factors-misleading info

    Cards (7)

    • what can affect eye witness testimony
      -the wording of the question may lead u to give a certain answer
      -police questions may direct witness to give particular answer
    • explain procedure for research on leading questions
      -elizabeth loftus and john palmer made 45 students watch clips of car accidents then asked them questions abt accident
      -critical question was 'abt how was fast were the cars going when they hit each other'
      -there were 5 groups with each given a diff verb in critical question
      -they were: hit, contacted, bumped, collided, smashed
    • explain findings for research on leading questions
      the mean estimated speed was calculated for each group, verb contacted resulted in mean speed of 31.8mph whereas verb smahed had mean speed of 40.5
      this means the leading question biased the eyewitness's recall of event
    • why do leading questions affect ewt
      -wording of question has no effect on participant memories but influences how they decide to answer
      -loftus and palmer conducted 2nd experiment which proposed that wording of leading question changes participant memory of film clip as 'smashed' caused participant to report seeing broken glass
    • describe research on post-event discussion
      -fiona gabbert studied participants in pairs, each watched vid of same crime but filmed from diff points of view
      -this meant each participant could see elements in event that the other couldnt
      -both participants then discussed what they had seen before individually completing a test of recall
    • describe findings for research on post-event discussion
      researchers found tht 71% of participants mistakenly recalled aspects of event that they did not see in vid but had picked up from discussion
      corresponding figure in control group where there was no discussion was 0%
    • why does post-event discussion affect ewt
      -(1)memory contamination: when co-witnesses to crime discuss it, the ewt may become altered
      This is bc they combine info from other witness to their own memories
      -(2)memory conformity: witnesses often go along with each other, either to win social approval or bc they believe other witness is right and they r wrong, the actual memory is unchanged.
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