Factors affecting the accuracry of eyewitness testimony: Misleading Information Flashcards
What is a eyewitness testimony?
An eyewitness testimony is evidence provided by people who witness a particular event or crime
What are three factors that can affect eyewitness testimonies?
1) Misleading information, including leading questions
2) Post event discussion
3) Anxiety
What do eyewitness testimonies involve?
Eyewitness testimonies involve descriptions of criminals and crime scenes
What do eyewitness testimonies rely upon?
Eyewitness testimonies rely upon the recall from memory
What is misleading information?
Misleading information is incorrect information given to the eyewitness usually after the event
What are leading questions?
Leading questions leads individuals towards a certain answer, due to the phrasing
Who were the psychologist that arranged a experiment into leading questions?
Loftus and Palmer
What experiment did Loftus and Palmer carry out to investigate leading questions? (car crash + verbs)
Loftus and Palmer had 45 students shown a car accident. The students were split into groups of 5 and asked the same leading question (About how fast were the cars going when they /verb\ each other) but with a different verb within the question. The verbs were: hit, contacted, bumped, collided and smashed.
What were the findings of Loftus and Palmer’s experiment? (car crash + verbs)
Loftus and Palmer found that depending on the phrasing of the question, participants’ estimated speeds were influenced. Participants who heard “contacted” assumed a speed of 31.8mph whereas participants who heard “smashed assumed 40.5mph. Therefore showing leading questions can affect memories
Why do leading questions affect eyewitness testimonies?
The response - bias explanation suggests the wording of the question has no real effect on the participants’ memories, but just influences how they decide to answer. In Loftus and Palmer’s experiment, when participants heard the word ‘smashed’, this encouraged them to choose a higher speed estimate.
What is the substitution explanation?
The explanations states the wording of a leading question actually changes an individual’s memory of an event
What did Loftus and Palmer do to to investigate the substitution explaantion?
Loftus and Palmer conducted a second experiment where participants were asked if they had seen broken glass (no broken glass)
Participants who had heard the verb ‘smashed’ were more likely to report seeing broken glass
What is a limitation of the factors affecting the eyewitness testimony? (ecological validity + researcher bias)
A limitation of Loftus and Palmer’s study is that their participants watched film clips of car accidents. This is different from witnessing a real accident, because the clips lack the stress of the accident. This is a limitation because studies that use such artificial tasks may have little applicability to real life accidents or crimes, hence lacking ecological validity. Additionally there could be some researcher bias as researchers like Loftus may be too pessimistic about the accuracy of EWT.
What is a limitation of the factors affecting eyewitness testimony? (individual differences)
There is evidence that elder people are less accurate than younger people when giving eyewitness reports. For example a study found that people in age groups 18-25 and 35-45 were more accurate than people in the group 55-78 years. However, all age groups were more accurate when identifying people of their own age group, own age bias. Research studies often use younger people as the target to identify and this may mean that some age groups appear less accurate
What is a limitation of the factors affecting eyewitness testimonies? (cons of using uni students)
The study had a small sample size, since only 45 participants were involved in the study it would have lacked population validity and generalisability. The participants were also university students, who could have guessed the aim of the study due to the artificiality of the study and being used to examinations. This would have produced demand characteristics and made the study unreliable. Furthermore, the university students may not have had experience in driving, meaning they wouldn’t be able to accurately gage the speed of the car, questioning further the reliability of the results.
