misleading info

• what are two forms of misleading information


  leading questions

  post event discussion
• define a leading question


  A question which, because of the way it is phrased, suggests a certain answer.
• who studied leading questions


  loftus and palmer - reconstruction of an automobile destruction
• how did loftus and palmer study leading questions


  2 experiments
• experiment 1 of loftus and palmer procedure


  students watched film clips of traffic accidents and were asked questions after

  the critical question was 'how fast were the cars going when they ___' the verb was replaced with hit/smashed/collided/bumped and contacted
• experiment 1 of loftus and palmer results and conclusion


  participants who had the word smashed gave higher speed estimated (avg 41mph) than those who had the word contacted (31 mph)

  
  

  they concluded that leading questions can easily influence the accuracy of ewt
• evaluation of loftus and palmer (positive)


  good control of extraneous variables

  - lab study, all saw same video and in same location with the same or few distractions

  - participants were well matched

  
  

  useful application to criminal investigations

  - helps have a fair trial or get information a lawyer wants by using a leading question

  - it shows the importance of not using leading questions to avoid a wrongful conviction
• evaluation of loftus and palmer (negative)


  lacks ecological validity

  - watching a video is not the same as irl which would have more distractions but also more cues such as smells and noise which may prompt more recall

  
  

  demand characteristics

  - hard to tell if a memory has been distorted because we dont know how the participant stored it originally but any change in facts could be due to demand characteristics because of how participants think they should respond in a study

  
  

  individual differences

  - better drivers will have a better perception of speed regardless of the word used

  - university students were used, they have a good memory for exams etc whereas the general population may have a worse memory = population validity badd
• experiment 2 of loftus and palmer (procedure)


  they wanted to see if leading questions alters a memory and subsequent answers

  
  

  they asked participants the speed question with either smashed or hit or didnt ask them at all (control) then got them to come back a week later and asked them 'did you see any broken glass' (there was none)
• experiment 2 of loftus and palmer (results and conclusion)


  those that had smashed: 32% said yes there was broken glass

  hit: 14%

  control: 12%

  
  

  concluded that there is:

  responce bias

  - suggests that the Q has no real effect on actual memory but the Q influences how people answer the question

  - however this is essentially disproved by the second experiment because the answer should not have been affected by the previous question

  
  

  subsitution explanation

  - that information retained at the time of an event can be altered or influenced by information presented after

  - loftus and palmer suggested that the wording of the Q actually changes the persons memory
• what is post event discussion


  when co-witnesses talk about the event with each other which can contaminate EWT
• who studied post event discussion


  gabbert et al
• how did gabbert study post event discussion


  -participants were put in pairs where each person watches a different perspective of a robbery so that each person viewed unique items eg only one participant can actually see a wallet being taken

  - in one condition participants were encouraged to discuss the event before each person individully recalled what they watched

  
  

  in the control group there was no discussion
• gabberts conclusion


  71% of witnesses who had discussed the event reported items they had not actually witnessed but had aquired during the discussion

  
  

  in the control group there was 0% of witnesses reporting items they hadn't seen
• why does post event discussion affect EWT?

  source confusion

  - according to the source monitoring theory, memories of the event are genuinely distorted. eyewitnesses can recall information about the event (both accurate and inaccurate) but they cant recall where it came from (eg if it was their own info or anothers), called source confusion

  
  

  conformity explanation

  - argues that eyewitnesses memories are not actually distorted but only appears to distort the memory because the participant changes their answer in order to get social approval (NSI) or because they believe the other witness is right (ISI)
• evaluation of misleading information (positive) disneyland


  loftus + palmer broken glass has been supported by other studies

  - college students asked about disneyland from when they went to it as a kid

  - in the questions was misleading info about bugs bunny (not disney) or ariel (not created when they visited)

  - participants in the bugs or ariel group were more likely to have reported meeting these characters

  
  

  Demonstrates the creation of an inaccurate memory - substitution explanation like in loftus and palmer + shows it in a meaningful situation in a real memory
• evaluation of misleading information (negative)


  not all researchers agree with the conclusions from loftus + palmers lab studies

  - foster et al, found that if participnts thought they were watching a real life robbery + that their responces wuld influence a trial then the robber identification was more accurate and less influenced by misleading info
• evaluation of misleading information (negative) individual differences


  individual differences may mean some people are more or less vunerable to misleading info when giving testimony

  - research has found that compared to younger people, elderly witnesses have difficulty remembering the source of data so they are more vulnerable to the effects of misleading info