Factors affecting eyewitness testimony:Misleading information -A-Level Psychology

Misleading information-incorrect information given to the eyewitness usually after the event(leading questions/post-event discussion between co-witnesses/people)

Leading questions:

Loftus and Palmer(1974)

Experiment 1 

Procedure-45 participants watched films of different car accidents and then gave them questions.In the critical question (Leading question) participants were asked to describe how fast the cars were travelling ‘About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?’Each of the five different groups had a different verb e.g smashed,collided,bumped,contacted.This critical question was a leading question because it suggested the answer the participant might give.

Findings-

Experiment 2

Procedure-The leading question may bias a participant’s response or may cause information to be altered before it is stored.

A new set of participants was divided into 3 groups and shown a film lasting 1 minute and again were asked questions about speed.They were asked to return a week later and were asked 10 questions,including another critical question ‘Did you see any broken glass?’There was no broken glass but those who thought that the car was travelling faster were more likely to think there was broken glass.

Findings-showed that the leading question did change the actual memory a participant had for the event.

Response bias explanation-suggests the wording of the question has no real effect on participants’ memories,but influences how they decide to answer.’Smashes’ encourages them to choose a higher speed estimate.

Substitution explanation-suggests the wording of the leading question actually changes the participants memory of the clip.The critical verb altered their memory of the incident.

Post-event discussion:

The memory of an event may be altered/contaminated through discussing the event with others or being questioned multiple times.

Conformity effect:Fiona Gabbert and her colleagues(2003)

Procedure-studied participants in pairs.Each participant watched a video of the same crime from different points of view.So each participant could see elements in the event that others could not.

Both participants discussed what they had seen before individually completing a test of recall

Findings-71% of the witnesses who had discussed the event went on to mistakenly recall items acquired during the discussion

Gabbert et al concluded that witnesses go along with each other to gain social approval(phenomenon memory conformity)

Repeat interviewing-each time an eyewitness is interviewed there is a chance that the comments from the interviewer will become incorporated into their recollection of events

Evaluation:

Artificial tasks-A limitation of Loftus and Palmer’s study is that their participants watched film clips which is a different experience from witnessing a real accident as they lack the stress of a real accident.This is a limitation becauses it means the study tells very little about the effect of leading questions on EWT in real accidents/crimes.

Supporting evidence-

College students were asked to evaluate advertising materials about disneyland.This material has misleading information about either bugs bunny or ariel(Bugs is not disney,Ariel had not been introduced at the time of their childhood).They were assigned to Bugs,Ariel or a control condition.All had visited disneyland.Participants in the Bugs and Ariel group were more likely to report having shaken hands with these characters compared to the control group.This shows how misleading information can create an inaccurate memory.