The impact of leading questions on the accuracy of EWT

Question 1

What was the aim of Loftus and Palmer (1974) ‘s experiment?

Answer 1

To investigate the impact of leading questions upon the accuracy of EWT.

Question 2

What was the procedure of Loftus and Palmer (1974)’s experiment?

Answer 2

45 students watched a video of a car crash.
They were then asked a series of questions and one leading question. 1 - How fast were the cars going when they ‘smashed’ into each other?
2 - collided
3- bumped
4- hit
5- contacted

Question 3

What were the findings of Loftus and Palmer’s experiment?

Answer 3

The more aggressive the word used, the higher the speed of the cars were estimated. Which concluded that the way a question is worded can have an impact on the way eyewitnesses describe / recall an event.

Question 4

Evaluate the Loftus and Palmer experiment -

Answer 4

The study has poor ecological validity:
Loftus and Palmer’s study lacks ecological validity meaning that the study cannot be generalised to witness of real crimes. This is because watching a video clip of a car crash does not provoke the same emotional response as would witnessing a real life car crash. However, we cannot induce psychological trauma in a psychology study to truly simulate the stress of witnessing a real life crime.
The study also has poor population validity as they used students as participants. This is an issue because students are not representative of the general population. Most importantly students are ill-experienced drivers. Students therefore lack confidence in their ability to estimate speeds. Thus, the students may have been more influenced by the verb in the sentence than a more experienced driver.
Due to these weaknesses, it is difficult to conclude whether leading questions have a great deal of impact on EWT.