Accuracy of eyewitness testimony: Misleading information Flashcards
Eyewitness testimony
The evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime, with a view to identifying the perpetrator of the crime.
Leading question
A question that, either by its form content, suggest to the witnesses what answer is desired or leads him or her to the desired answer.
Misleading information
Supplying with information that may lead a witnesses memory for a crime to be altered.
Post-event discussion
A conversation between co-witnesses or an interviewer and an eyewitness after a crime has taken place which may contaminate a witnesses memory for the event.
What was the Loftus and Palmer investigation on in 1974?
The effects of leading questions in eye-witness testimony.
What was the method used for the Loftus and Palmer investigation on leading questions experiment 1?
45 students were shown seven films of different traffic accidents. After each film participants were given a questionnaire about it. One critical question was ‘About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?’ Only one group of the participants were given this question. The other 4 groups had the verbs smashed, collided, bumped or contacted in place of the word hit.
What are the findings of the Loftus and Palmer investigation experiment 1?
With the verb contacted participants estimated the mean speed for the car to be 31.8 m/h With the verb smashed participants estimated the mean speed for the car to be 40.8 m/h This demonstrates that leading questions affect the response given by the participants.
What was the method used for the Loftus and Palmer investigation on leading questions experiment 2?
Participants were divided into three groups and shown a film of a car accident, and again asked questions about the speed. The participants were then asked to return one week later where they were asked a series of 10 questions about the accident, including another critical question, ‘Did you see any broke glass?’ Those who thought that the car was travelling faster may presume that there was broken glass.
What are the findings of the Loftus and Palmer investigation experiment 2?
The leading question did change the actual memory a participant had for the event. {Draw table!}
What is the conformity effect?
When co-witnesses reach a consensus view of what actually happened
What was the name of the researcher who investigated the conformity effect?
Fiona Gabbert
What was the method of Fiona’s investigation on the conformity effect?
Participants were put into pairs where each partner watched a different video of the same event so that they both saw unique items. Pairs in one condition discussed the event before each partner was asked to recall the event they had just watched.
What were the results of Fiona’s investigation on the conformity effect?
71% of participants who had discussed the event with there partner mistakenly recalled items discussed by the other partner of which they did not see in there video.
What is the problem with repeat interviewing when trying to retrieve information from a witness?
If a eyewitness is interviewed multiple times there is a chance that each time comments from the interviewer will become incorporated into there recollection of events.
What did Loftus provide?
Supporting evidence for the negative effect of misleading information
What was the method of Loftus’ experiment on misleading information?
College students (of which had all been to Disneyland) were asked to evaluate advertising material about Disneyland. Inside the material was a from of misleading information about either Bugs Bunny or Ariel (neither if which were at Disneyland). Some of the participants had the control condition (no misleading information).
What were the results on Loftus’ experiment on misleading information?
Participants who has the source of misleading information in there material were more likely to recall having shaken hands with the characters than the control group.
What was the method used by Foster when studying the accuracy of recall on real life incidences?
He used participants and led them to believe that they were watching a real-life robbery and that their feedback would influence the trial yet to come.
What was the method of Yuille and Cutshall’s experiment on the effects of accurate recall after experiencing real life crimes?
Witnesses to an armed robbery in Canada gave very accurate reports of the crime four months after the events after they had initially bean given two misleading questions.
What is the effect of individual differences on the accuracy of eye-witness testimony?
A witnesses age could affect their accuracy of recall. For example Schacter et al found that elederly people have a difficulty remembering the source of their information. However, there recollection of the information itself remains unimpaired. As a result elderly people are more prone to the effect of misleading information.
