Evaluation

• Evaluate real life applications as a strength

  • Loftus 1975 - leading questions can have such a distorting effect on memory that police need to be careful in the way they ask questions.
  • Psychologists believe research into EWT can improve the way legal systems work
• evaluate artistically tasks as a limitation?

  • loftus and palmer study- pts watched film clips of car accident
  • lacks stress
  • some evidence that emotions influence memory
  • tell us very little about how leading questions affect EWT in real incidents
• evaluate individual differences as a limitation?

  • older people are less accurate than younger in giving eyewitness reports.
  • Anastasia and rhodes 2006 - people in age groups 18-25 and 35-45 were more accurate than 55-78 years.
  • own age bias
  • research often uses younger people as the target to identify, some age groups appear less accurate but this may not be the case
• what is own age bias?

  Age groups are more accurate when identifying people of their own age groups
• evaluate demand characteristics as a limitation

  • zaragosa and mccloskey 1989 - many answers participants give in lab studies are the result of demand characteristics.
  • pts dont want to let the researcher down and want to appear helpful.
  • when asked a question they don’t know the answer to, they guess, especially a yes or no question