misleading information

• bartlett argued the idea of schemas, memories are not accurate 'snapshots' of events perfectly preserved, but are instead 'reconstructions of events, these reconstructions are influenced by our personal attitudes and the stereotypes we hold,
• schemas- mental shortcuts, about people and objects in the world around us. When we recall a memory it is influenced by schemas, memories change to fit with the individuals pre-existing bias.
• leading questions- questions that imply a particular answer can influence how a memory is recalled. This could be due to an actual change to the memory or not to a change in memory, but due to an emotional pressure to give a particular response.
• post event discussion is when the recalling of events by one witness alters the accuracy of the recall by another witness. This could be memory conformity, the witnesses go along with the others account for social approval.
• LOFTUS AND PALMER- pps shown clips of car accident- after watching they were asked to give the estimation of the speed of the accident in mph, eg 'how fast were the cars going when they _ into eachother', found that there was a higher estimate of miles per hour comparing the verbs used of 'contacted' to 'smashed', with 31.8 and 40.8, suggesting that misleading information in the form of leading questions can influence the recall of eyewitness testimony
• Bartlett argued our memories are reconstructive- they are not accurate 'snapshots' of events perfectly preserved but are instead reconstructions of events,
• l and p car crash study- how fast were the cars going when they 'contacted' verb to 'smashed' verb condition into eachother, 31.8 to 40.8mph, suggests misleading info in form of leading questions can impact eyewitness testimony,
• L and p follow up study after car crash study with the two verbs of contacted and smashed, follow up study, pps- 150 compared to 45, shown a car accident clip without any broken glass, after viewing they were asked how fast the cars were going including either the verbs 'HIT' or 'SMASHED', or a control group. after a week pps completed questionnaire, 'did you see broken glass?', was found that those in the smashed condition were 2x as likely to say yes compared to those in the hit condition
• l and p study and then ls follow up showed the significance of misleading infomation in ewt, shows the malleability of memory (highlighting)
• POST event discussion compared to misleading info in questions- gabbert et al (2003) videos of crimes shot at different perspectives were shown to pairs of pps, with unique info available in each film, was found that 71% of pairs allowed to discuss what they saw in their film included aspects of the event which they had not seen before such as the title of a book, compared to literally 0% in pairs who were not allowed to discuss what they saw in their variation of the crime film, this suggests witnesses will change their account of crimes to match other witnesses testimony. this may be an attempt to seek social approval resulting in memory conformity.
• Anxiety and EWT- in real life EWT is often used after violent crimes causing high anxiety, research in EWT often has no emotional impact on participant, resulting in a low level of validity.