Misleading Information

• Research on leading questions 1/2

  When someone is asked a question, the wording may mislead them causing them to give a certain answer. The police may ask questions in a way which directs a witness to a particular answer. Loftus and Palmer arranged 45 participants to watch film clips of car accidents and then asked them questions about the accident. In the critical (leading) question participants were asked to describe how fast the cars were travelling: how fast were the cars going when they hit, smashed, crashed, bumped, collided with each other?
• Research on leading questions 2/2

  There were 5 groups and each group was given a different verb in the critical question. The mean estimated speed was calculated for each participant group. The verb contacted resulted in a mean estimated speed of 31.8mph. The verb smashed resulted in a mean estimated speed of 40.5 mph. The leading questions biased the eyewitness' recall of an event.
• Why do leading question affect EWT? 1/2

  The response bias explanation suggests that the wording of the question has no real effect on the participants memories, but just influences how they decide to answer. When a participant gets a leading question using the word smashed, this encourages them to choose a higher speed estimate. Loftus & Palmer conducted a seperate experiment that supported the substitution explanation, which proposes that the wording of a leading question, changes the participants memory of the film clip.
• Why do leading questions affect EWT? 2/2

  This was shown when participants who originally heard smashed were later more likely to report seeing broken glass than those who heard hit. The critical verb altered their memory of an event.
• Research on post - event discussion 1/2

  Eyewitnesses to a crime may sometimes discuss their experiences and memories with each other. The study by Gabbert explores the effects of post event discussion. Gabbert studied participants in pairs, each participant watched a video at the same time, but filmed from different points of view. Therefore each participant could see elements in the event that the others couldn’t. eg. only one participant could see the name of the book that the woman carried. Both participants then discussed what they saw before individually completing a test of recall.
• Research on post - event discussion 2/2

  Researchers found that 71% of the participants mistakenly recalled aspects of the event that they didn't see in the video but had picked up in the discussion. The corresponding figure in the control group - no post event discussion -was 0%. This was evidence of memory conformity.
• Why does post - event discussion affect EWT? 1/2

  One explanation is memory contamination. When co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with each other, their eyewitness testimonies may become altered or distorted. This is because they combine (mis ) information from other withesses with their own memories.
• Why does post - event discussion affect EWT? 2/2

  Another explanation is memory conformity. Gabbert concluded that witnesses often go along with each other, either to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right and they are wrong. The actual memory is unchanged.