Eyewitness Testimony: Leading Questions and Post Event Discussion

Question 1

What are leading questions?

Answer 1

Questions where the wording may suggest to the witness that there is a desired answer.

Question 2

Name the researchers who studied leading questions and their effects on eye witness testimony.

Answer 2

Loftus and Palmer

Question 3

What was the aim of Loftus and Palmer’s experiment?

Answer 3

To see how leading questions affect the accuracy of memory.

Question 4

How many PPTs were involved in Loftus and Palmer’s experiment?

Answer 4

45

Question 5

How were PPTs in Loftus and Palmer’s study split into groups?

Answer 5

They were randomly divided into 5 groups of different sizes.

Question 6

PPTs in Loftus and Palmer’s study were shown how many video clips of what?

Answer 6

7 video clips of traffic accidents.

Question 7

What did PPTs receive after each of the clips in Loftus and Palmer’s study?

Answer 7

A questionnaire containing various questions about the car accidents.

Question 8

What was the critical question in the questionnaires in Loftus and Palmer’s study?
What 5 words were used?

Answer 8

‘About how fast were the cars going when they _______ each other?’
Bumped, collided, hit, smashed, contacted.

Question 9

When the critical verb ‘contacted’ was used, what was the mean estimate of speed in Loftus and Palmer’s study?

Answer 9

32mph.

Question 10

When the critical verb ‘smashed’ was used, what was the mean estimate of speed in Loftus and Palmer’s study?

Answer 10

41mph

Question 11

In the 2nd Loftus and Palmer study, how many PPTs were involved?

Answer 11

150

Question 12

In the 2nd Loftus and Palmer study, what were PPTs shown in the video clip?

Answer 12

A multiple car accident.

Question 13

In the 2nd Loftus and Palmer study, what did PPTs have to do after seeing the clip?

Answer 13

They had to answer a questionairre.

Question 14

In the 2nd Loftus and Palmer study, describe how PPTs were divided into groups and state how the critical question for each of these groups differed.

Answer 14

They were divided into 3 groups of 50.
One group asked how fast cars were going when they smashed, the 2nd group asked how fast cars were going when they hit, the 3rd group not questioned about vehicle speed (control).

Question 15

In the 2nd Loftus and Palmer study, they received another questionnaire a week later. What leading question was asked in this questionnaire that wasn’t included in the previous one?
How will this affect PPTs?

Answer 15

PPTs were asked if they saw any broken glass, when there was none in the original clip.
This caused PPTs to assume there was broken glass.

Question 16

What is post event discussion?

Answer 16

PPTs discuss what they saw after witnessing a traumatic event, and combine each others memories with their own.

Question 17

Name the researcher who studied post event discussion.

Answer 17

Gabbert

Question 18

How were PPTs arranged in Gabbert’s study?

Answer 18

Pairs

Question 19

What did the pairs of PPTs have to watch in Gabbert’s study?
What did PPTs not know about the clip their pair was watching?

Answer 19

They watched clips of the same crime from different points of view, but they did not know this.

Question 20

After watching the clips, what did the PPTs in Gabbert’s study do?

Answer 20

They discussed what they had seen with eachother.

Question 21

After Gabbert’s PPTs had discussed, what did the PPTs then have to do? Who with?

Answer 21

They completed a recall test alone.

Question 22

What percentage of Gabbert’s PPTs mistakenly recalled aspects of an event they didn’t see after PED?

Answer 22

71%

Question 23

What percentage of Gabbert’s PPTs in the control group mistakenly recalled aspects of an event they didn’t see after PED?

Answer 23

0%

Question 24

Give 2 reasons why PED affects EWT.

Answer 24

Memory Conformity
Memory Contamination

Question 25

What is memory conformity?

Answer 25

Where witnesses often go along with each other for social approval or because they think the other person is more likely to be right than themselves.

Question 26

What is memory contamination?

Answer 26

Co witnesses discuss what they have seen and combine misinformation with each other, so memories distort.

Question 27

Explain the strength that research into misleading information has practical uses in the criminal justice system.
Why do officers need to be careful on how they phrase questions?
Why do psychologists sometimes visit court?
Overall, how does understanding the impacts of EWT lead to improving the justice system?

Answer 27

The consequences of inaccurate EWT can be serious. Loftus believes that leading questions can have a distorting effect on memory so police officers need to be careful on how they phrase questions when interviewing eye witnesses. Psychologists are sometimes asked to visit courts and explain the limits of EWTs to juries. This shows that psychologists can help to improve the way that the legal system works, especially by protecting innocent people from incorrect eyewitness testimony.

Question 28

Explain the limitation of the memory substitution explanation that says that EWT is more accurate for some aspects of an events than others.
Describe Sutherland and Hayne’s study, where PPTs were asked to recall events from a video clip, when prompted by misleading questions.
How did the misleading questions affect central details compared to peripheral details?
Why is memory substitution therefore a limited explanation?

Answer 28

For example, Sutherland and Hayne showed PPTs a video clip. When PPTs were asked misleading questions later on, their recall was more accurate for central details of the event rather than peripheral. Presumably the PPTs attention was focused on the central features of the event, which are more resistant to distortion because they require most of our attention. This is not predicted by the memory substitution explanation, therefore it is limited.

Question 29

Explain the limitation of there being evidence that PED alters EWT for the memory conformity explanation.
Explain Skagerberg and Wrights experiment (almost identical to Gabberts).
How did their findings suggest that memory is actually distorted by contamination by misleading PED?

Answer 29

Skagerberg and Wright showed their PPTs film clips. There were 2 versions of the clip and PPTs discussed it in pairs, each having seen different versions. They often did not report what they saw in the clips, or what they heard from the co witness, but blend of the two. This suggests that memory itself is distorted through contamination by misleading PED, not memory conformity.

Question 30

Explain the limitation of misleading information studies being conducted in labs.
Which 2 researchers argued that answers given by PPTs may have been due to demand characteristics?
Why might PPTs display demand characteristics?
What type of validity does this reduce?

Answer 30

While lab studies allow researchers to control variables, Zaragoza and McCloskey argue that many answers given by PPTs in labs are due to demand characteristics. This is because PPTs want to help researchers, so they lie, or they want to negatively affect their results. This means that researchers will not be sure that responses to questionnaires are a result of misleading information/PED or because PPTs are trying to be helpful. This means that internal validity is reduced.