Misleading Information

• Define eyewitness testimony

  The evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime, with the aim of identifying the perpetrator
• What are 3 factors which affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony?

  Post event discussion, leading questions and anxiety
• State two types of misleading information

  1, Leading questions - the way a question is worded can influence your recall 2, Post event discussion - when witnesses discuss an event and their memory can get contaminated by things that other people say
• Name the researchers who investigated the effect of leading questions

  Loftus and Palmer (1974) - car crash
• Describe the procedure of Loftus and Palmer (1974)


  x 45 students asked to watch video of car crash x Asked a question and verb used in question was changed for each group - ‘How fast were the cars going when they... each other?’ x Verbs= ‘contacted, bumped, collided, hit, smashed’ x Found more charge behind verb = higher speed estimate x A week later they were asked whether they saw any broken glass (there was none)
• Describe the findings of Loftus and Palmer (1974)


  x Participants who were given the more charged verbs were more likely to report seeing broken glass x Memory of original event was distorted due to one word in a sentence
• Name the researchers who investigated the effect of post event discussion

  Gabbert et al. (2003) - video of crime from different points of view
• Describe the procedure of Gabbert et al. (2003)


  x Pairs of participants watched a video of a crime which was filmed from different points of view - each participants could see elements in the event that the other couldn’t x Pairs discussed what they had seen before completing recall test.
• Describe the findings of Gabbert et al. (2003)


  x 71% of participants mistakenly recalled aspects of event they didn’t see but had picked up in discussion x In a control group where there was no discussion, figure= 0%