AO3 - Post Event Discussion

• Research to support post event discussion was conducted by Skagerberg and Wright. They showed participants two versions of a clip of a mugging, one in which a mugger’s hair was dark brown and in the other, light brown. Participants discussed the clips in pairs, each saw different versions. It was found that they often reported a ‘blend’ of the two clips suggesting the mugger had ‘medium brown hair’. Therefore, this supports post-event discussion affecting the accuracy of EWT as it supports that memory contamination during post-event discussion does occur, distorting the witness’ EWT.
• Research investigating post event discussion may be affected by demand characteristics. This is because the research is conducted using artificial tasks like watching videos of crimes. Research has found that participants usually want to be helpful, so perhaps participants pick up on clues from the task and change their responses to fit the aims of the research. E.g., changing their response to match their co-witness after discussing the clip, lowering the internal validity of the research as the effects of discussing a crime on the accuracy of EWT are not being accurately measured.