Misleading Information

• Some factors that can affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony within misleading information, include: leading questions, post event discussion, conformity effect & repeat interviewing.
• Loftus & Palmer 1974 looked into the effects of leading questions- Experiment 1:

  • 45 students shown 7 films of different traffic accidents.
  • After each film, PPs given a questionnaire which asked them to describe the accident & then answer a series of specific questions about it.
  • Critical question: "about how fast were the cars going when they hit each other"- 1 group given this question, other group were given the words: smashed, collided, bumped, contacted in place of the word hit.
  • Findings: leading questions affect the response given by PPs.
• Loftus & Palmer 1974- Experiment 2:

  • The leading question may bias a PPs response or may actually cause information to be altered before it is stored.
  • New set of PPs divided into 3 groups & shown a film of a car accident lasting 1 minute & asked questions about speed.
  • PPs then asked to return 1 week later when they were asked 10 questions about the accident, including the critical question: "did you see any broken glass".
  • There was no broken glass in the film, but presumably, those who though the car was travelling faster might be more likely to think that there would be broken glass.
• Loftus & Palmer 1974 Experiment 2- Findings:

  • The leading question did change the actual memory a PP had for the event.
• Misleading Information:

  • Wording of the question changes people's recall & therefore reduces the accuracy of their response.
  • Misleading information reduces the accuracy of recall/ eyewitness testimony.
• Evaluation of Misleading Information- Strength: 1

  • Has been considerable support for research on the effect of misleading information- Braun conducted a study involving a cut out of Bugs Bunny & asked college students to evaluate advertising material about Disneyland.
  • Embedded in this material was misleading information about either Bugs Bunny or Ariel (neither character had been introduced at Disneyland at this time).
  • All PPs visited Disneyland & were assigned to the Bugs Bunny, Ariel or control condition.
• Evaluation of Misleading Information- Strength: 2

  • PPs in Bugs B or Ariel group were more likely to report having shaken hands with these characters than the control group.
  • This shows how misleading information can create an inaccurate (false) memory.
• Evaluation of Misleading Information- Weakness:

  • Eyewitness Testimony was suggested by Loftus' research to be generally inaccurate & therefore unreliable, but not all researchers agree with this conclusion.
  • Lab experiments such as those carried out by Loftus may not represent real life, because people don't take the experiment seriously and/ or they are not emotionally aroused in the way that they would be in a real accident.
  • Therefore, lacks ecological validity.
• Evaluation of Misleading Information- Weakness:

  • Participants may have guessed what the researcher was after & this would affect results.
  • Demand characteristics= lacks internal validity.
• Evaluation of Misleading Information- Strength:

  • Reliable results as experiment was done in a lab & so can therefore be easily replicated.
• Post-event Discussion:

  • The memory of an event may be altered or contaminated through discussing events with others and/or being questioned multiple times.
• Conformity Effect:

  • Co-witnesses may reach a consensus view of what actually happened. This was investigated by Fiona Gabbert et al (2003).
  • PPs were in pairs where each partner watched a different video of the same event, so that they each viewed unique items.
  • Pairs in one condition were encouraged to discuss the event before each partner individually recalled the event they watched.
  • 71% of witnesses who had discussed the event went on to mistakenly recall items acquired during the discussion.
• Repeat Interviewing:

  • Each time an eyewitness is interviewed, there is the possibility that comments from the interviewer will become incorporated into their recollection of events.
  • An interviewer may use leading questions & thus alter the individuals' memory for events.
  • This is especially the case when children are being interviewed about a crime (LouRooy et al, 2005).
• Evaluation for Misleading Information- Strength:

  • Plenty of supporting evidence- Braun et al provided PPs with false advertising material about Disneyland (including Bugs Bunny even though he's not a Disneyland character).
  • Those who had this misleading info were more likely to say they'd met him when later visiting Disneyland.
  • Supports that misleading information can create inaccurate/ false memories.
• Evaluation for Misleading Information- Weakness:

  • A lot of the research support lacks ecological validity.
  • Studies done involving witnessing real life crimes, or at least believing they were real, made testimony more accurate.
  • Suggests that misleading information may have less influence on real life Eyewitness Testimony.
• Evaluation for Misleading Information- Weakness:

  • Schacter found that compared to younger PPs, elderly people have difficulty remembering the source of their memory (ie, saw first hand, or heard about it after), & are therefore more prone to the effect of misleading information.
  • Suggests that the effects of misleading information are influenced by other variables.
• Evaluation for Misleading Information- Strength:

  • Has real world applications.
  • Recent DNA exoneration cases have shown how unreliable Eyewitness Testimony can be, showing mistaken identity by a witness was the single largest contributing factor in conviction of innocent people (Wells & Olson 2003).
  • Supports that Eyewitness Testimony is unreliable.