Accuracy Of Eye Witness Testimony - Misleading Information

Question 1

Evaluate the factors affecting eye witness testimony

Answer 1

Strength - Useful real-life applications
E.g. Loftus (1975), leading questions can have distorting effect on memory
Ex. - Area where psychologists can make important positive difference to lives of real people, like justice system

Limitation - Artificial Tasks
E.g. film clips of car accidents for Loftus & Palmer (1974)
Ex. - Tell us very little about how misleading questions affect EWT in real cases - different sensory experience + anxiety & feelings

Limitations - Individual differences
E.g. evidence older people less accurate than younger people Anastasi & Rhodes (2006)
Ex. - Studies usually use younger people as target to identify & may mean other age groups seem less accurate but this may not be true, just due to lack of studies around them

Question 2

Evaluate research on the effect of misleading information on EWT

Answer 2

Strength - Conducted as lab experiment
E.g. Loftus & Palmer (1974)
Reliability increases because it is replicable
HOWEVER, artificial stimulus used
Creates different sensory experience compared to real-life so how can we expect same result?

Strength - has useful real-life applications
E.g. Loftus (1975): leading questions have an extremely distorting effect on someone’s memory
Can improve real peoples’ lives as it improves legal system & appears in court trials as expert witnesses

Limitation - population bias
E.g. only students in 150 participants in the Loftus & Palmer (1974) 2nd experiment
May have better memories than most as they revise for exams & exercise memory more often, meaning results can’t be generalised