1. Eye Witness Testimony
EWT

2. What is EWT?
An eye witness is anyone who has witnessed an event (usually a crime).
Testimony is a statement given by the witness as an account of what happened.

3. How may factors affecting perception affect EWT?
Reconstructive memory
Schema driven errors (Bartlett)
Effect of leading words
Reconstructive hypothesis (Carmicheal)
Other factors (More in AS and A2)
Weapon focus
Effects of anxiety/arousal
Age of witness

4. Reconstructive Memory
Bartlett (1932)
Memory is not a direct record of what was witnessed
What is encoded and how it is retrieved depends on:
Information already stored in memory
How this info is understood, structured and organised

5. Reconstructive Memory
Schemas
Knowledge structures that relate to commonly encountered objects, situations or people
Enable us to predict events, make sense of unfamiliar circumstances, organise our own behaviour
Act as filters to perception & recall

6. Computer Information Processing
BANG!
Can you wreck a nice beach?

7. Schema Driven Processing
Yes. I can recognise speech.
Can you wreck a nice beach?

8. Carmichael (1932) Input Output Schema ‘Pickaxe’ ‘Turf cutter’

9. EWT: Schema Driven Errors
Witnesses to crimes filter information during acquisition & recall
Their schematic understanding may influence how info is both stored & retrieved
Distortions may occur without the witness realising

10. EWT: Schema Driven Errors
Past experiences
Assumptions about what usually happens
Stereotypes & beliefs about crime & criminals

11. Look at this picture

12. Write down a description of what is happening in the picture