L10 - Eyewitness Testimony, PED, MQs Flashcards
What is eyewitness testimony?
Evidence supplied to court by people who observed a crime based on their memory of the incident
What are leading questions?
Questions phrased in a certain way to elicit a particular response from the person
What is response bias?
Explanation that leading q’s don’t affect memory, just the answer the person decided to give
What is substitution bias?
Explanation that leading q’s distort a person’s memory due to the misleading info, affecting their response
Details of Loftus’s car crash video experiment?
45 American students
Asked to estimate speed cars before crash, substituting the verb
Results when asked about speed?
Smashed: 41mph
Contacted: 31mph
Results when asked a week later about seeing broken glass even though there wasn’t any?
Smashed: 32%
Contacted: 12%
How does post-event discussion affect memory?
Discussing with others the events can distort memory, and social approval desire leads to consensus view
Experiment for post-event discussion procedure details
Pairs
Two different videos of same event
One condition discussed, other didn’t
Post-event discussion experiment results?
In discussion condition, 71% recalled details of partner’s video during individual recall
Advantage related to misleading broken headlight question? MQ
Asked did you see the/a broken headlight 20 mins after car crash video
7% of ‘a’ said yes
17% of ‘the’
Advantage related to white barn question MQ
17% recalled white barn a week later even though there wasn’t one
Watched a car drive and asked how fast when going past white barn
Disadvantage related to Canadian robbery? MQ
Eyewitnesses of a robbery had an accurate recall despite 2 LQs 4 months after
+ sample
PED
Student and older adults
Statistical test to find significant different found no difference
PED affects them in same way - pop validity
- related to cause PED
Study doesn’t explain why
Could be conformity due to co-witness social pressure or inability to differentiate
