EWT: misleading information Flashcards
Whats an eye witness testimony?
information of a crime being recalled by a witness
what can reduce the accuracy of an EWT
-misleading Qs
-post event discussions
- anxiety
Who studied the effect on accuracy of EWT?
Loftus and Palmer (1974)
what was Loftus and Palmers study?
45 P’s watched a film clip of a car crash and gave speed estimates of the car based on misleading questions. five groups, each group given different verb in the question
What verbs were used in the experiment?
hit, collided, bumped, contacted and smashed
What were the findings?
Verb contacted: 31.8 mph
verb smashed: 40.5 mph
why do leading questions effect EWT?
response bias explanation suggests wording has no effect on witnesses memories, just influences how they decide to answer
what was loftus and Palmers second experiment?
supported subsitution explanation, proposes the wording does effect the participants memory of the film clip, due to the fact that participants who heard the verb “smashed” were more likely to report broken glass on the floor than those who heard hit.
what is post event discussion? (PED)
when eyewitnesses of a crime discuss their experiences and memories with each other
who did the key study on PED?
Gabbert (2003) studied p’s in pairs, each member of the pair saw a video of the same incident from different angles, each participant could see elements fo the scene that the other couldnt, partners then dicussed what they saw
what were the findings?
71% of participants claimed to have seen elements of the video that wasnt in their video, the corresponding result in a control group was 0%
why does PED affect EWT?
-memory contamination
- memory conformity
what is memory contamination?
when co-witnesses discuss their perspective with eachother, their memory can be altered or distorted due to combination of the memories.
what is memory conformity?
Witnesses often go along with eachother to win social approval or because thye believe someone else is right- the actual memory is unchanged
what did Seema Clifasefi (2013) do to study the effect of misleading questions?
she gave Ps a document of a personalised food and drink profice supposedly made my technology based on ps responses to a questionnaire. for one group, the profiles included false information that they had been drunk and thrown up before the age of 16
What were the results of Seema Clifasefi’s experiment?
The ps later comleted a memory experiment in which a leading q was asked when they had become sick from drinking too much alchohol, a significant number p’s said before the age of 16 and even that the none existant experience put them off of a certain alchohol
what are the strengths of this theory?
- useful for criminal justice system, consequences of innacurate EWT is serious, psychologists are sometimes asked to act as expert witnesses in court trials to explain the limits of EWT to juries.
