Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony- Misleading information

Question 1

What is the research on leading questions

Answer 1

PROCEDURE- Loftus and Palmer arranged for 45 participants to watch film clips of car accidents and then asked them questions about the car accident. In the critical question (leading question or also called misleading question) participants were asked to describe how fast the cars were travelling. “ about how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”
There 5 groups of participants and each group was given a different verb in the critical question. One group had the verb hit and the others had contacted, bumped, collided, smashed.

FINDINGS- The mean estimated speed was calculated for each participant group. The verb contacted resulted in a mean estimated speed of 31.8 mph

Question 2

Why do leading questions affect EWT?

Answer 2

The response bias explanation suggests that the wording of the question has no real effect on the participant’s memories, but just influences how they decide to answer.