Eyewitness testimony accuracy - misleading info

Question 1

Eyewitness testimony

Answer 1

‘The ability of people to remember the details of events, such as accidents and crimes, which they themselves have observed. Accuracy of EWT can be affected by factors such as misleading information and anxiety’

Question 2

Misleading information

Answer 2

‘Incorrect information given to an eyewitness usually after the event (sometimes called post-event information). It can take many forms, such as leading questions and post event discussion between co-witnesses and/or other people.’

Question 3

Leading Question

Answer 3

‘A question which, because of the way it is phrased, suggests a certain answer.’

Question 4

Post event discussion (PED)

Answer 4

‘This occurs when there is more than one witness to an event. Witnesses may discuss what they have seen with co-witnesses or with other people. This may influence the accuracy of each witness’s recall of the event’.

Question 5

Who is an eyewitness?

Answer 5

An ‘eyewitness’ is someone who has seen or witnessed the crime, usually present at the time of the incident.
They use their memory of the crime to give their testimony or ‘reconstruction’ of what happened.

Question 6

Eyewitness testimony

Answer 6

The evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime, with a view to identifying the perpetrator

Question 7

Research on leading questions

Answer 7

Loftus and Palmer (1974) experiment 1

Question 8

Loftus and Palmer (1974) experiment 1- procedure

Answer 8

Procedure - 45 students participants watched clips of 7 different car accidents and then were asked leading questions about them
In the critical question (leading question or misleading information) the participants were asked to describe how fast the cars were going
There were 5 different groups of participants and 5 different verb were used to describe speed varying in severity (contacted, hit, bumped, collided and smashed)

Question 9

Loftus and Palmer (1974) experiment 1 - results

Answer 9

Question 1 - verb ‘contacted’ -31.8mph
Question 2 - verb ‘hit’ - 34.0 mph
Question 3 - verb ‘bumped’ - 38.1mph
Question 4 - verb ‘collided’ - 39.3mph
Question 5 - verb ‘smashed’ - 40.8mph

Question 10

Loftus and Palmer (1974) experiment 1 - findings

Answer 10

Mean estimated speed was calculated for all 5 groups.
Verb ‘contacted’ (the least severe) -average speed of 31.8mph -Verb ‘smashed’ (the most severe) gave an average speed of 40.5mph.
This showed that the leading question, in this case the severity of the verb used, biased eyewitness’s recall of an event.

Question 11

Loftus and Palmer (1974) experiment 2 - procedure

Answer 11

150 students participants were shown a short film that showed a multi-vehicle car accident and then they were asked questions about it. The participants were split into 3 groups (with 50 in each group).
- 1st group ‘How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?’
- 2nd group - ‘How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?’
3rd group - asked nothing about the speed

All groups returned a week later and were asked:
‘Did you see any broken glass?’ even though there was none in the film

Question 12

Loftus and Palmer (1974) - experiment 2 - results

Answer 12

Response ‘yes:
verb ‘smashed’ - 16
verb ‘hit’ - 7
verb ‘control’ - 6

Response ‘No’:
verb ‘smashed’ - 34
verb ‘hit’ - 43
verb ‘control’ - 44

Question 13

Research on post-event discussion

Answer 13

Fiona Gabbert et al (2003) looked at post-event discussion (PED)

Question 14

Research on post-event discussion - procedure

Answer 14

-Studied participants in pairs
-Each participants watched a video of the same crime but filmed from different points of view
-Each participant could see something the other one could not
-Both participants then discussed what the had seen before individually completing a test of recall

Question 15

Research on post-event discussion - findings

Answer 15

-71% of participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they did not see in the video but had picked up in the discussion

They also completed the study with a control group where NO discussion occurred. In this experiment there was 0%

This is evidence of memory conformity

Question 16

Why does post-event discussion affect EWT? - first explanation

Answer 16

One explanation - memory contamination
When co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with others, their testimonies become altered or distorted.
This is because they combine (mis) information from other witnesses with their own memories.

Question 17

Why does post-event discussion affect EWT? - second explanation

Answer 17

Second explanation - memory conformity

Gabbert et al concluded that witnesses often go along with each other, eitehr to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right and they are wrong. Unlike with memory contamination, the actual memory is unchanged.

Question 18

Positive of EWT

Answer 18

Real world application
Practical use in criminal justice system
Loftus (1975) believes that leading questions can have such a distorting effect on memory that police officers need to be extremely careful about how they phrase their questions when interviewing eyewitnesses.
Psychologists are sometimes asked to act as expert witnesses in court trials and explain the limits on EWT to the juries

Question 19

Counterpoint to positives

Answer 19

Practical applications may be effected by research
Loftus and Palmer - research carried out in lab - watched crashes on screen
Different to real life experience and a lot less stressful
- Rachel Foster et al (1994) stated that what an eyewitness remembers in real-life can have important consequences. However, responses given in a lab situation are less important so participants may be less motivated to be accurate.
- This suggests that their research by Loftus and Palmer is too pessimistic about the effects of misleading information - EWT may be more trustworthy and reliable than many studies suggest

Question 20

Evidence against substitution

Answer 20

EWT is more accurate for some aspects of an events than others
Rachel Sutherland and Harlene Hayne (2001) showed participants in a video clip
Later asked misleading questions - recall was more accurate for central details rather than the peripheral ones
The participants attention was focused on the central focus and these memories were relatively resistant to misleading information
This suggests that the original memories for central details survived were not distorted, an outcome that is not predicted by the substitution explanation

Question 21

Evidence against memory conformity

Answer 21

Evidence that post-event discussions actually alters EWT
Skagerberg and Wright (2008) showed their participants film clips. There were two different versions, e.g. 1st clip the mugger had dark brown hair, 2nd clip the mugger had light brown hair
Participants discussed the clips in pairs - each having seen the two versions.
They did not report what they had seen or what they had discussed between themselves but instead a ‘blend’ between the two
This suggests that the memory itself is distorted through contamination by misleading post-event discussion.

Question 22

Limitation - Demand characteristics

Answer 22

Lab studies have identified misleading information as a cause of inaccurate EWT
Zaragoza and McCloskey (1989) argued that many answers given by participants in lab studies are due to demand characteristics.
Participants want to be helpful and not let the research down so they guess when they are asked a question that they don’t know the answer to.