Misleading info pt2

• Misleading Information


  Research on post-event discussion
• Gabbert et al. (2003) study


  • Participants in pairs
  • One participant could see the stimulus, the other could not
  • Participants then discussed what they had seen
• 72% of the participants saw and discussed aspects of the video that they had not actually seen
• The corresponding figure for the control group was 0%
• There was evidence of memory conformity
• Memory contamination


  When co-witnesses discuss with each other, their eyewitness testimonies may become aligned or distorted
• Memory conformity


  Participants change their memories to align with each other, either to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right and they are wrong
• Strengths of research into misleading information

  • It has important implications for the criminal justice system
  • Consequences of inaccurate eyewitness testimony can be very serious
• Psychologists are sometimes asked to act as expert witnesses in court trials and explain the effects of misleading information on eyewitness testimony
• Research participants are less affected to be accurate than real-world eyewitnesses
• Eyewitness testimony may be more dependable than many studies suggest