Misleading information affecting eye witness testimony

• MISLEADING INFORMATION= incorrect information given to an eyewitness usually after an event to distort the reality of what people remember.
• EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY= evidence given by an onlooker at the scene of a crime
• LEADING QUESTIONS= type of questions which suggests the answer that should be given affecting EWT.
• LEADING QUESTIONS= type of questions which suggests the answer that should be given affecting EWT.
• POST EVENT DISCUSSION= co-witnesses to a crime discuss the event with each other.

  • EWT becomes contaminated
  • due to them combining information from other memories
• LOFTUS AND PALMER 1974

  AIM; investigate the effect leading questions have on the accuracy of EWT.

  PROCEDURE; 15 students watched clips of traffic accidents and then gave questions about the accident, each ppts was randomly put into 1 group out of 5, and they were asked several questions, the critical question was to describe how fast the cars were going. ' How fast were the cars going when they (smashed, collided, bumped, hit, contacted) each other?'

  FINDINGS; mean estimated speed; Contacted- 31.8mph Smashed- 40.8mph
• RESPONSE BIAS EXPLANATION= suggests that wording of question does not affect our memories but influences how individuals answer the question.
• SUBSTITUTION EXPLAANTAION= wording of the question changes the ppts memory of the event to the point we add details to the memory to make it more consistent with what we believed happened
• SECOND EXPERIMENT

  • A week later ppts were asked if they saw any broken glass
  • those in the smashed condition were most likely to say yes even though there wasn't any
  • substitution bias
• GABBERT ET AL 2003

  PROCEDURE- 60 students into pairs, watched a video of a woman stealing money from a wallet, the video was filmed from different angles, discussed what they saw before testing their accuracy

  FINDINGS- 71 percent recalled information they had not seen, and 60 percent said the girl was guilty even though they did not see her commit the crime, in comparison to a controlled group who had recalled 0 percent information they had not seen
• Memory conformity= when a witness may alter their memories to gain social approval and to fit in with the group