conclusion

• the findings indicate that the form of a question - in this case changes to a single word - can markedly and systematically affect a witness' answer to that question.
• two explanations:

  1. critical word choice influences or biases a person's response
  2. the memory representation is actually altered - the critical word changes a person's memory, affecting their perception of the event.
• the findings from experiment two suggests that leading questions go further than just response bias, and actually alter a person's memory of an event.
• this conclusion was tested in which two pieces of information (the verb and visual imagery) combined to form a memory of a quite severe accident in which broken glass is more likely.