yuille and cutshall Flashcards
aim
to investigate whether eywitness accounts get distorted as a function of misleading post event information in a naturalistic setting
procedure
13 eye witnesses to a gun store robbery
in this robber a thief entered the store and tied up the owner and stole money and guns. The owner managed to untie himself and kill the robber, this was witnessed by 21 people.
4 months after the incident reasearchers
conducted interviews where some participants were asked leading questions and some werent
their responses were compared to official police reports to determine accuracy
results
misleading questions had very little effect on recall
conclusion
2 potential explanations:
reconstructive memory is a phenomenon only found in artificial conditions
the study tapped into flashbulb memory so the memory of the event became imprinted in the participants memory
pros and cons
pros:
uses real life event so has ecological validity
cons
relatively low sample size
hard to repeat