Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony: misleading information Flashcards
Research on leading questions?
- Loftus and Palmer
- 45 Participants made to watch cash crash
- then asked questions about how fast the cars were travelling
- five groups of participants and each group was given a different verb in the critical question
- one group had the word hit, the others had contacted, bumped, collided, smashed
Findings on research into leading questions?
The mean speed estimated was calculated
The verb contacted resulted in a mean estimated speed of 31.8 mph
For the verb smashed, the mean was 40.5mph
This shows that the leading questions biased the eyewitness’s recall of an event
Why do leading questions affect EWT?
The wording of the question has no actual effect on the participants memories, but just influences how they decide to answer
Research on post-event discussion?
Eyewitnesses to a crime may discuss experiences and memories with each other.
A study was completed to test the effects of this:
- Gabbert (2003)
- participants in pairs
- watched the same crime but from different viewpoints
- each participant could see elements in the crime that the other could not
- Participants then discussed what they had seen before completing an individual test of recall
Findings on research into post-event discussion?
Findings:
- 71% of participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they did not see in the video but had picked up in the discussion
- the control group where there was no discussion was 0%
This was evidence of memory conformity
Why does post event discussion affect EWT?
Causes memory contamination - memories become altered or distorted after discussing with another witness. This is because they combine (mis)information from other witnesses with their own memories.
Can also cause memory conformity - Gabbert concluded that witness often go along with other with each other, either to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right and they are wrong. Unlike with memory contamination, the actual memory is unchanged.
Evaluation of EWT: Misleading Information (strengths)
Real world application:
- practical use in justice system
- consequences of inaccurate EWT are very serious
- police officers need to make sure that their questions are not leading, when interviewing eyewitnesses
- psychologists are sometimes asked to explain the limits of EWT to juries
This shows that psychologists can help protect innocent people from faulty convictions based on unreliable EWT and also help improve the legal system
Evaluation of EWT: Misleading Information (weaknesses)
Counterpoint:
- However Loftus and Palmers research took place in a lab environment which is very different to a real life experience
- participants responses are key in real world experiences but not so important in research tasks (lack of stress/motivation to be right, lack of natural factors)
This suggests that the researchers are too pessimistic about the effects of misleading information - EWT may be more dependable than many studies suggest
Demand characteristics:
- lab studies create demand characteristics from participants
- participants usually want to be helpful, therefore, they guess when they are asked a question they don’t know the answer to
Evidence against substitution:
- when participants were asked misleading questions, their recall was better for central details of the event rather than peripheral ones
- their attention is focused on central features of the event and these memories were resistant to misleading information
This suggests original memories for central details survived and were not distorted, an outcome not predicted by the substitution explanation, which states that the wording of a leading question changes the participants memory of the film clip
