Syllabus Edition
First teaching 2025
First exams 2027
Exam code: 7182
Which one of the following statements about the effect of anxiety on eyewitness testimony are true:
Anxiety has no effect on eyewitness testimony
Anxiety has only a positive effect on eyewitness testimony
Anxiety has only a negative effect on eyewitness testimony
Anxiety has both a positive and a negative effect on eyewitness testimony
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Which two of A, B, C, D and E are associated with the cognitive interview technique?
Alter the perspective
Change the speaker
Match the direction
Remove the context
Reverse the order
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Professor Able is interested in looking at the possible association between caffeine and eyewitness anxiety. She asks her participants to report how many cups of coffee they drink in a week, after which a confederate enters the test space and threatens the professor with a (fake) knife. Professor Able then asks the participants to write down how anxious they felt by this (fake) threat on a scale of 1-10 (10 being ‘extremely anxious’). Once the professor has her results she presents them in the following graph:
Graph 1: Correlation between number of cups of coffee in a week and level of anxiety.
Which one of the following correlation coefficients best describes the data represented in Graph 1?
+0.85
-0.85
-0.30
+0.30
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Describe the procedure of one study into the effect of leading questions on eyewitness testimony (EWT).
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Explain one strength and one limitation of using the cognitive interview to question eyewitnesses.
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A student showed participants a film of a car accident. After watching the film, each participant was asked to write down what they had seen. The student was surprised to see that the descriptions of the accident were quite different.
The student’s psychology teacher suggested that the participants’ recall might be improved by using cognitive interview techniques.
Suggest two cognitive interview techniques that could be used to improve participants’ recall of the film.
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Danielle was walking down the high street when she witnessed a crime. A young man attacked an elderly woman. After a struggle, the man ran away with the woman’s handbag. Danielle and another couple of witnesses stayed with the woman until the police arrived.
Explain how the police could use the cognitive interview to help Danielle’s recall of the event.
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Describe the cognitive interview.
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Evaluate the cognitive interview as a way of improving the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
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Outline and evaluate research (theories and/or studies) into one or more factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
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Discuss research into the effects of anxiety on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.
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A woman is being questioned by a police officer about a heated argument she witnessed on an evening out with friends. The argument took place in a bar and ended with a violent assault. A knife was discovered later by police in the car park of the bar.
‘Did you see the knife the attacker was holding?’, asked the police officer.
‘I’m not sure there was a knife – yes, there probably was,’ replied the woman. ‘I was so scared at the time that it’s hard to remember, and my friends and I have talked about what happened so many times since that I’m almost not sure what I did see.’
Discuss research into two or more factors that affect the reliability of eyewitness testimony. Refer to the information above in your answer.
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