Factors affecting the accuracy of EWT: Misleading information

• Factors affective EWT: Misleading information

  Leading Questions

  Loftus and Palmer (1974) arranged for ppts (45 American students) to watch car accident clips and then gave them questions. Critical question (leading Q)= "How fast were the cars travelling when they hit each other?". 5 groups each given diff verb: hit, contacted, bumped, collided, smashed. Contacted= mean estimated speed of 31.8 mph. Smashed= 40.5 mph. The leading Q biased the eyewitness recall of an event.
• Factors affective EWT: Misleading information 2

  Why do leading Qs effect EWT?

  Response-bias explanation suggests wording of Q has no real effect on memories, just influences answer. Smashed = encourages to choose higher speed estimate.

  Conducted second experiment that supported substitution explanation- leading Q changes memory. Ppts asked another leading Q, "was there any broken glass". Smashed = 16 yeses, hit= 7 yeses.
• Factors affective EWT: Misleading information 2

  Post-Event Discussion (PED)

  When witnesses discuss details of a crime or accident following the incident.

  Gabbert et al. (2003)- studied ppts in pairs. Each watched a video of the same crime, but filmed from diff POVs so could see diff elements (book title). Then discussed what they had seen before individually completing a recall test.

  71% mistakenly recalled aspects they didn't see but picked up in discussion. Control group= 0%. Conclusion- memory conformity- wanted social approval or believed other was right.
• Factors affective EWT: Misleading information- evaluation

  Has useful real-life applications. Consequences of inaccurate EWT can be very serious. Loftus (1975) believes that leading Qs have such a distorting effect on memory that police officers need to be very careful about how they phrase their Qs when interviewing eye witnesses. Research into EWT can make a positive difference to lives of real people. E.g., improving the way the legal system works.
• Factors affective EWT: Misleading information- evaluation 2

  The tasks are artificial. Loftus and Palmer- ppts watched film clips of car accidents, which lacks the stress of watching a real accident, and there is evidence that emotions can have an influence on memory. So studies may tell us very little about how leading Qs affect EWT in cases of real accidents or crimes.
• Factors affective EWT: Misleading information- evaluation 3

  Studies don't account for own age bias. Anastasi and Rhodes (2006) found that people aged 18-25 and 35-45 were more accurate that people aged 55-78 years. However all age groups were more accurate when identifying people of their own age group (own age bias). Research studies often use younger people as the target to identify which may mean that other age groups appear less accurate, but this isn't true.