Eyewitness Testimony

Question 1

what is misleading information?

Answer 1

before an eyewitness is asked to recall what happened, they are exposed to incorrect information

Question 2

what are leading questions?

Answer 2

questions which prompt or encourage an answer that is wanted by the person asking the question and thus distort the memory

Question 3

what does Elizabeth Loftus claim about EWT?

Answer 3

It’s unreliable
- memory is vulnerable to suggestibility especially the effects of leading questions
- what we perceive is affected by the level of stress and anxiety
- memory is affected by weather and light
- memory is affected by our own selectivity

Question 4

what did Loftus and Palmer (1984) investigate?

Answer 4

the effects of language on recall in eyewitness testimony

Question 5

what are the aims of both experiments of Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Answer 5

testing their hypothesis that EWT is fragile and memory is easily distorted.
They aimed to show that leading questions could distort ET via cues provided in vehicles using different forms of questions after they had observed a car accident

Question 6

explain the procedure of experiment 1 of Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Answer 6

45 American students forming an opportunity sample
- participants were shown a film depicting a car accident involving a number of cars and afterwards asked to describe what had happened as if they were eyewitnesses and asked specific questions

Question 7

what was the critical question in Loftus and Palmer experiment 1?

Answer 7

about how fast were the cars going when they smashed / collided / bumped / hit / contacted into each other?

Question 8

what were the findings and speed estimates recorded of Loftus and Palmer experiment 1?

Answer 8

found that estimated speed with influenced by the verb used as it implied information about the speed which affected the participants’ memory of the accident
smashed = 41
collided = 39
bumped = 38
hit = 34
contacted = 32