Factors affecting eyewitness testimony:Misleading information Flashcards
Define misleading information
- Incorrect information given to an eyewitness.
- Can take form as leading questions and post event discussions
What is post event discussion (3)
- When the recalling of events by one witness alters the accuracy of the recall by another witness.
- This could be memory conformity ,
- The witnesses go along with other accounts for social approval
What are Leading Questions
- Questions that imply a particular answer
- Can influence how a memory is recalled.
- This could be due to an actual change to the memory or not to a change in memory(substitution bias explanation)
- But due to an emotional presence to give a particular response (response bias explanation)
What is memory conformity
The distortion of memories of past events due to information from other witnesses
What is an eyewitness
*Someone who has seen or witnessed a crime .
* They usually use their memory of the crime to give their testimony of what happened
What is an eyewitness testimony?
An eyewitness testimony is evidence provided in a court by a person who witnessed a crime
What is the response bias explanation and Substituition explaination
*Response bias explanation- Suggests that the wording of the question has no real effect on the participants memories but just influences how they decided to answer
*Substitution explanation-The wording of a leading question actually changes the participants memory of the film clip
Give reasons why Eyewitness Testimonies (EWT) could be inaccurate?
Misleading information-including leading questions and post-event discussion
* Anxiety.
How does the Car crash experiment influence the accuracy of EWT’s (6)
Shows that misleading information-leading questions can influence EWT’s
*Loftus and Palmer (1974) showed Participants clips of traffic accidents
* After watching the clip they were asked the following leading questions.
* ‘How fast were the cars going when they____ into each other’.
* The missing verb was changed e.g. smashed, contacted,hit etc.
* It was found the more extreme the verb the faster the estimation in MPH.
* Contacted -31.8 and smashed 40.8 suggests that misleading information in the form of leading questions can influence the recall of eyewitness testimony
Strength of misleading infromation- PED- causing inaccurate EWT (5)
- Gabbert et al (2003) Videos of crimes shot from different perspectives were shown to pairs of participants.
- With unique information available in each film. It was found 71% of pairs allowed to discuss what they had seen included aspects of the film they had not seen in their recollection of the video .
- This is compared to 0% in pairs who were not allowed to discuss what they had seen.
- This suggests that witnesses will change their account of crimes to match other witnesses’ testimony.
- This may be an attempt to seek approval, resulting in memory conformity
Limitation of memory conformity/ PED (5)
- A limitation of the memory conformity explanation is evidence that post event discussion actually alters the EWT.
- Skagerberg and Wright (2008) Showed their ppts film clips.
- There were two versions e.g. a mugger with dark brown hair and light brown in the other.
- PPts discussed the clips in pairs each having seen diff versions. They often did not report what they had seen in the clips or what they heard from the co witnesses but a blend of they two e.g. Medium brown hair.
- This suggests that memory itself is disrupted through contamination by misleading post event discussion rather than memory conformity
Limitation of Gabbert et al (2003) (4)
- Bodner et al (2009)( in an experimental setup similar to Gabbert)
- Participants were explicitly discouraged from sharing information in their testimony.
- It was found that these participants shared significantly less information from the other witness.
- This suggests that if warned about the dangers of Post event Discussion its effect can be reduced
