Factors affecting EWT - misleading info

• what is a leading question


  a question that suggests a certain answer, for example 'was the knife in the left hand
• who did research into leading questions

  Loftus and Palmer
• what did Loftus and Palmer find

  • the harsher the verb the more likely the ppts were to say that the car was going fast.
  • the mean speed for the verb smashed was 40.5mph
  • compared to contacted was 31.8mph
• what is the response bias explanation

  wording of the question has no effect on their memories but just influences how they will answer the question
• what is the substitution explanation


  the wording of a question actually changes the pps memory, for example pps who heard the word smashed said that they saw broken glass
• what is post event discussion

  • when there is one or more witnesses at the event
  • they discuss what they saw which may influence the accuracy of EWT
• who did research into post event discussion

  Gabbert
• what was gabberts procedure


  • ppts watched a film in pairs but from different view points so could see things that the other could not.
  • the ppts discussed with each other what they saw before they recalled events
• what did Gabbert find


  • 71% of those that discussed their events mistakenly recalled events
  • but with the control group 0% made a mistake
• useful real life applications


  • shows how leading questions can have a real affect on police interviewing
  • that we need to stop leading questions.
  • making police questions more accurate helping crimes, increase usefulness
• artificial tasks


  • in Loftus and Palmers research they did it by watching a car crash.
  • this would be very different to actually witnessing a real life car crash.
  • this has low ecological validity
• Individual differences


  • older people are worse at recalling events than younger people.
  • research found that people in 18-25 age groups were more accurate than people in 50-78 years.
  • this could make research inaccurate as they normally use young ppts
• demand characteristics


  • people in the study may want to appear more helpful than not.
  • if they get asked if they saw a blue car
  • they will answer with yes to appear more helpful to the researcher and not want to let them down.