misleading information

• misleading information

  incorrect information given to an eyewitness usually after the event.

  can take forms of leading questions and post-event discission between co-witnesses
• leading question

  question which suggests a certain answer due to how it was phrased
• post-even discussion

  occurs when there is more than one witness to an event

  witnesses may discuss what they have seen with other people and it may influence the accuracy of recall of the event
• research on leading questions - procedure

  Loftus + Palmer

  45 participants watched film clips of car accidents and then they were asked questions about the accident.

  the leading question (how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?) asked how fast the cars were going and each group was given a different verb - hit, contacted, bumped, collided and smashed
• research on leading questions - findings

  mean estimated speed was calculated for each participant group

  verb 'contacted' had an estimated speed of 31.8mph

  verb 'smashed' had an estimated speed of 40.5mph

  leading question influenced how the eyewitnesses recalled the event
• why leading questions affect EWT

  • response-bias explanation -> suggests the wording has no real effect on the participants' memories but influences how they decide to answer
  • substitution explanation -> proposes the wording changes the memories
  • Loftus + Palmer conducted a second experiment which showed participants who heard smashed were more likely to report broken glass when there wasn't any
• research on post-event discussion - procedure

  Gabbert et al.

  studied participants in pairs

  each participant watched the same crime but from different point of views

  meant each participant could see things the other couldn't

  both participants then discussed what they saw before a test of recall.
• research on post-event discussion - findings

  researchers found that 71% of the participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they couldn't see in he video but heard in the discussion.

  evidence of memory conformity
• why post-event discussion affects EWT

  • memory contamination -> co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with each other and their eye witness testimonies become altered. This is because they combine information.
  • memory conformity -> witnesses go along with each other to win social approval or they believe that the other witnesses are right. actual memory remains unchanged.
• strength - real world application

  important practical uses in the criminal justice system

  consequences of inaccurate EWT can be very serious

  police officers have to be careful about how they phrase questions when interviewing eyewitnesses.

  psychologists are sometimes asked to act as expert witnesses in court to explain the limit of EWT to a jury
• counterpoint - real world application

  practical applications of EW may be affected by issues of research

  Loftus + Palmer's participants watched film clips in a lab which is very different than watching a real event

  Participants' responses in research to not matter in the same way to real eyewitnesses so they may be less motivated to be accurate.

  suggests researchers such as Loftus are too pessimistic about the effects of EWT.
• limitation - evidence against substitution

  Sutherland + Hayne

  showed participants a video clip

  when participants were later asked misleading questions , their recall was more accurate for central features of the event than peripheral ones.

  this is because their attention was focused on the main features so those memories were resistant to misleading information.

  suggests some original memories were not distorted which is not predicted by the substitution explanation
• limitation - evidence challenges memory conformity

  Skagerberg + Wright

  showed their participants film clips where there was two versions ; in one the mugger had dark brown hair and light brown in the other.

  participants discussed the clips in pairs after seeing different versions.

  often did not report what they had seen in the clip or heard from co-witnesses but reported a blend of the two.

  suggests memory is distorted by contamination but not memory conformity