EWT: Misleading Information

Question 1

Eye witness testimony

Answer 1

-An individuals recall of details of events such as accidents and crimes which they have observed.
-This recall/account is then used in a legal context, i.e. court.
-The accuracy of these accounts can be effected by multiple factors such as misleading information and/or anxiety.

Question 2

Leading question

Answer 2

-A question which suggests a certain answer as a result of the way it was phrased.

Question 3

Response-bias explanation (Leading questions)

Answer 3

Suggests the wording of the question no actual effect on memories, just influences how one answers a question.

Question 4

Substitution explanation (Leading questions)

Answer 4

-the wording of a question actually changes the memory of the individual interviewed.
-A second condition of Loftus and Palmer(1974) found this as those who were asked about cars ‘smashing’ together were more likely to recall smashed glass in their recall of the car collision(when there never was any) in comparison to when they were asked about what happened when the cars ‘hit’ eachother.

Question 5

Loftus and Palmer(1974)

Answer 5

-Had participants watch film clips of car accidents and then had them interviewed on their account.
-Interview contained a critical question that was intended to effect their account of the event, the critical question used different verbs to describe the car collision.
-5 conditions, use of the verbs ‘hit’ ‘contacted’ ‘bumped’ ‘collided’ or ‘smashed’ when asked how fast the cars were going.
-The mean speed of the accounts from each word were then calculated.
-Found a mean of 31.8mph for the verb ‘contacted’ and a mean of 40.5 mph for the word ‘smashed’
-This suggests wording of a question effects how we recall an event.

Question 6

Post event discussion

Answer 6

When two or more eye witnesses discuss their recall of an event, potentially altering the accuracy of the witnesses recall.

Question 7

Gabbert (2003) (Post event discussion)

Answer 7

-Matched pairs.
-Each pair would view the same footage of a crime but each individual would see different aspects of this same crime.
-Pairs would then discuss what they saw afterwards, then completed individual recall tests.
-There was also a control group which didn’t discuss at all.
-Recall failure occured in 70% of cases involving discussion and 0% without post event discussion.

Question 8

Real life application of misleading information research.

Answer 8

Research into misleading information is useful as we can apply findings from research into the legal system and can help police officers how to get the most accurate eye witness recall.

Question 9

Loftus and Palmer (AO3)

Answer 9

-Loftus and Palmer’s study only required participants to watch film clips of car accidents.
-The experience of watching a car accident is far different from experiencing one first hand, due to the stress of a real life accident.
-This means it could be argued that studies like loftus and Palmer are useless in practical application of EWT to real accidents/crimes and it may be the case that loftus and Palmer’s findings are too pessimistic. Instead EWT could be far more accurate in more stressful situations.

Question 10

General weakness in studies of misleading info and EWT(AO3)

Answer 10

-Studies like loftus and Palmer and Gabbert are lab studies.
-Lab studies mean results may be subject to demand characteristics, I.e. participants may respond differently in order to please the researcher.