PSY372H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Eyewitness Testimony, Eyewitness Identification, Hypodermic Needle
Document Summary
Psy372 - lecture 8: memory and the law (metamemory, prospective memory) Importance of studying memory and the law: error in eyewitness testimony can cause an innocent person to be jailed, and a guilty person to go free, eyewitness testimony can provide some of the most convincing evidence for jurors. Factors that cannot be controlled by judicial system: stress and arousal. From yerkes-dodson there is an optimal level of memory depending on how much stress a person experiences. If stress is high or stress is low (waking up) then the efficiency of memory is worse. It is hard to study because we cannot expose experimental participants to events as stressful as real-world crimes. Compared memory 5-6 months afterwards with immediate police interviews. Witnesses reporting highest levels of stress had greater accuracy (but were also the ones physically close to the event) Though this shows that it"s not a 1:1 ratio between memory and stress, there are complex interactions.
