Eye Witness Testimony

Hemis No: 100 53 22 38

Royal Holloway, University of Lonon
!"ll Re#ort for Resear$% &et%os, La' 5, &ar$% 2(, 200)
*'stra$t
In the present study on eye witness testimony the influence of leading questions,
distance and the confidence of the witness were examined as past research has
shown that all three of them can affect it. The participants witnessed an event of
a man slamming an envelope in front of their lecturer and were then given
questionnaires to answer about the appearance and the temper of the suspect.
The results were analyzed with statistical tests that showed that leading
questions and distance are significant to the accuracy of eye witness testimony
and there was no correlation found between confidence and the accurasy of the
testimony. The results were consistent with findings from previous studies but
there are more factors that need to be considered in futur studies.
Eye witness testimony: Testin+ t%e a$$"ra$y of memory for an event,
-ntro"$tion
Memory has a reconstuctive nature which means that instead of remembering all the
details of a situation, its selectively stores the essential parts of an experience and
then we can use our knowledge of the world to work out the specifics when it is
needed. owever, because of its reconstructive nature, memory can be influeced by
ideas implanted to our mind after the event, so its reliability is sub!ect to questioning.
This raises a lot of problems in legal cases involving eye witness testimony, since even
when a witness is dead certain about the accuracy of his report what he says cannot
be fully trusted. "#othwell, $effenbacher,%#righam, &'()* +porer et al.,&'',-. .ye
witness testimony has been a big area of research for psychologists "e.g., /oftus %
0almer, &')1* /oftus % 2anni, &'),* Tomes % 3atz, &'')* enderson, #ruce, %
#urton, 455&- and there is a lot of evidence that shows that memory can be unreliable.
There are a lot of factors that can influence eye witness acounts and one of the most
important is leading questions, which means the way in which questions are put to the
witness. The most classic study of leading questions is this of /oftus and 0almer in
&')1. In this study after showing the participants short films of car collisions the
researches asked some of the sub!ects 6how fast were the cars going when they hit
each other76, and then changed the word hit to smashed, collided, bumped or
contacted. The estimates of the speed varied from word to word with smashed getting
the highest estimate "15.( mph-, followed by collided "8'.8 mph-, bumped "8(,&- and
contacted "8&,( mph-. In a similar study by /oftus and 2anni in &'), the researchers
asked the participants either 6$id you see a broken headlight 76 or 6$id you see the
broken headlight76 and found that participants who were asked if they saw the broken
headlight were much more likely to claim remembering it.. /oftus also pointed out that
lawyers are experts in using misleading questions to distort witnesses9 memories, in
which case the new information is incorporated to their current knowledge and the
witnesses memory is reconstructed. In another study, students were shown a picture of
a man who had staight hair and then heard a description of the man that said that he
had light curly hair"/oftus % :reen, &'(5-. ;hen the sub!ects reconstucted the face
using a kit of facial features a third of the reconstructions contained curly hair.
<urthermore, a real=life study put forward by >rombag, ;agenaar and ?an3oppen
"&''@- demonstrated that even slight differences in the wording of questions can affect
the witnesses9 response, where &1 witnesses reported seeing an airplane on fire when
it was crashed into the building in Amsterdam when there was no fire present. In many
studies researchers have made participants claim to remember memories from their
early life that never actually happened such as getting lost in a shopping mall, being
hospitalized for a high fever of being harrased by a bully
"uman%0entland,&''@*/oftus % 0ickrell, &'',* Mazzoni et al., &'''-.
The following study is concerned with three of the most important factors
that can affect eye witness testimony, which are viewing distance, effects of
leading questions and the correlation between ones confidence in the answer
and whether it is correct. ?iewing distance is important for eye witness testimony
because evidently, the further away the witness is from the incedent the less
accurate his testimony is going to be. <urthermore, people usually tust their
memory and are very confident about what they remember even if what they
remember is incorrect. That is very important in our society because police and
!udges tend to believe a testimony coming from a confident witness however, the
accuracy of the recall and how confident a witness is, is still a controversial topic.
There have been several studies on this topic such as the ones by +mith, 3assin
and .llsworth "&'('- and #rewer, 3east and Bishworth "4554- who found very
low correlations between confidence ratings and accuracy, whereas Memon,
ope and #ull "4558- found a high correlation.
0articipants in this study witnessed a stage mocked incident where a man came into
the lecture theatre, slammed an envelope in front of the lecturer and then walked off.
0articipants were then asked to answer questions about the incident. #ecause of the
different variables that are tested in this study three different hypothesis were
established. The first suggests that the accuracy of recall will depend on the distance
from the event, where participants sitting in the front will provide a more accurate
answer* the second hypothesis being leading questions will influence answers, where
participants will be more likely to provide a response that coincides with the direction of
the leading question* and the third being confidence ratings will not differ for answers
that are correct or incorrect.

&et%o
Participants
The participants were &51 first year psychology students fro Boyal olloway, Cniversity
of /ondon. there were no restrictions to the participants and they were ware of the
purpose of the study.
Design
0articipants were randomly allocated into four groups according to the
independant measures design where different participants are used in different
situations. +ince there were three different hypotheses, there were three
independent variables and three dependent variables. The independant variable
for the first hypothesis was the distance between the participant and the event,
subsequently the independant variable for the second hypothesis is the presence
of leading questions and the third independant variable is the confidence of the
participant. The dependant variable for all three conditions is the accuracy of
results. $ata with the first hypothesis was analysed using the matched samples
T=Test, data with the second hypothesis were analyzed using a chi squared test
and finally the 0earson9s r was used to analyse the third hypothesis. The alpha
value for all three data testing was set to pD5.5,.
Materials
The experiment was conducted in the ;indsor Main lecture hallin Boyal olloway,
Cniversity of /ondon, which is comprised of chairs and a podium in front with the
lecturer. The stimuli in this experiment was the man who entered the room with the
envelope, the 6suspect6, and the apparati was the questionnaires distributed to the
participants. The participants were devided into four groups, and each group got a
different questionnair named &a, &b, 4a and 4b respectively. .ach group received two
correct and two incorrect leading questions in their questionnaire. Euestions @, (, ',
&4, &1 were leading questions. Euestions @ begin with 6;e believe the suspect has
light coloured hair6"group &- or 6... dark coloured hair6"group two-. 0articipants were
then asked to chose the hair colours from blonde, ginger and brunette. Euestion (
relates to the size of the ob!ect, where group & read 6small6 and group two read
6large6. Euestion ' asked how angry the suspect was when he 6set6"group &-, or
6slammed6"group two- the ob!ect on the table. Euestion &4 implies that someone
reported the suspect to being clean 6shaved6"group&- or 6having a full beard6"group
two-. To follow, all groups were provided a photo line=up and only group & had a photo
of the actual suspect, whereas group 4 had a photo of a look=a=like. Euestion &1 for
groups &a and a was 6we believe the suspect is present in the following picture line up.
0lease circle the picture that you think is the suspect6, and for groups &b and 4 b the
question was 6please circle a picture if you think it is the suspect6.
Procedure
The experiment took place during Besearch Methods & lecture period so the
participants were all the first year psychology students that were prsent at the
lecture. a stage mock incedent took place, during which a man entered the room,
slammed an envelope in front of the lecturer and then left. Euestionnaires were
handed out randomly to the participants to optimize the number of participants in
each group. 0articipants filled out the questionnaires and then marked their own.
Res"lts
The
hypotheses for this study was &- participants in the front will provide a more accurate
answer, 4- leading questions will be more likely to provide a response that coincides
with the direction of the question by chance alone and 8- confidence ratings would not
correlate with accuracy. The first hypothesis was supported since there was significant
difference found between the accuracy of testimonys by people who were sitting in the
front and the accuracy of those sitting in the back of the room"t "&54- F8.5,, p D5.55&,
one=tailed-. In the second hypothesis, the difference between groups that had leading
questions and groups that did not, was statistically significant, "GH "&, n F &51- F 81.@4,
p D 5.55&, one=tailed-, therefore, the results were consistent with it. The third
hypothesis was not supported by the results since it was not statistically significant as
to whether confidence ratings would not correlate with accuracy, "r F 5.8,, pD5.55&-.
.is$"ssion
The present study provides evidence about three of the factors that can influence eye
witness testimony. +pecifically, the first hypothesis , that participants in the front will
provide a more accurate answer was proven correct. The data was also consistent
with the second hypothesis that leading questions will be more likely to provide a
response that coincides with the direction of the question by chance alone was but
the third hypothesis was not supported by the data.
The results from this study for the first hypothesis are consistent with previous
research on the effect of leading question on eye witness testimony conducted by
/oftus and 0almer"&')1- as mentioned in the introduction. The present study
improved on past research since there were also non=leading questions on the
questionnaires so that the participants would not pay too much attention to the
leading questions and realize what the experiment was about that would lead to a lot
of demand characteristics.
In the other hand it is very important to note that since the participants were all first
year psychology students, most of them if not all, were familiar with the theories
about eye witness testimony and with /oftus % 0almerJs experiment which was very
similar to one part of the present study. This gives the experiment low ecological
validity since most of the participants knew what the study was about and therefore
did not act as they would have in a real life situation, and raises demand
characterstics. It is also important to note that there are other factors that can
influence eye witness testimoy apart from the ones examined in this study such as
the emotional state in which the witness is during the event. +tudies have shown that
the accuracy of the recall of a stressfull situation such as a school shooting is lower
than a non stressfull situation "+tanny % Kohnson,4555-. >onsequently, the answers
given by the participants may hve been influenced by varibles that are not controlled
in the experiment like the mood in which the participants were or whether they were
paying attention when the incedent happened.
In conclusion, the present study provides evidence that eye witness testimoy cannot
always be reliable by proving that different factors" leading questions, distance,
confidence- can affect what the witnesses recall as true. This study improved on past
studies by investigatig all three factors a the same time but there are other variables
that are not easily controlled that could have influenced the results. It is important for
more studies to be conducted on this area because eye witness testimonyJs are
sometimes solely responsible for the verdict of !urys so their accuracy is vital.