EWT - misleading questions and post event discussion

• What is meant by misleading questions?


  Any questions posted to a witness that encourages them to answer in a particular way. Eg. Did you see the man in glasses?
• What is response-bias explanation

  The wording of the question has no real effect on the pps memories, but just influences how they decide to answer. For example, they did not remember seeing a man in glasses but the question inferes they were present, they answer yes anyway.
• What is Substitution Explanation?

  PPS memories become fundamentally altered by the leading question. Eg. the man in glasses becomes substituted into the original memory and the pps really believe he was present.
• What was the aim of loftus research?

  To investigate wheather leading questions influence EWT
• What was the procedure of loftus research?

  PPS were shown a film of a car accident, the PPS were then split into 5 groups and each group was asked one of 5 questions.
• What were the 5 questions?

  1. How fast were the cars going when they contacted each other?

  2. How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?

  3. How fast were the cars going when they bumped each other?

  4. How fast were the cars going when they collided each other?

  5. How fast were the cars going when they smashed each other?
• What were the results of loftus study?

  PPS estimated cars which contacted were going 31MPH

  PPS estimated cars which smashed were going 41MPH

  When PPS were asked 1 week later wheather they had seen any broken glass. The PPS in the smashed group were more likely to answer yes.
• What were the Support for the response-bias explanation of Loftus study?

  Support for the response-bias explanation:

  1. PPS who originally heard smashed were more likely to estimate the speed 10MPH higher than those who heard contacted.

  2. So the adjective influences responce.
• What were the support for the substitution explanation?

  support for the substitution explanation:

  1. The critical verb altered the memory of the incident, with those in the smashed condition being more likely to report seeing glass that was not there.
• What is post event discussion?

  When co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with each other. Their EWT may become contaminated. This is because they combine misinformation from other witnesses with their own memories.
• Explain Gabberts research (2003)

  Each individual was shown a video of the same crime but filmed from different perspectives. This means that individuals could see different elements. PPS engaged in post-event discussion before individually completing a recall test.

  71% of PPS who engaged in PED mistakenly recalled aspects of the event they had never been exposed to.

  0% of PPS who never engaged in PED gave incorrect answers.

  This could be due to ISI and NSI.
• What is the real life applications?

  Loftus work has led to the careful consideration by police to develop how they question witnesses.
• What is the ecological valiadity?


  Watching a video of a crime does not provoke the same emotions as experiencing it in real life.
• What were the demand characterisitics?

  They reduce validity
• What is the evidence with individual differences?

  Age has a substantial effect on memory. Children/elderly have a shorter memory capacity.