Misleading Information

• A leading question is a question which suggests a certain answer in the way they are worded
• Leading questions may result in response bias

  The eye witness does not answer the question accurately: they answer how they think they should answer
• Loftus & Palmer investigated the effect of leading questions on eyewitness testimony
• Procedure of Research into Leading Questions

  45 American students participated in a lab experiment with 5 conditions. Participants watched a film of a traffic accident. After watching the film they were asked a key question, 'How fast were the cars going when they [ ] into each other?'

  Depending on the condition, the blank space was filled with one of the following words: smashed, collided, bumped, hit, contacted
• Findings of Research into Leading Questions

  Researchers found participants in the 'smashed' condition reported the highest average speed estimate (40 mph) and 'contacted with the lowest (32 mph).

  The researchers concluded that information after the event in the form of a leading question can result in unreliable eyewitness testimony.
• Post-event discussion happens when witnesses talk to each other about what they saw some time after an event
• Procedure of Research into Post-event Discussion:

  Gabbert et al got participants to watch a video of a crime. Half the participants saw it from one angle, and half from a different angle. There were certain aspects of the crime that could only be seen from one of the angles. Participants were put into pairs where they discussed what they had seen, before being asked to individually complete a test of ther recall of the event.
• Findings of Research into Post-event Discussion:

  The findings showed that 71% of the participants recalled something that they could not have seen from the angle that they had seen the crime from in the video
• A strength of the effect of misleading information on eyewitness testimony is research from Loftus (and others) have conducted many studies showing the effects of misleading information on eyewitness testimony, with similar findings. As results are reliable and consistant accross multiple studies we can say there is high concurrent validity. Therefore we can trust the conclusion that misleading info lowers reliabilty of eyewitness testimony
• Evidence supporting misleading information in eyewitness testimony come from lab experiements. Meaning they lack ecological validity due to standard conditions and artificial tasks. Therefore cannot be applied to real life situations
• Conducting research into eyewitness testimony raises ethical issues, particlularly of informed consent and protection from harm. Lack fully informed consent as partcipants cannot know the full details of the experiment, otherwise they would not be able to collect results showing effects of the misleading information.

  Also a risk of harm as participants often witnessed quite graphic videos which may have had a strong negative effect on their mental health