misleading information

• Eyewitness testimony (EWT)

  Evidence given in court or a police investigation by someone who has witnessed a crime or accident
• Leading questions


  Questions that imply a particular answer can influence how a memory is recalled. This could be due to an actual change to the memory (substitution bias explanations) or not to a change in memory, but due to an emotional pressure to give a particular response (response bias explanation).
• + Supporting evidence for the influence of leading questions


  E - Loftus and Palmer: 45 Ps were shown 7 films of different traffic accidents and were asked to describe how fast the cars were going when the accident. When the verb used to describe the accident was changed so did their answer.

  'Smashed': 40.8 mph

  'Collided': 39.3 mph

  'Hit': 34 mph

  'Contacted': 31.8 mph

  E - Suggests misleading information in the form of leading questions can influence the recall of EWT.
• + Supporting evidence for leading questions resulting in substitution


  E - Loftus and Palmer: When the Ps were asked 'Was there any glass?', those who were given the stronger verbs were likely to say yes.

  E - Suggests the effects of misleading information in the form of leading questions can be long lasting and actually changes memories by substitution, rather than response bias.

  L - Therefore, this supports the explanation of leading questions and shows they effect the recall during EWT.
• Post-event contamination/discussion


  Occurs when the recalling of events by one witness alters the accuracy of the recall by another witness. This could be memory conformity, the witnesses go along with other accounts for social approval.
• + Supporting evidence for the influence of post-event discussion


  E - Gabbert et al: videos of crimes shot from different perspectives were shown to pairs of participants, with unique information in each film. findings: 71% of pairs which were allowed to discuss what they saw had included aspects of the film that were not in their video. Compared to 0% in the group which didn't.

  E - Suggests witnesses change their account of crimes to match other witness testimony.

  L - Therefore, this supports that witnesses are influenced by post-event discussion to potentially seek social approval.
• - Issues with research into misleading information- Gabbert et al

  L - However, Ps had to watch a video of a crime. This is not the same as witnessing a real-life crime, meaning their responses may have been different if it was a real world situation.
• Misleading information


  Bartlett (1932) argues that memories are not accurate 'snapshots' of events perfectly preserved, but are instead 'reconstructions' of events. These reconstruction are influenced by our personal attitudes and the stereotypes we hold.
• Schema


  Packages of information (cognitive framework) about people and objects in the world around us. We use schemas as mental shortcuts. Because when we recall memory it is influenced by schemas, memories change to fit with the individuals pre-existing bias.
• Reconstructive memory


  Memory is not an accurate recording of events. It is reconstructed in recalling and may produce errors.