AO3

• Evidence to support MLI. Loftus conducted a memorable study involving a cut- out of Bugs Bunny (Braun et al., 2002). College students who had visited Disneyland as children were asked to evaluate advertising material about Disneyland containing misleading information about Bugs Bunny (not a Disney) or Ariel (not introduced at the time of their childhood). Participants assigned to the Bugs or Ariel groups were more likely to report having shaken hands with these characters than the control group This shows how powerful misleading information can be in creating an inaccurate (false) memory.
• A criticism of research investigating EWT concerns individual differences of witnesses. An eyewitness typically acquires information from two sources, from observing the event itself and from subsequent suggestions (misleading information). A number of studies (e.g. Schacter et al, 1991) have found that, compared to younger subjects, elderly people have difficulty remembering the source of their information, even though their memory for the information itself is unimpaired. As a result, they become more prone to the effect of misleading information when giving testimony.
• Individual differences

  • This suggests that individual differences, age in particular, are an important factor when assessing the reliability of EWT.