misleading information

Question 1

eyewitness testimony

Answer 1

the ability of people to remember the details of events - accidents and crimes

accuracy can be affected by misleading information and anxiety

Question 2

misleading information

Answer 2

incorrect information given to an eyewitness usually after the event

• can take many forms eg leading questions and post-event discussion between co-witnesses

Question 3

leading questions

Answer 3

a question which, because of the way it is phrased, suggests a certain answer

Question 4

post-event discussion

Answer 4

occurs when there is more than one witness to an event

witnesses may discuss what they have seen with co-witnesses or with other people

may influence accuracy

Question 5

research on leading questions - procedure

Answer 5

Loftus and Palmer - 45 participants watch film clips of car accidents - ask them questions

asked how fast the cars were travelling when they hit each other
verb - contacted, bumped, collided, smashed

Question 6

research on leading questions - findings

Answer 6

mean estimate speed for each group

verb contacted - 31.8
smashed 40.5

Question 7

why do leading questions affect eye witness testimony

Answer 7

response-bias explanation suggests the wording of the question has no real effect on the participants’ memories - influences how they answer

smashed - encourages to choose higher speed

substitution explanation - wording of leading question changes memory of clip

Question 8

leading question second experiment

Answer 8

Loftus and Palmer

• second experiment - supported substitution explanation

asked if saw broken glass

participants who heard smashed were more likely to report seeing broken glass

Question 9

research on post-event discussion procedure

Answer 9

Gabbert et al - studied participants in pairs

each participant watched video of the same crime but filmed from different points of view

• see elements the other could not eg one only sees title of book

Question 10

research on post-event discussion findings

Answer 10

71% of participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event they did not see in the video but picked up during discussion

control where no discussion was 0%

Question 11

why does post-event discussion affect eyewitness testimony

Answer 11

memory contamination - co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with eachother - eyewitness testimonies may become altered or distorted - combine misinformation from other witnesses with their own memories

conformity - Gabbert et al - concluded that witnesses often go along with eachother - win social approval or because other is correct - actual memory is unchanged

Question 12

real-world application

Answer 12

P - strength is it is important practical uses in the criminal justice system
E - consequences of inaccurate eye witness testimony serious - Loftus believes leading questions have distorting effect on memory
E - police offers need to be careful - psychologists are sometimes asked to act as expert witnesses in court trials - explain the limits of eyewitness testimony to juries
L - psychologists can help to improve the way to legal system works, protecting innocent people from faulty convictions based on unreliable eyewitness testimony

P - practical application for eyewitness testimony may be affected by issues with research
E - Loftus and palmer - participants watched film clips in lab
E - Foster et al - eyewitnesses remember has important consequences but responses in research do not matter in the same way
L - researchers such as Loftus are too pessimistic about effects of misleading information - ewt more dependable than studies suggest

Question 13

evidence against substitution

Answer 13

P - limitation of substitution is ewt more accurate for some aspects of an event than others
E - Sutherland and Hayne - participants video clip - later asked misleading questions
E - recall more accurate for central details of event than peripheral ones - memories relatively resistant to misleading information
L - original memories for central details survived and not distorted - not predicted by substitution explanation

Question 14

evidence challenging memory conformity

Answer 14

P - limitation of memory conformity explanation is evidence that post-event discussion alters EWT
E - participants showed film - two version - mugger with different hair
E - discussed in pars having seen different versions - did not report what they hard but a blend of two eg medium brown not light or dark
L - suggests that memory itself is distorted through contamination by misleading post-event discussion, rather than the result of memory conformity