘really’ happened. This makes finding ‘reliable’.
Application: This study goes against many lab experiments as it does show EWT is reliable. This means in court it can be useful evidence
Validity: High ecological validity as real event so pp’s would not have been responding to demand characteristics and their memories would be accurate
Ethics: As it was asking pp’s to recall events which may have been distressing it could be considered that it does not protect pp’s from harm, however pp’s had an opportunity to withdraw and not participate which several witnesses did.
Aim: To look at the accuracy of EWT to assess changes over time (immediately compared to 4-5 months later). To look at how susceptible eyewitnesses are to distortion by including leading questions
Procedure: 13 witnesses (aged 15-32) agreed to take part in the research interview which lasted 45-90 mins. Interviews were recorded and transcribed and followed the police procedure
They were also given two misleading questions – half were asked if they had seen the busted headlight on the thief’s car while others asked if they had seen a busted headlight (there wasn’t)
The 2nd misleading question asked half the p’s if they had seen the yellow quarterpannel on the car and others if they had seen a yellow quarterpannel (it was blue)
Witnesses were also asked to rate 1-7 how stressed they felt
The information was then scored into quantitative data using a content analysis method (identifying categories and tallying the details)
Findings: Total Number of Errors: Police interview = 107.5 compared to Research interview = 198.5
In the police interviews 84.56% of the central witnesses were accurate, compared with 70.31% of the peripheral group. The wording had no effect on the witnesses. The victims closest to the thief and store owner reported the greatest amount of stress, and reported difficulty sleeping after.
Conclusion: Most witnesses were accurate in their accounts even 5 months after the event had occurred. This questions the view that EWT is unreliable. It also questions the effects of misleading questions, contradicting many lab experiments
Evaluation
Generalisability: Problems in generalising from a unique and specific incident - it could be a flashbulb memory, so may be unfair to use these findings to criticise lab experiments.
Reliability: Problems with the scoring e.g. “he looked like he was in his early 20s’ was scored as incorrect (even though he did look like he was in his early 20s’) because he was 35! Researchers took great care with counting details from real incident to make sure that witness testimonies did not alter what ‘really’ happened. This makes finding ‘reliable’.
Application: This study goes against many lab experiments as it does show EWT is reliable. This means in court it can be useful evidence
Validity: High ecological validity as real event so pp’s would not have been responding to demand characteristics and their memories would be accurate
Ethics: As it was asking pp’s to recall events which may have been distressing it could be considered that it does not protect pp’s from harm, however pp’s had an opportunity to withdraw and not participate which several witnesses did.