Misleading Information: Factors affecting EWT

• Misleading information is information given after the event that could suggest to the eyewitness that something slightly different happened to what actually did. We will look at leading questions and post-event discussion as examples of this.
• Leading questions: These are questions which suggests the answer that should be given. This a problem during EWT because the interviewer could ask a question that directs the witnesses' answer.
• Loftus and Palmer (1974) showed 45 students several film clips of traffic accidents. They were then asked several questions about the accidents including one critical question - 'About how fast was the car going when it…the other car?' The students were divided into five groups with each group given a different verb: smashed, collided, bumped, hit, and contacted. The leading question had an effect on what was remembered with those in the 'smashed' condition reporting a mean speed estimate of 40.8mph, and those in the 'contacted' condition reporting a mean speed estimate of 31.8mph.
• There are mixed views on how leading questions influence EWT. Response bias- the wording of the question doesn't alter an individual's memory, instead they are just biasedly responding to the question based on how the question influenced them to answer. However, L+P dispute this and suggest LQ do actually alter their memory.
• A week later all of their participants were asked if they saw any broken glass and Those in the 'smashed' condition more likely to say yes even though there wasn't any. This is known as substitution and shows us how leading questions can change our whole perception of the event to the point we change it to make it more consistent with what we believed happened.
• Post event discussion: Witnesses of crime may discuss what they saw with other witnesses.
• Gabbert et al. placed student participants into pairs and made each of them watch a video clips of the same crime but it was filmed from different positions. One of the pps saw things that the other was unable to see. They then discussed what they saw before being given a test that measured the accuracy of their recall. 71% of the witnesses recalled information they had not seen and 60% said that the girl was guilty of this crime even though they had not actually seen her commit this.
• When witnesses of crime discuss this event with one another, this can distort their original memory and change this to what others reported (creating an inaccurate EWT as a result). This is known as memory contamination and their memory is changed as a result.
• On the other hand, memory conformity could occur. This is when witness may alter their memories to gain social approval. They simply go along with what other witnesses say in order to fit in with them. As a result of this, the real memory does not change privately (only publically).
• A strength of the research into misleading information is that it has many useful implications. The cognitive interview has been developed to ensure leading questions are not present by ensuring this is interviewee lead (rather than interviewer). Furthermore, witness testimonies are gathered as soon as possible following the event to avoid post-event discussion distorting memories. This is a strength because the work into this field has allowed us to ensure as best as possible that innocent individuals are not convicted of crimes they did not commit.
• a limitation is that both studies discussed here suffer from low population validity as they were both carried out on students. The relevance of this is that some researchers have found that different age groups have poorer memories for things they have witnessed. For example, Anastasi and Rhodes (1995) found that older participants remembered slightly less overall than younger participants. This means that different ages may be more/less likely to be influenced by this misleading information. This is a limitation because the results of these studies might not apply to everyone.
• limitation- low ecological validity. This is because both 'crimes' involved watching a fake video clip. It is possible that the participants in these studies did not see the crime as important so payed less attention to the important elements of this crime. As a result, they were more susceptible to changing their witness accounts because they were generally unsure of the correct information required from their account. This is a limitation because in real life settings, individuals may not be influenced by misleading information in the same way as what was seen in these studies.
• A final limitation is that most of the research into misleading information involves lab studies. Whilst this does give the researchers a high degree of control, it does mean that demand characteristics are more likely to occur. For example, in Loftus and Palmer's (1974) study, participants may have given their answer to help the researchers out as opposed to saying what they actually believed. This limits the validity of the research into this theory.