Interviewing Witnesses: Loftus- Weapon Focus Flashcards
How many participants were there in the study and where were they from? What were their ages? How were they recruited?
There were 36 students from the University of Washington, aged 18-31. Half of these were recruited through an advertisement and were paid $3.50 for their participation whereas the others were psychology students and were given extra credit for participating.
What type of experiment was the Loftus weapon focus study?
A laboratory experiment
How many sets of 35mm slides were used in the study, how many slides were in each set and what did they show?
There were 2 sets of slides with 18 in each. The slides showed people queuing in a Taco Time restaurant. In the control group, person B paid with a cheque. In the experimental group, he pulls out a gun. All the other slides in both sets were identical and were shown for 1.5 seconds.
What else were the participants given?
They were given a line up of 12 head and shoulder photos in a random sequence and were asked to rate how they were sure of the identification on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 6 (highest).
What were the participants told the study was about?
Proactive Interference
What was the independent variable?
Person B’s gun
What was the dependent variable measured?
Through a 20 item multiple-choice questionnaire
What did the questionnaire answers show?
It showed no significant difference between the two conditions.
What were the findings in the control and experimental groups?
Control: 38.9% chose the correct person B (7 people) against 11.1 percent in the weapon condition (2 people). There were no differences in confidence of the two groups.
Discussion points
Participants spent more time looking at the gun and therefore had difficulty to pick a suspect.
A second experiment with 80 psychology students supported the findings.
Weapons definitely had an effect on the witness and their testimony.
