Cognitive Approach - Reconstruction of Memory

Question 1

Leading Questions

Answer 1

a question that prompts or encourages the answer wanted.

Question 2

Misinformation effect

Answer 2

Leading questions and post-event information facilitate schema processing which may influence the accuracy of recall

Question 3

Loftus & Palmer (1974)

Answer 3

Aim: To investigate how information provided after an event can influence eye-witness testimony

Participants: 45 uni students from usa (Experiment 1), 150 participants from same uni (experiement 2)

INDEPENDENT MEASURES DESIGN : LABORATORY

Procedure:
EXPERIMENT 1
1. 7 short films of traffic accidents were shown.
2. Participants were asked to recall what they had seen and then answered a questionnaire with different questions about the accident
3. 1GRP: One important question “ estimate speed of cars involved in accident”
4. Another group was asked same question framed differently “about how fast were cars going when they hit each other”
5. Critical word “hit” was replaced by “collided”, “bumped” “ smashed” “contacted” in the other conditions (other groups)

Results: (Mean)
1. More intense verbs had participants estimating a higher speed (smashed… contacted was slowest)

Procedure:
EXPERIMENT 2
1. Watched the same video
2. 150 students were randomly allocated to one of three conditions; how fast were the cars going when they smashed/ hit each other, or weren’t asked anything (control grp)
3. All grps came back a week later and was asked if there was broken glass, without rewatching the video

Results:
1. More intense verb (Smash grp) were more likely to recall seeing broken glass than hit grp

Conclusion:
Leading questions can alter the memory of events and lead to unreliable eyewitness testimony.

Question 4

Loftus and Palmer (1974) Evaluation

Answer 4

Strength:
- Standardised procedure and control of variables -> easily replicable -> more reliable
- Findings have influenced the questioning of eyewitness by police

Limitations:
- Low ecological validity : watching a traffic accident for a few sec, is not like experiencing it irl
- Participants mightve had response bias

Question 5

Yuille and Cutshall (1986)

Answer 5

Aim: To investigate how info provided after an event can influence eyewitness testimony

Participants: 13 eyewitnesses who had been present at various vantage points during a shooting

Procedure:
1. Police interviewed eyewitnesses at time of crime; asked to give a verbatim account of what they had seen and then asked a series of questions.
2. 4-5 months after, researchers interviewed witnesses in the same way police did. However they also asked two misleading questions, asking if they same a/the broken headlight or a/the yellow panel of the car.
3. Alternated between a and the in attempt to mislead witnesses into giving false information

Results:
1. 60% MORE DETAIL from their own interviews and a high degree of accuracy .
2. Leading questions had no effect on accuracy of eyewitness testimony

Conclusion:
Leading questions don’t always lead to unreliable eye-witness testimony. In real life conditions it seems that accuracy of recall is preserved

Question 6

Yuille and Cutshall (1986) Evaluation

Answer 6

Strengths:
- High ecological validity -> real life incident with actual eye witnesses to a shocking crime

Limitations:
- Only 13 participants -> low generalisability
- Time-consuming study with lots data analysis -> difficult to replicate