EWT: Misleading information - AO3

Question 1

What is a strength of EWT misleading information?

Answer 1

• P: Strength = important practical uses in the criminal justice system
• E: Loftus (1975): Leading questions can have a big distorting effect on memory and police officers need to be careful about phrasing questions
• E: Psychologists are sometimes asked to act as expert witnesses in court trials and explain the limit of EWT to juries
• L: Shows psychologists can help improve the way the legal system works and protect innocent people from unreliable EWT

Question 2

What are limitations of EWT: misleading information?

Answer 2

• P: Limitation of the substitution explanation = EWT is more accurate for some aspects of an event than for others
• E: Sutherland and Hayne (2001): Showed PPs. a video clip. When asked misleading questions, recall was more accurate for central details of the event than for peripheral ones
• E: PPs attention was focused on central features of an event and these memories were relatively resistant to misleading information
• L: Original memories for central details survived and were not distorted - an outcome not. predicted by. the substitution explanation
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• P: Limitation of memory conformity = evidence that post event discussion. actually alters EWT
• E: Skagerberg and Wright (2008): Showed. PPs film clips (there were two versions). PPs discussed the clips in pairs (they saw different versions)
• E: They often didnt report what they had seen but a blend of the two
• L: Memory is distorted through contamination by misleading pot event discussion, rather than the result of memory conformity