eyewitness testimony - misleading info Flashcards
what are the 2 explanations for misleading info?
- leading questions
- post event discussion
what are the 2 explanations mentioned in the explanation of leading questions?
- response bias explanation
- substitution explanation
what is the response bias explanation?
wording doesn’t effect eyewitness memory but influences the answers given
what is the substitution explanation?
wording affects eyewitness memory as it interferes with original memory - distorted accuracy
who studied leading questions?
Loftus and Palmer
what was Loftus and Palmer’s study about?
showed ppts clips of a car accident and questioned them on speed
what did Loftus and Palmer find and conclude?
- ‘contacted’ mean estimate = 31.8 mph and ‘smashed’ = 40.5 mph
- leading questions biased eyewitness recall as ‘smashed’ suggesting faster car speed than ‘contacted’
what 2 explanations does post event discussion use?
- memory contamination
- memory conformity
what is memory contamination?
co witnesses discuss crime mixing misinformation with their own memories
what is memory conformity?
eyewitnesses go along with each other to win social approval
who studied post event discussions?
Gabbert et al
what did Gabbert et al’s study consist of?
- ppts watched the same crime being shown certain perspectives
- discussion on what they’d seen before completing a recall test
what did Gabbert et al find and conclude?
- 71% incorrectly recalled events they hadn’t seen but had picked up through post event discussion
- control group had no discussion = no error
what are the main evaluation points of leading questions?
1) there is real life applications to police officers and investigators
2) artificial materials (film clips are different to witnessing real life accidents)
what are the main evaluation points in post event discussions?
1) Antasi and Rhodes highlights individual differences - older people were less accurate in eyewitness reports
2) Foster et al explains a lack of external validity -
