Influence Of Misleading Infromation On Eye-witness Testimonies

Question 1

Define eyewitness testimony

Answer 1

The evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime, with the aim of identifying the perpetrator

Question 2

Name and outline the two types of misleading information

Answer 2

1. Leading questions- the way a question is worded can influence your recall
2. Post event discussion- when witnesses discuss an event and their memory can get contaminated by things that other people say

Question 3

Name the researchers who investigated the effect of leading questions

Answer 3

Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Question 4

Describe the procedure and findings of Loftus and Palmer (1974) first experiment

Answer 4

• 45 students were asked to watch a video of a car crash
• asked a question (‘how fast were the cars going when they ….. each other?’) and the verb used in the question was changed for each group
• the verbs used were contacted, bumped, collided, hit, and smashed and varied in their degree of ‘charge’
• it was found that the more charge behind the verb resulted in a higher speed estimate

Question 5

Describe the procedure and findings of Loftus and Palmers (1974) second experiment

Answer 5

• they carried out another experiment whereby they god participants to watch the video of the car crash and asked the same question
• a week later they were asked whether they saw any broken glass, even though there was no broken glass in the video
• participants who were given the more charged verbs= more likely t report seeing broken glass as their memory of original event was distorted due to one word in a sentence

Question 6

Name the researchers who investigated the effect of post event discussion

Answer 6

Gabbert et al. (2003)

Question 7

Describe the procedure and findings of Gabbert at al. (2003)

Answer 7

• pairs of participants watched a video of a crime which was filmed from different points of view- each participant could see elements in the event that the other couldn’t
• pairs then discussed what they had seem before completing a recall test
• 71% of participants mistakenly recalled aspects of event they did not see but had picked up in discussion
• in a control group, where there was no discussion, this figure was 0%