EWT - Misleading Information Flashcards
Leading questions
Response-bias explanation -
The wording of a question has no effect on memory, but influences the kind of answer given
Substitution explanation -
Wording of a question affects EWT by interfering with original memory and distorting it’s accuracy
Leading questions- Loftus and Palmer (1974)
Procedure -
Students watched film clips of car accidents and answered questions about the speed of the car with the critical verb in the question altered.
Findings/conclusions -
More neutral verbs elicited lower speed estimates - and more violent verbs elicited higher speed estimates.
The leading question verb biased the EW recall of the event.
Post-event discussion (PED)
Memory contamination-
When co-witnesses discuss a crime, they mix (mis)information from other witnesses with their own memories.
Memory conformity-
Witnesses go along with each other due to NSI or ISI
Gabbert et al (2003) - Post-event discussion
Procedure-
Pairs of pts watched a video of the same crime - but each pt was shown a different perspective of the crime so they could see elements in the event that the other could not
The pts discussed what they had seen before individually completing a recall test
Findings/conclusions
71% if pts mistakenly recalled events that they had not seen but had picked up in PED.
In a control group with no PED, no errors were made.
✅misleading information research has real-life applications
Important applications for police officers - as inaccurate EWT can have serious consequences.
Loftus (1975) stayed that police officers should take care in the phrasing of their questions so as not to distort EW memories.
Strength as psychologists have been able to actively benefit the effectiveness of the legal system and make a real difference in people’s lives
❌Loftus and Palmers research used artificial methods
Watching film clips of a crime is a very different experience to actually witnessing a crime. Real EW are likely to have experienced high levels of anxiety and stress that the research pts were not subject to.
In fact, Yuille and Cutshall (1986) found that witnesses of a traumatic armed robbery had extremely accurate recall after 4 months.
Weakness, as it shows that artificial tasks tell us little about how leading questions affect EWT in real situations.
❌individual differences may affect accuracy of EWT
Anastasi and Rhodes (2006)
Old people had less accurate EWT than young people in general
They also found that all age groups were more accurate in identifying suspects of their own age group (own-age bias)
Research often uses younger pts, so these findings cannot be applied to older people. Research also tends to use younger ‘suspects’ to identify - so it may seem that older people have worse recall, but the younger pts really have own-age bias, and if the suspect was older, older pts may have better recall
❌EWT lab studies are subject to demand characteristics
Research pts want to be helpful to the study, so if they are faced with a question that they do not know the answer to, they may say what they think the researchers want to hear.
If a pt hears the leading question ‘did you see a blue car’ and they respond with ‘yes’ even though there was no blue car, the researcher would view this as the leading question affecting the EW memory, when the pt may just be trying to comply with the research/researcher.
This notion weakens the internal validity of EWT research - as answers that EW give may not actually reflect their memories.
❌EWT research lacks external validity
Foster et al (1994)
EWT can have serious consequences in the real world, but not in research studies.
Real EW are aware of the importance of their testimony - and may search their memories with more effort than in a study because of this.
EWT may be more accurate in the real world because EW take their role more seriously
