EWT: misleading information

• misleading information

  supplying information that may lead to an witness' memory to be altered.
• leading question

  a question that suggests to the witness an answer which is desired
• aim of loftus and palmer

  investigate the effects of misleading information on EWT, specifically leading questions.
• procedure of loftus and palmer

  45 participants were shown seven videos of traffic accidents and had to answer questions including a critical question. the verbs used in the critical questions were hit, smashed, collided, contacted and bumped. those who had the more aggressive verb in the question reported a higher mean speed. the verb speed, participants said the speed was 40mph. when the verb was contacted, they said it was 30mph
• experiment 2 of loftus and palmer

  new participants were shown traffic accidents and the same questions. they were later asked if they saw any broken glass. those asked about the speed with aggressive verbs such as smashed reported seeing glass even though there was no glass.
• findings of loftus and palmer

  experiment 1: smashed 40mph, contacted 31mph

  experiment 2: 47% reported broken glass in smashed condition
• post event discussion

  a conversation between co witnesses or an interviewer and an eyewitness after a crime has taken place which may contaminate a witness' memory of the event.
• gabbert (strength)

  investigated the effects of post event discussion. participants were in pairs and each partner watched a different video of the same event. pairs in one condition were told to discuss the video. 71% of them mistakenly included information from their partners video.
• individual differences (limitation)

  investigating EWT concerns individual differences of witnesses. eye witnesses get information from two sources, observing the event and misleading information. schater found that elferly people have difficulty remembering the source of information and so are more likely to include information from post event discussion. whereas loftus and palmers study suggests it effects everyone equally
• yuille and cutshall (limitation)


  found that witnesses to an armed robbery in canadagave accurate reports of the crime 4 months later despite being given to misleading questions. this suggests misleading information has less influence of real EWT than loftus research suggests
• larooy (strength)


  found that repeat interviews on people especially children increases the likelihood of interviewees including information given to them by the interview in their EWT. repeated questions can distort the child memory