Misleading info A01

• Misleading information


  Information that is inaccurate or false and can lead to incorrect conclusions
• Leading questions


  • Questions that are worded in a way that suggests a particular answer
  • Can affect eyewitness testimony (EWT) by leading a witness to give a particular answer
• Procedure of Loftus and Palmer (1974) experiment

  1. Participants watched clips of car accidents

  2. Asked questions about the accident using different verbs (hit, contacted, bumped, collided, smashed)

  3. Measured the mean estimated speed for each verb
• Response-bias explanation


  The wording of the question has no real effect on the participants' memories, but just influences how they decide to answer
• Substitution explanation


  The wording of a leading question changes the participant's memory of the film clip
• Procedure of Gabbert et al. (2003) experiment


  1. Participants watched a video of a crime from different points of view

  2. Discussed what they saw before individually completing a recall test
• Memory contamination


  Eyewitness testimonies may become altered or distorted when co-witnesses discuss the event, as they combine misinformation from other witnesses with their own memories
• Memory conformity


  Witnesses often go along with each other, either to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right and they are wrong