Memory - Misleading Information (Leading Qs and Post Event Discussion

Question 1

Leading Questions AO1

Answer 1

• did they have a blue hoodie on?
• giving it a trigger
• non-leading questions: what were they wearing?
• key researchers Loftus and Palmer (1974)
• 45 participants split into 5 groups of 9
• if they were doing different things the design would be independent
• how fast were they going when they__
  Group 1 - hit (34)
  Group 2 - contacted (31.8)
  Group 3 - bumped (38.1)
  Group 4 - collided (39.3)
  Group 5 - smashed (40.8) (smashed is a leading question as it insinuated the cars smashed and was going at a high speed)

Response bias - the wording of the question has no real effect on the participants memories but just interferes with how they decide to answer
substitutional explanation - the wording of a leading question changes the participant’s memory of the film clip

Question 2

Post Event Discussion AO1

Answer 2

Fiona Gabbert

Two people watched the same clip

Hypothesis – Following Wright et al. (200) it was hypothesized

Participants – sixty students from the University

Simulated crime event video description

Procedure – a checklist containing 39 items of information about the sequence of actions and events that took place in the videos was constructed for scoring purposes. Free-recall data was coded according to whether it was a correct item of information, or an ‘extra’ item of information encountered from a co-witness

Content analysis (coding) – scored about whether it was correct, incorrect, or a piece of information from the co-witness

Findings
Accepting of or rejection of hypothesis – this confirms the hypothesis that witnesses will supplement their own memories of an event with information gained from a co-witness

Conclusion and evidence of memory conformity effect – In conclusion, it is human nature for people to discuss their shared experiences especially if they concern something out of the ordinary such as witnessing a crime. However, as the present results clearly demonstrate, if witnesses discussed an event with one another then the police should take great care not to give undue weight to the consistency of their independent statements when judging their accuracy

Application to collection of eyewitness testimony

Memory contamination – memory gets contaminated with the other persons and they get mixed up

Memory conformity – simply saying it in order to conform

Question 3

AO3 Generalised

Answer 3

• One weakness of all of the research is that it is often based on lab studies
• For example, Zaragosa and McCloskey (1989) argue that many answers participants give in a lab study are a result of demand characteristics. Participants usually do not want to let the researcher down, and want to appear helpful and therefore often guess what they think the researcher wants to hear.
• This is a weakness of the theory because it suggests many of the conclusions about the effect of misleading information may not be based on natural behaviour. Instead, it may in fact be measuring the participants’ ability to second guess the hypothesis.
• However, it can be argued that lab studies have a greater control over the variables showing that the research has high internal validity, therefore increasing it’s reliability and replicability
• Despite this, it still lacks generalisability as their behaviour cannot be applied to real life scenarios
• Thus reducing the external validity of the research

Question 4

AO3 Leading Questions

Answer 4

• One weakness of all of the research is that it is often based on lab studies
• For example, Zaragosa and McCloskey (1989) argue that many answers participants give in a lab study are a result of demand characteristics. Participants usually do not want to let the researcher down, and want to appear helpful and therefore often guess what they think the researcher wants to hear.
• This is a weakness of the theory because it suggests many of the conclusions about the effect of misleading information may not be based on natural behaviour. Instead, it may in fact be measuring the participants’ ability to second guess the hypothesis.
• However, it can be argued that lab studies have a greater control over the variables showing that the research has high internal validity, therefore increasing it’s reliability and replicability
• Despite this, it still lacks generalisability as their behaviour cannot be applied to real life scenarios
• Thus reducing the external validity of the research