EWT: misleading information

Question 1

who investigated leading questions?

Answer 1

Loftus + Palmer (1974)

Question 2

what did participants have to do? (LQ)

Answer 2

watched film clips of car accidents + had to answer questions (e.g. describing speed of cars)

Question 3

how many groups were there? (LQ)

Answer 3

5

Question 4

what were the 5 verbs used in the question? (LQ)

Answer 4

contacted
bumped
hit
collided
smashed

Question 5

what was the critical question? (LQ)

Answer 5

‘about how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?’

Question 6

why is the critical question a leading question?

Answer 6

the verb used suggests the car’s speed
e.g. ‘hit’ suggests a higher speed than ‘contacted’

Question 7

what was the speed for ‘contacted’?

Answer 7

31.8mph
(lowest)

Question 8

what was the speed for ‘smashed’?

Answer 8

40.8mph
(highest)

Question 9

what was Loftus + Palmer’s second experiment + the results from this?

Answer 9

participants were asked if they could recall seeing ‘broken glass’ at the seven of the incident.
those in the ‘smashed’ condition were more likely to report seeing broken glass (even though there was none) than those in the ‘hit’ condition

Question 10

what does the ‘response-bias explanation’ suggest?

Answer 10

wording of the question has no effect on memory, but simply influences how participants answer
e.g. the word ‘smashed’ encourages participants to choose a higher speed

Question 11

what may happen if co-witnesses to a crime discuss it together?

Answer 11

their own EWT may become contaminated

Question 12

what did Gabbert investigate?

Answer 12

investigated post-event discussion and contamination of EWT.
studied participants in pairs + each participant watched a video of the same crime, but filmed from a different POV - each participant could see elements that their partner could not

Question 13

what did participants in Gabbert’s study watch?

Answer 13

each participant watched a video of the same crime, but filmed from a different POV - each participant could see elements that their partner could not
(e.g. only one participant could see the title of a book that a woman was holding)

Question 14

after watching the video clip in Gabbert’s study, what did participants do?

Answer 14

both participants discussed the event then individually did a recall test

Question 15

what % of participants in Gabbert’s study recalled aspects that they didn’t see, but picked up in discussion?

Answer 15

71%

Question 16

when there was no discussion between partners, what % of participants recalled aspects they didn’t originally see?

Answer 16

0%

Question 17

why do witnesses often go along with each other? what’s this phenomenon called?

Answer 17

to win social approval
they believe that their own memories are wrong and the other person is right
MEMORY CONFORMITY

Question 18

name one strength of this research

Answer 18

useful real life applications

Question 19

why may Loftus + Palmer’s tasks be seen as artificial?

Answer 19

video clips lack the stress of observing a real car accident- emotions can have an influence on memories, therefore this isn’t representative in a film clip

Question 20

name 2 other limitations of this research

Answer 20

individual differences
demand characteristics
consequences of EWT

Question 21

how does age impact EWT?

Answer 21

there is evidence that older people are less accurate than younger people when giving EWT
research studies often use younger people as the target participant, meaning that other age groups appear less accurate, as they are not well-represented in research

Question 22

what did Anastasi + Rhodes discover?

Answer 22

people in age groups 18-25 and 35-45 were more accurate than people in age group 55-78

Question 23

how do demand characteristics impact EWT?

Answer 23

participants usually don’t want to let the researcher down + want to appear helpful/attentive
therefore sometimes they guess the answer when they’re not sure, which can severely impact the accuracy of results