EWT: Misleading Info Flashcards
Describe Loftus and palmers research
- Gave students clip to watch
- Changed critical verb
- Contacted and smashed
What were the 2 critical verbs average estimated speed?
Contacted: 31.8mph
Smashed: 40.5
What did the smashed, hit study show?
Leading question biased recall of event
What was the critical question
About how fast where h aces going when they … each other
How can post event discussion contaminate EWT
Combine misinformation with their own memories
Describe study into post-event discussion
Gabbert (2003)
- Participants in pairs
- Watched same crime but different angled clips so some contained details the other didn’t
- Witnesses discussed what they saw before individuals being tested
- 71% reported something they had no actually seen
- Control with no discussion was 0%
- Witnesses went along due to ISI, called memory conformity
Limitation of Contacted, Smashed study
Might not tell us how leading question affect real life crime
What are the two explanations as to why leading question affect EWT
Responder-bias
Substitution explanation
Describe responder bias explanation
Suggests wording has no real effect on memory, just influences how they decide to answer
Describe substitution explanation
Wording acc changes memory. Likely as those who had smashed reported seeing glass when they’re wasn’t any
How does misleading info have real life application
Inaccurate EWT can have serious implications when in court. Police can bias memory with interviews. Led to cog interview
Limitation of loftus and plamers study
- Film of car crash, very different from seeing it in real life
- Without anxiety (shown to affect memory)
- Limitation as tells us little about real life situations
Individual differences in EWT
Rhodes (2006)
- Found people aged 18-45 more accurate than 55-78
- All groups more accurate at identifying people of own age (own age bias)
Consequences of EWT
What’s reported in real life EWT has consequences so probs more accurate, as same is not true for research’s studies
How can anxiety have a negative affect on recall
- Creates a physiological arousal which prevents us paying attention to cues
- So recall is worse
Outline study in negative effect of anxiety in recall
Johnson and Scott (1676)
- Participants seated in waiting room for ‘lab study’
- Heated argument in next room
- Low anxiety condition: walked away with pen with grease on
- High anxiety: breaking glass and paper knife with blood on
What were the findings of Johnson and Scott’s study
- Participants had to pick out man from 50 photos
- Low anxiety: 49% of participants could identify
- High anxiety: 33%
- Tunnel theory argues focus on weapon as source of anxiety
How can anxiety improve recall
Fight or flight triggered increasing alertness, improving memory as more aware of cues
Study into improved recall due to anxiety
Yuille and Cutshall (1986)
- Real life shooting in gun shop where owner shot dead a thief
- 13 witnesses agreed to take part
- Interviews held 4-5 months after incident and compared to original police interviews
- Accuracy determined by number of correct details reported
- Asked to rate their anxiety 1-7
Weapon focus might be surprise
- Weapon focus study might actually measure surprise
- Pickle tested recall with objects either high (chicken and handgun) unusualness or low (scissors)
- EWT accuracy much worse in high unusualness condition suggesting supisrnover anxiety
Field study into EWT lacks control
- Interviews long time after event
- Recall could well have been influenced by accounts seen in media as well as police interviews and post event discussions
- Lots of extraneous variables means low accuracy recall
- Therefore cannot measure effects of anxiety over these variables
Labyrinth of horror support for anxiety
- Quasi-experiment in London dungeon designed to scare
- Self-report and heart monitor measured anxiety, on this basis then divided into high and low anxiety groups
- High anxiety recalled fewer correct details
- Identifying actor in line up, 17% of high and 75 of low were correct
