EWT - misleading information

Question 1

What is Loftus and Palmer’s study on leading questions in regards to misleading information of EWT?

Answer 1

• participants shown videos of car accidents
• asked to estimate the speed of the car but the verb was changed each time: e.g “how fast was the car going when it HIT the other car?” vs “how fast was the car going when it SMASHED the other car?”
• the word used affected the estimated speed, e.g ‘hit’ and ‘bumped’ were estimated lower than ‘smashed’
• leading questions affect accurate EWT

Question 2

How did Loftus and Palmer use a leading question about broken glass to alter the memory of the participants?

Answer 2

• asked the participants if there was any broken glass, even though there wasn’t any in the video, and some people said there was
• those who estimated a higher speed also were presumably more likely to say there was broken glass
• the leading question altered the memory and made them believe there may have been broken glass, which they may never have considered if they were not asked about it

Question 3

What is post-even discussion?

Answer 3

The memory of an event may be altered or ‘contaminated’ through discussing events with others and/or being questioned multiple times

e.g talking to other witnesses before talking to a police officer could mean your EWT is more inaccurate because the may have influenced your memory

Question 4

What is the conformity effect in regards to post-event discussion and how did Gabbert and colleagues investigate it?

Answer 4

• the conformity effect is when witnesses may all come to an agreement of the event if they discuss it
• in a study the participants were put into pairs and each watched a different video of the same event so they could have individual unique perceptions of the event
• two conditions: some discussed the event with their partner and some didn’t. everyone was asked to recall the event individually
• discussion influenced their memories

Question 5

What is repeat interviewing in regards to post-event discussion?

Answer 5

our memories of an event may change overtime - due to small changes during recollection

(especially as a cause of leading questions, especially in child witnesses of crime)

the new memory is no longer the same as the original memory, leading to inaccuracy of EWT in repeated interviews

Question 6

Evaluation of misleading questions and the accuracy of EWT

Answer 6

(-) Lab experiment - participants may have low motivation and may not take it seriously. the effects of misleading information may not be as strong in real life EWT
(-) low ecological validity: participants are not undergoing the anxiety the would experience if the experiment was real which could intervene with the accuracy of EWT
(+) Braun et al - research support for misleading info creating false memories
(+) real word application - justice systems use EWT