EWT: Leading questions

Question 1

What is an eyewitness testimony?

Answer 1

Information given by a witness to a crime

Question 2

Who studied leading questions?

Answer 2

Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Question 3

What do eyewitness testimonies include?

Answer 3

Facts like location, time, events of the crime scene and appearance of the criminal

Question 4

What can EWT be impacted by?

Answer 4

Faults in memory and leading questions

Question 5

What is a leading question?

Answer 5

Questions that potentially guide a witness to a certain answer

Question 6

Procedure of Loftus and Palmer (1974) (original)

Answer 6

Participants shown film of 2 cars crashing and were asked questions about the events of the car crash
“How fast were the cars going when they hit”?
Hit was substituted for different words for different participants:
Smashed, bumped, contacted, collided

Question 7

What were the words used in Loftus and Palmer to describe the car collision?

Answer 7

Smashed, bumped, contacted, collided, hit

Question 8

Loftus and Palmer (1974) original findings

Answer 8

Diff speed estimates for diff words used
Higher speeds for “smashed” on average estimated 41 mph
Contacted = lowest average speed, 32 mph

Question 9

Which word gave the highest estimated speed in Loftus and Palmer (1974)?

Answer 9

Smashed

Question 10

Which word gave the lowest estimated speed in Loftus and Palmer (1974)?

Answer 10

Contacted

Question 11

Loftus and Palmer (1974) second study procedure

Answer 11

Three groups:
Group 1 - Given word “smashed”
Group 2 - Given word “hit”
Group 3 - Given no suggestion of car speed
After a week, participants were invited back and asked “Did you see any broken glass?”
There was no broken glass (correct answer

Question 12

Loftus and Palmer (1974) second study findings

Answer 12

Group 1 (smashed) more likely to report broken glass than other groups

Question 13

Conclusion for both Loftus and Palmer

Answer 13

Both experiments support conclusion that leading questions can affect accuracy of EWT (even by changing one word)

Question 14

Strengths of Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Answer 14

Lab study - good control of extraneous variables
Real-life applications - Police officers could use this to conduct more realiable and trustworthy police interviews. Police officers should set guidelines and give info on how to formulate non-leading questions

Question 15

Weaknesses of Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Answer 15

Artificial situation - Film was shown and artificial setting, may not give accurate depiction of EWT
Real-life scenarios like car crashes can be traumatic and emotionally arousing - this trauma can have an effect on memory
Demand characteristics - May have realised study was about vulnerability to leading questions, decreased reliability and validity