Post Event Discussion

Question 1

Who conducted RTS?

Answer 1

Skagerberg and Wright

Question 2

What did Skagerberg and Wright do?

Answer 2

They showed participants two versions of a film clip of a mugging, one in which a mugger’s hair was dark brown and the other light brown. The participants discussed the clips in pairs, each having seen different versions

Question 3

What did Skagerberg and Wright find?

Answer 3

Found that often they did not report what they heard from their co-witness, but rather a blend saying the mugger had ‘medium brown hair’ - supporting memory contamination

Question 4

What was S&W’s research affected by?

Answer 4

Demand characteristics

Question 5

Why was the research affected by demand characteristics?

Answer 5

It was conducted in a controlled environment with the unrealistic task such as watching video clips of crimes

Question 6

What did the research find?

Answer 6

That participants usually want to be helpful and not let the researcher down so it is possible that participants from the research are able to pick up on clues from the task and experimenter and change their responses to fit the aims of the research e.g changing response to match co-witness

Question 7

What does demand characteristics lower?

Answer 7

The internal validity of the research