LEADING QUESTIONS

• WHAT IS AN EWT?

  eyewitness testimony
• WHAT TYPE OF WORD IS EWT?

  legal term
• WHAT DOES AN EWT REFER TO?

  account given by people of an event they have witnessed
• WHAT STAGES OF MEMORY CAN THE MEMORY BE INFLUENCED?

  • encoding
  • storage
  • retrieval
• WHY CAN MEMORY BE INFLUENCED DURING ENCODING?

  can be distorted or partial (crimes are usually at night, violent, quick)
• WHY CAN MEMORY BE INFLUENCED IN STORAGE?

  • information retained for period of time
  • memories lost/ modified over time (interference/ inability to transfer)
• WHY CAN MEMORY BE INFLUENCED DURING RETRIEVAL?

  post event discussion (witness is reconstructing memory in mind)
• WHAT IS A LEADING QUESTION?

  question that suggests to witnesses what answer is desired, leading them to the desired answer by subtly prompting respondent to answer in a particular way
• WHO CARRIED OUT RESEARCH ON LEADING QUESTIONS?

  Loftus and Palmer
• LOFTUS AND PALMER EXPERIMENT ONE AIM?

  to investigate effect of leading questions on accuracy of eyewitness' immediate recall
• LOFTUS AND PALMER EXPERIMENT ONE SAMPLE?

  45 American students
• LOFTUS AND PALMER EXPERIMENT ONE DESIGN?

  independent groups
• LOFTUS AND PALMER EXPERIMENT ONE IV?

  verb used when asking question (hit, contacted, bumped, collided, smashed)
• LOFTUS AND PALMER EXPERIMENT ONE DV?

  memory recall (speed estimate in mph)
• LOFTUS AND PALMER EXPERIMENT ONE PROCEDURE?

  1. Participants watched 7 videos of car crashes
  2. Given questionnaire about what they saw
  3. Included one critical question about speed (contained 1 of 5 verbs)
  4. Speed estimates recorded by researchers
• WHAT TREND DID LOFTUS AND PALMER DISCOVER IN EXPERIMENT ONE?

  as verbs decrease in severity, mean speed estimates decrease
• WHAT WAS LOFTUS AND PALMER'S CONCLUSION IN EXPERIMENT ONE?

  leading questions negatively influence the accuracy of eyewitness' immediate recall
• CRITICISM OF LOFTUS AND PALMER EXPERIMENT ONE?

  response bias (wording of question just influenced how participants decided to answer)
• WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE IN mph BETWEEN THE MOST SEVERE AND LEAST SEVERE VERB IN EXPERIMENT ONE?

  9 mph
• LOFTUS AND PALMER EXPERIMENT TWO DESIGN?

  independent groups
• LOFTUS AND PALMER EPERIMENT TWO SAMPLE?

  150 American students
• LOFTUS AND PALMER EXPERIMENT TWO IV?

  verb used when asking the question (smashed, hit or a control)
• LOFTUS AND PALMER EXPERIMENT TWO DV?

  number of participants who said they saw broken glass
• LOFTUS AND PALMER EXPERIMENT TWO METHOD?

  1. Week later answered another questionnaire
  2. Critical question "did you see broken glass"
  3. Recorded answer
• LOFTUS AND PALMER EXPERIMENT TWO TREND?

  participants with "smashed" in question were more than twice as likely to say they saw broken glass than those with the verb "hit" or no speed question
• WHAT WAS THE CONTROL IN EXPERIMENT TWO?

  no speed question
• LOFTUS AND PALMER EXPERIMENT TWO CONCLUSION?

  memory storage can be manipulated by misleading information (specifically leading questions) as it leads eyewitnesses giving inaccurate testimonies
• WHAT EXTRANEOUS VARIABLES WERE CONTROLLED IN LOFTUS AND PALMER'S RESEARCH?

  • instructions
  • film clips
  • distracter questions (in questionnaire)
  • critical question wording
  • time between questionnaire and critical question (experiment 2)
• STRENGTHS OF LOFTUS AND PALMER'S RESEARCH?

  • high control over extraneous variables
  • high internal validity
  • real world application
• WHY DOES LOFTUS AND PALMER'S RESEACH HAVE A HIGH INTERNAL VALIDITY?

  standardised procedure is used
• WEAKNESSES OF LOFTUS AND PALMER'S RESEARCH?

  • lacks mundane realism
  • lacks ecological validity
  • research against
• WHY DOES WATCHING A VIDEO OF A CAR CRASH NOT HAVE THE SAME EFFECT OF ACTUALLY SEEING ONE?

  • different emotional response (anxiety)
  • different levels of attention
  • actual consequences of inaccurate testimony in real life
• EVIDENCE AGAINST LEADING QUESTIONS?

  Yuille and Cutshall
• YUILLE AND CUTSHALL STUDY?

  • participants saw real robbery
  • two people shot
  • misleading information in interview (leading questions)
  • said there was a yellow door panel (actually blue) and broken headlight (didn't exist)
• WHAT WERE THE RESULTS OF YUILLE AND CUTSHALL'S STUDY?

  • 77% (10) of the eyewitnesses said there was no yellow panel/ broken headlight
  • suggests leading questions in a real crime do not have negative effect on EWT
• WHAT REAL WORLD APPLICATION DOES LOFTUS AND PALMER'S RESEARCH HAVE?

  changes in how police question witnesses (Loftus testified in court to avoid miscarriages of justice)
• CONSEQUENCES OF LOFTUS TESTIFIYING IN COURTROOMS?

  socially sensitive debate (whether to believe witnesses or not)
• WHAT ARE MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE?

  when an innocent person is found guilty of a crime and punished