Eyewitness testimony Flashcards
why are memories not exact replicas of an event?
Because memories are reconstructed.
Define: reconstructed memory
When information from the actual event is integrated with plausible yet misleading information to form the reconstructed memory
What type of plausible yet misleading information is integrated with the real inforamation?
Logically plausible things, information given after the event; information reflecting the person’s prior experiences, attitudes and expectations.
Describe Bartlett (1932)
Participants read UNUSUAL prose (story) or picture (recall of which could be affected by experiences, attitudes and expectations unlike nonsense trigrams) Whenever they recalled it, their memory was reconstructed to become more sensible - matching expectations.
Define: leading question
A question that is phrased in such a way as to suggest or lead to the desired answer.
Leading questions contain a presupposition: define presupposition.
information that should/must be true in order for the question to make sense.
Aim of Loftus and Palmer (1974) experiments?
It investigate how information provided to a witness after an event will influence their memory of that event.
Describe experiment one (without results)
45 volunteers (students at uni that researchers worked) 9 participants each randomly allocated to five conditions (words in the leading question “About how fast were the cars going then they [smashed into/collided with/bumped into/hit/contacted] each other?”) Shown seven clips of a car accident, and were questioned including the leading question
Results of experiment one?
Mean estimated speed of most intense verb was SIGNIFICANLY higher than that of the least intense verb. May have been affected by response bias.
Define: response bias
participants were uncertain of the exact speed of the cars, and adjusted their estimates to suit the researcher’s expectations.
Describe part one of EXPERIMENT TWO.
150 different volunteer university students, allocated to 3 conditions (being asked the leading question “About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into/hit each other” or the control group who was not asked any questions at all). Watched clip of the crash and were questioned accordingly.
Describe the results of part one experiment two.
participants in the smashed group estimated a significantly higher meen speed of the cars
Describe part two of EXPERIMENT TWO.
One week later
Asked 11 questions in random order including the leading question “Did you see any broken glass?” – there was none.
Describe the results of part two experiment two
smashed into - 16 saw glass
hit - 7 saw glass
control - 6 saw glass
Statistically significant.
WHy did the results in experiment two occur?
A reconstructed memory was formed (of the memory of the video and the presupposition in the original leading question);
source confusion occured.
