misleading information

• What is misleading information


  Incorrect information given to eye witness post event

  Leading questions

  Post event discussion
• leading questions


  the way it‘s worded might influence how respondent answers. loftus says subtle change to word affect eye witness testimony
• post event discussion


  between two co-eyewitnesses. gabbert, post event discussion influence accuracy of eye witness testimony of individual eye witness contaminated by being exposed to memories of other eye witnesses
• leading question studies


  loftus and palmer

  loftus and palmer

  loftus and zaniness

  loftus
• loftus and palmer 1


  video clip of traffic accent

  45 participants

  ‘how fast were the cars going when they ? eachother’

  most severe- smashed, 41 mph

  least sever— contacted, 32 mph
• Loftus and palmer 2


  Video of traffic accident (no broken glass)

  150 participants

  50- smashed, 50- hit, 50- control group

  1 week later ‘did you see any broken glass’

  Smashed - 32% yes

  Hit- 14% yes
• loftus and zanni 


  video of traffic accident (no broken headlight)

  ‘did you see a broken headlight?’ or ‘did you see the broken headlight‘ (leading qustion)

  the - more than 2x likely to say yes
• loftus


  slides showing theft of red purse from handbag

  account of theft allegedly written by professor of psychology

  included ‘ purse was brown’

  all but 2 people rejected statement
• explanations of leading questions


  substitute explanation

  response-bias explanation
• Substitute explanation


  Wording of leading question changes participants perception of event. Perception stored in memory of event

  Supports reconstructive memory hypothesis - info gathered at time of event modified by data gathered after, reconstruct memory to combination of what actually saw and misleading information
• response bias explanation


  wording of questions doesn’t lead to creation of false memory, influences how they decide to answer