a03

• real-world application

  P: strength - practical uses for the criminal justice system

  E: leading questions distort memory so police officers need to be careful how they word their questions

  E: psychologists are sometimes asked to act as expert witnesses in court and explain the effect of leading questions on EWT

  L: therefore leading questions has real-world application
• counterpoint

  P: limitation - practical applications affected by issues with research

  E: e.g. ppts watch film clips in a lab, a very different experience from witnessing a real event

  E: ppts are less motivated to be accurate as their responses do not matter like eyewitness testimonies do

  L: therefore EWT more dependable than many studies suggest
• evidence against substitution

  P: limitation - EWT more accurate for some aspects of an event than others

  E: when ppts were asked misleading questions their responses were more accurate for their central view than for their peripheral view

  E: this may be due to the ppts attention being focused on central features of the event and these memories were resistant to misleading information

  L: therefore there is research evidence against substitution
• Evidence Challenging Memory Conformity

  P: limitation - evidence that post-event discussion affects EWT

  E: one group was shown a video of a mugger with dark brown hair and one group was shown a video of a mugger with light brown hair

  E: After both groups discussed what they saw, ppts had reported the mugger medium-brown hair

  L: therefore memory is distorted by post-event discussions