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Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness: Misleading Infromation -…
Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness: Misleading Infromation
Leading Questions, Loftus and Palmer
Forty Five students
Five groups
Watched film about an accident
Critical question of 'How fast were the cars going when they hit each other
Four groups given verbs smashed, collided, bumped or contracted in place of the word hit
This critical question was a leading questions because it suggested the answer that the participant might give
Smashed- 40.8
Contacted- 31.8
Hit 34.0
Find out the effect of leading questions by using smashed or pumped to suggest a particular answer
Leading questions biased the recall of the event
Suggested the answer they should give
Post event Discussion, Conformity effect
Fiano Gabbert and colleges
71% who had discussed the event went on to mistakenly recall items acquired during the discussion
In control group, 0% conformity
Pairs, partners watched a video or the same event but from different perspectives
Pairs in one condition were encouraged to discuss the event before each partner individually recalled what they watched
Control group could not discuss
Individually recalled
To investigate what effect post event discussion have
The memory of a event may also be altered or contaminated through discussing events with other and /or being questioned multiple times
This shows that witnesses go along with each other, either to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right and they are wrong. Unlike with memory contamination, the actual memory is unchanged
Evidence of memory conformity
Strength
Reasearch investigating EWT is its application to the criminal justice system, which relies heavily of eyewitness identification for investigating and prosecuting crimes
Recent DNA exoneration cases have confirmed the warnings of eyewitness identification researchers by showing that mistaken eyewitness identification was the largest single factor contributing to the conviction of innocent people
Psychological evidence has been used to warn the justice system of problem with EWT
This demonstrates the important role of EWT research in helping to ensure that innocent people are not convicted of crimes they did cut not commit on the basis of faulty EWT
Repeat Interviewing
Each time an eyewitness is interviewed there is the possibility that comments from the interviewer will become incorporated into their recollection of events
Interviewers may also use leading questions and thus alter the individual’s memory for event
This is especially the case when children are being interviewed about a crime
Gabbert concluded that witnesses often go along with each other, either to win social approval or because they believe the other witnesses are right and the conform to them. The actual memory is unchanged
Limitaion
Loftus and Palmer participants watched film clips in a lab , a very different experience from witnessing a real event
Practical applications of EWT may be affected by issues with research
Might be less motivated to be accurate
Researchers such as Loftus are too pessimistic about the events of misleading information
EWT maybe more dependable than many studies suggest
Foster et al pointed out that what eye- witnesses remember has important consequences in the real world, but participants responses in research do not matter in the same way
Leading Questions, Loftus and Palmer
Effect of a leading question on what they remembered
New set of participants
Three groups
Car accident for 1 minute
Returned a week later to be asked 10 questions
Critical question of 'Did you see any broken glass'
There was no broken glass in the film but presumably those who thought the car was travelling faster might be more likely to think there was broken glass
Leading question changed the memory they had for the event
Yes for glass- 16 smashed, 7 hit and 6 control
Not for glass- 34 smashed, 43 hit, 44 control
Response Bias explanation
Substitution explanation, which proposed the working of a leading questions changes the participants memory of the film clip
-The critical verb changed the memory