eyewitness testimony: misleading information

Question 1

leading questions - what is the response bias explanation?

Answer 1

• wording doesn’t have effect on memory of event

- but does influence the kind of answer given

Question 2

leading questions - what is the substitution explanation?

Answer 2

• wording of question does affect memory

- interferes with original memory which distorts accuracy

Question 3

Loftus and Palmer (74) leading questions:

what is the procedure?

Answer 3

• 45 students watch film clip od car accident
• answer questions about speed
• critical questions was “how fast were the cars coming”

5 groups of participants given different verbs in the critical question: hit, bumped, collided, smashed, contacted

Question 4

Loftus and Palmer (74) leading questions:

what are the findings?

Answer 4

• “contacted” gave average speed guess of 31.8 mph
• “smashed” gave speed of 40.5 mph
• “smashed” also caused people to recall smashed glass when there wasn’t

Question 5

Loftus and Palmer (74) leading questions:

what is the conclusion?

Answer 5

• the leading question caused a biased eyewitness recall of events
• word smashed suggested higher speed than contacted

Question 6

post event discussion - what is memory contamination?

Answer 6

• when co-witnesses discuss the crime

- they mix (mis)information from other people with their own memories

Question 7

post event discussion (PED) - what is memory conformity?

Answer 7

• witnesses go along with each other to win social approval

- also may do it because they believe the other person’s right and they’re wrong

Question 8

Gabbert et al (2003) post-event discussion:

what is the procedure?

Answer 8

• paired participants watch video of same crime but they see different elements of it
• both people discuss what they saw before individually completing a test of recall

Question 9

Gabbert et al (2003) post-event discussion:

what is are the findings?

Answer 9

• 71% of participants mistakenly recall aspects of the video they didn’t see but heard about in the discussion
• in a control group where there was no discussion, there were no errors

Question 10

+ useful real life application

Answer 10

• Loftus (75) believe leading questions have such dogtrotting effect that price should be careful which questions they ask
• research into EWT can improve legal system

Question 11

• tasks are artificial (watching a car crash video)

Answer 11

• watch films doesn’t create the same stress of the an actual car crash (emotion effects memory)
• artificial tasks tell us little as it doesn’t account for emotion

Question 12

• individual differences

Answer 12

• it was said older people recall worse than younger ones
• Anastasi and Rhodes (06) found people 18-25 and 35-45 more accurate than 55-78 year olds
• all groups more accurate when identifying people of same age (age bias)