#yarmey

[revisewithannie]

Thank you, your notes on Yarmey really helped me - congratulations on your A* that's amazing!

Glad to hear they helped, I think I remember Yarmey being quite a tricky one to grasp and get my head around learning fully, so I’m glad my work has been useful for others too :) Good luck with the rest of your qualification!

[revisewithannie]

Psychology: Criminal: Yarmey [2004] - Example of a Field Experiment

Yarmey [2004] is an example of a field experiment.

Aims: To look at the effect on being part of a field experiment related to eyewitness recall and photo identification, and how a disguise would affect retrieval. He also sought to see whether instructions given before recall to review the incident would affect identification, and to investigate the effect of a 4 hour time gap. Yarmey went on to compare the success rates of identification within the study to what students believed about the success of photo identification.

Procedure: There were 215 male and 375 female participants, aged 18-70. They used only white participants to avoid any race bias, and participants were randomly assigned to one of the following conditions:

Being prepared [told they'd be an eyewitness] or not A disguise [baseball cap & sunglasses] present or not Retrieval instructions enhanced or not Tested immediately or delayed by 4 hours Gender of witness Whether the target was or was not present in a line up.

Two white women formed the targets to be identified.

Participants were approached in a public place and asked to help look for lost jewellery or give directions. After 2 minutes a female researcher approached the participant and asked them to take part in a study.

They were asked about the identification of the target with a questionnaire about 16 items- 8 about physical characteristics, 8 about clothing. They rated their confidence about the answers on a 7 point scale.

They were then given 6 photos. Half of the time, the target was present, half the time they weren't. Participants were asked to identify the target female, and were told she might not be present, they were shown each photo only once. Then there was a debriefing.

Another part gave students the entire scenario in written form, and asked them to comment on what they thought would happen and what would affect witness recall.

Results: So many conditions led to complex results and analyses.

Many cases had significant differences between the conditions.

When the target was present, 49% identified her, when she wasn't, 62% correctly said she was absent.

Students thought she'd be correctly identified as missing just 47% of the time, and correctly identified when present 63%!

Those prepared for the test were better at recall, but not at identification.

In terms of physical characteristics, age was accurate, more so than height or weight.

The study didn't find that enhanced imagery techniques helped recall, so doesn't support the idea of the cognitive interview technique, but only tested a small part of it.

Conclusions: About 50% of the time, a witness makes a correct identification in a line up when a target is present- this fits in with Haber & Haber's meta-analysis [2001].

It casts doubt on the assumption that eyewitness testimony and identification is accurate. Students estimating the accuracy were inaccuracy, it is likely jurors will be equally inaccurate!

Evaluation:

The findings support those of Haber & Haber's meta-analysis which suggests reliability.

The natural environment means ecological validity- people were going about their normal business when approached.

Control over the conditions means it's replicable and is likely to be found reliable because of support from other studies.

The range of ages and the split of gender means the sample is reasonably representative so it's reasonably generalisable!

Yuille & Cutshall found opposite results for age being better identified, so the findings don't support each other.

A photo line up isn't the same as a real life line up, it doesn't offer the opportunity for stance, build and body language, a photo just shows facial features. The task itself lacks validity.

The recall focussed on an occasion where the participants had met and spoken to the target- this isn't always the case! It can only be applied to similar situations.