Lesson 10- Misleading Information And Eyewitness Testimony Flashcards
What is meant by eyewitness testimony?
Evidence supplied to a court by people who have seen a crime based on their memory
What are leading questions?
Questions phrased in a certain way to encourage a witness to give a certain answer
What is response bias
The argument that proposes the idea that leading questions DO NOT distort memory
- it only affects the answer an individual might give
What is substitution bias
Argues that leading questions DO distort memory because they contain misleading information
What was the experiment Loftus and Palmer came up with?
They showed 45 American students a film of a car crash and asked them to estimate the SPEED that the cars were travelling in when they crashed.
They used different words to describe the crash including: CONTACTED, HIT, BUMPED, COLLIDED, SMASH
What were the findings of this experiment
Participants in the “CONTACTED” condition
Estimated the speed as 31mph
Participants in the “SMASHED” condition
Estimated the speed to be 41mph
A WEEK LATER…
Participants were asked if they reported seeing glass even though there was none
32% of students in the smashed condition reported that there was broken glass
This shows that leading questions can have an affect on an individuals memory
Positive evaluations of LEADING QUESTIONS
This was a LABORATORY experiment therefore it was HIGHLY CONTROLLED.
This REDUCES the risk of EXTRANEOUS VARIABLES and
INCREASES the VALIDITY of results.
Additionally it can be replicated very easily, meaning it is more reliable
One NEGATIVE evaluation of leading questions experiment
This experiment has questionable ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
-Participants watched a video of a car crash.
-People who watch a real car accident may have a stronger EMOTIONAL CONNECTION to the event and may not be susceptible to LEADING QUESTIONS
Another NEGATIVE evaluation of leading questions
This study lacks POPULATION VALIDITY
-45 American students participated within this experiment, so they may not be as accurate in predicting car speeds. We cannot generalise these findings to older individuals as they may be more experienced drivers, and therefore less susceptible to leading questions.
What is meant by eyewitness testimony?
Evidence supplied to a court by people who have seen a crime based on their memory
What are leading questions?
Questions phrased in a certain way to encourage a witness to give a certain answer
What is response bias
The argument that proposes the idea that leading questions DO NOT distort memory
- it only affects the answer an individual might give
What is substitution bias
Argues that leading questions DO distort memory because they contain misleading information
What was the experiment Loftus and Palmer came up with?
They showed 45 American students a film of a car crash and asked them to estimate the SPEED that the cars were travelling in when they crashed.
They used different words to describe the crash including: CONTACTED, HIT, BUMPED, COLLIDED, SMASH
What were the findings of this experiment
Participants in the “CONTACTED” condition
Estimated the speed as 31mph
Participants in the “SMASHED” condition
Estimated the speed to be 41mph
A WEEK LATER…
Participants were asked if they reported seeing glass even though there was none
32% of students in the smashed condition reported that there was broken glass
This shows that leading questions can have an affect on an individuals memory
