Psychology - Factors that affect EWT Flashcards
Studies should know - Factors that affect EWT
Loftus X2
Loftus & Burns
Poole & Lindsay
What factors affect EWT?
Leading questions Age of witness Anxiety Consequentiality Individual differences
What year were Loftus’ studies?
1975
1979
1980
1982 (with Burns)
Loftus 1975
Showed participants film of events leading up to a car crash
Independent group design
Control asked how fast car was going past the ‘stop sign’ experimental group asked but when going past barn
There was a stop sign but no barn in film
When later questioned further, 17% of experimental group reported seeing a barn while only 3% of control group reported this
Loftus 1975 conclusion
Participants in the experimental group absorbed the post-event information about the barn into their original memory
They actually believed they had seen it
Loftus 1980
Tested to make sure demand characteristics didn’t cause result of leading question study
Offered varying cash incentives; no money, to $25 to person who gets most answers correct
Independent groups saw film of pedestrian being knocked over by stop or yield sign
2 days later fed misleading information that it was the opposite sign to their film
Got ppts to look at slides and point out which one was from original film
Over 70% choose slide according to leading question
List 1986
Questioned people on events they would expect to see during shoplifting scenario
Then showed new participants a video with 8 different scenarios and included both high and low probability elements she got from the questioning
Questioned ppts a week later
High probability elements easy to remember, low probability hard and high probability events reported that hadn’t occured
Loftus and Burns
1982
Showed some participants a particularly violent version of a crime where a boy was shot in the face
These participants had significantly impaired recall of events leading up to crime
Too much anxiety
What year was List?
1986
Loftus 1979
Weapon effect
Participants asked to sit outside a lab and overheard what they thought was a real conversation
One group heard hostile argument followed by sounds of breaking glass. Then saw a man come out with a blood covered knife
Others heard amicable discussion about equipment failure and saw a man with greasy hands holding a pen leave
Ppts shown pictures and asked to identify man who left the room
Those who overhead violent scene less accurate in recall - weapon drew their attention away from his face
Who and when looked at weapon effect?
Loftus 1979
Who looked at age of witness and when?
Poole and Lindsay 2001
Yarmey 1984
Poole and Lindsay
Children aged 3-8 took part in a science demonstration
Parents then read a story that included the info on the science demonstration and novel information
When questioned about the demonstration they had added novel information to memory
In another phase they were asked to think about where they got the extra info from
Some older children changed their account back to real one but younger ones couldn’t do this
Important for measuring accuracy of young children testimony as they have poor source monitoring
Source monitoring
Thinking about where you got information in memories from
Yarmey
When questioned about a stage event 80% of elderly participants forgot to mention the attacker had a knife in his hands
Compared to 20% of younger participants
