accuracy of eyewitness testimony: misleading

• Misleading information is incorrect information given to an eyewitness following an event.
• two forms of misleading information

  • leading questions
  • post-event discussion
• post-event discussion

  • a conversation between co-witnesses or an interviewer and an eyewitness after a crime has taken place with potential to influence memory of it
  • Gabbert -when pps shown 2 diff videos and asked to recall from those encouraged to discuss 71% went on to mistakenly recall incorrect details included in discussion
• leading questions

   questions that suggest a desired answer
• research into leading questions- loftus and palmer

  • Participants were shown a series of films of car accidents,
  • given a questionnare to fill out- included one leading question which stated
  • ‘how fast were the cars going when they hit each other,
  • Each group of people was given a different adjective including- collided/ bumped/smashed/contacted.
• loftus and palmer results

  • The results found that vehicle speed estimates were fastest on average for participants given the “smashed” version, (40.8mph) and slowest for participants given the “contacted” version (31.8)
  • This shows the impact of leading questions and how they can be used to alter the answers which people provide
• 2nd part to study

  • second group of participants and asked them additionally whether there was any broken glass
  • those who said the car was going faster (particuarly smashed group) were more likely to say there was 
  • Leading questions can also have the power to alter people's memories of events
• There has been significant research support for the effect of misleading information. Loftus conducted a study where there were 3 groups and asked them to evaluate advertising material from disney, these either included bugs bunny (not a disney character) ariel (not been created during the time of their childhood) and one control group which contained no misleading information, they found that those with the misleading information were more likely to have reported shaking hands with that character when they went to disney land. This shows how misleading information can create inaccurate or false memories. 

  +elaboration This even larger base of supporting evidence suggesting that misleading information can lead to EWT inaccuracy,can raise awareness that the criminal justice system cannot always rely on EWT as a basis for [sometimes incorrect] convictions.
•  One weakness of loftus study is that it was carried out in a lab and lacks ecological validity . by watching a video in an artificial situation participants may not take it seriously or be as emotionally aroused as if it was happening in real life. some evidence suggests that emotional arousal can increase can improve the accuracy of EWT. Foster et al found that if pps were watching aware the were watching real life robbery and that there tesdtimony would affect the trials, their identification of the robber was more accurate/. Yuille and cutshall found similar results even when participants were given leading questions, showing that misleading info may not have as great of an effect in real life, undermining loftus’ research

  
  

  +counter -strengths means it was highly controlled and standardised, making it replicable.
•  A criticism of this research is that it does not take into account individual differences. Age differences for example could affect of source monitoring. Schater found that compared to younger subjects, elderly people have difficulty remembering the source of their info despite memory of info itself being unimpaired.

  As result become more prone to effect of misleading info when given testimonies. as they may be less quick to recognise the information came from a less reliable/secondary source.  Research also tends to use younger people such as university students, ( loftus studied mainly 17-56 year olds) therefore, people in the older generation may not be fairly represented.