A03

• What are the strengths of misleading information?

  1. Real-life applications
• What are the limitations of misleading information?

  1. Artificial tasks
  2. Individual differences
  3. Demand characteristics
• Strength = real-life applications

  • Research investigating misleading information on EWT has very important practical uses in real world
  • It has vast implications on the criminal justice system which relies heavily on accurate eyewitness identification for investigating and prosecuting crimes
  • Loftus’ research reveals leading questions can have such a distorting effect on memory that police officers need to be careful about how they phrase their questions
  • HOWEVER - Loftus and Palmer’s participants watched film in a lab setting so may have been less motivated to provide accurate responses
• Limitation = artificial tasks

  • A lot of the research lacks ecological validity as they were carried out in labs so don’t represent real-life
  • May lead to participants not taking them seriously and may not be as emotionally aroused as in a real accident
  • Yuille and Cutshall (1986) found that witnesses to an armed robbery in Canada gave very accurate reports of the crime for 4 months after the event despite initially being given misleading questions
  • May have less influence on real life EWT
• Limitation = individual differences

  • Evidence that older people are less accurate than younger people when giving eyewitness reports
  • A number of studies have found that elderly people have difficulty remembering the source of the information, even though their memory for the information itself is unimpaired
  • They therefore become more prone to the effect of misleading information when giving testimony
  • Suggests individual differences, age particularly, are an important factor
• Limitation = demand characteristics

  • It has been argued that many answers given in lab studies of EWT are the result of demand characteristics
  • Participants usually don’t want to let the researcher down and want to appear helpful and attentive
  • And such when asked a question they don’t know the answer to they may guess, especially if it’s a yes/no question