misleading info

• Loftus and palmer investigated the effects of leading questions on EWT on a sample of 45 students and found that participants who were told 'collided' said the car was going 31.8mph and participants who were told 'smashed' said cars were going 40.5 mph. Shows that leading questions effects EWT accuracy
• in Loftus and palmer's study, participants who heard the word 'smashed' were more likely to report seeing broken glass in the clip - but there was none - supporting the substitution explanation which suggests that changing the wording of leading questions can change the participant's memory
• gabbert et al studies the effect of post event discussions on memory and found that 71% of participants recalled information of the event that they had not seen in the video but had picked up during the discussion - when there was no post event discussion, the figure was 0% - evidence for memory conformity
• 2 explanations as to why post event discussions effect EWT:

  memory contamination - when co-witnesses to a crime discuss it with each other, their testimonies may be distorted - because they have combined misinformation from another witness with their memory

  memory conformity - gabbert concluded that witnesses often go along with each other either to gain social approval or because they believe other witnesses to be correct
• post event discussion/contamination is when the recalling of events from one witness alters the accuracy of another witnesses recall- sometimes through memory conformity
• strength into research of misleading info on EWT - important for the criminal justice system - Loftus and Palmer's research has shown that police officers need to be careful when wording questions to witnesses to avoid response-bias - shows how psychological research can help to improve the way the legal system works
• limitation into research investigating the effects of misleading information on EWT - studies were conducted in lab settings where participants watched videos of crimes, which is not reflective of real instances of crime - research has low mundane realism and low ecological validity meaning the findings may not be able to be accurately applied to EWT
• • The substitution explanation proposes that a leading question changes a person's memory of an event by adding detail that was not present at the time of them witnessing the event e.g. broken glass at the scene of a car crash
• strength of Gabbert et al's research - Two different sample populations were investigated - students and older adults, which gives the study high population validity 

  • This suggests that PED affects people in all populations in a similar way making it a reliable explanation