EWT: Misleading information

What name is given to a question, because of the way it is phrased, suggests a certain answer?

Leading questions

Give an example of a leading question

“Did you see the knife?”

Which explanation suggests that the wording of the question has no real effect upon the participants’ memories but just influences how they decide to answer?

Response bias

Which explanation did Loftus argue saw the wording of a question actually change the participant’s memory?

Substitution explanation

What is post-event discussion?

Occurs when there is more than one witness to an event:

• witnesses may discuss what they have seen with co-witnesses or with other people → may influence the accuracy of each witness/es recall of the event

What is false memory & what effect does it have?

• Occurs when a person remembers something that didn’t happen at all or remembers it very differently from how it actually happened

• False memories can seriously affect investigations & can lead to wrongful arrests or convictions

What is conformity effect?

• Happens when someone changes their memory to fit in with a group or because they think others are right & they’re wrong

• Especially the case if the other witness(es) are more confident than themselves → leads to lack of reliability in the EWT account

Discuss research into the effects of misleading information on eyewitness testimony (16 marks)

Write your AO1 paragraph

• EWT is not always accurate & can be influenced by several factors that reduce its reliability.

• One factor into misleading information is leading questions, which because of the way they are phrased, suggest a certain answer. For example, “Did you see the knife?” implies there actually was a knife. There are two explanations as to why leading questions affect EWT.

• Firstly, the response-bias explanation, which suggests the wording of the question has no effect on the participants’ memories but just influences how they decide to answer (e.g. if participants see the word ‘smashed’, they provide a higher speed estimate). Secondly, the substitution explanation which refers to when wording of a question actually changes the participant’s memory (e.g. if participants see the word ‘smashed’, they are more likely to report seeing broken glass even if there wasn’t any).

• Another factor into misleading information, is post-event discussion which occurs when there are multiple eyewitnesses to an event, meaning they may discuss their version of events with each other. These include: source monitoring (people get the source of a memory wrong), confabulation (someone unconsciously makes up details to fill in gaps in their memory) & contamination (external information gets mixed into a person’s memory of an event).

Discuss research into the effects of misleading information on eyewitness testimony (16 marks)

Write your strength AO3 PEEL (Loftus & Palmer)

• Point: One strength of research into the effects of misleading information on EWT is that some studies involve high levels of control.

• Evidence: For example, Loftus & Palmer’s study involved a laboratory experiment where 150 student watched video footage of a car crash in an independent groups design. Each group received with different verbs (e.g. smashed, collided, bumped, hit & contacted). Results found a range of 9mph between smashed & collided.

• Explain: By controlling the video stimuli that all groups watched & the wording of the question, extraneous variables were eliminated, meaning variations in speed estimates could be attributed to the independent variable (i.e. the verb).

• Link: Overall, this standardised approach increases the validity of the response-bias explanation & highlights how memory can be altered.

Discuss research into the effects of misleading information on eyewitness testimony (16 marks)

Write your limitation AO3 PEEL (Loftus & Palmer → external validity)

• Point: One limitation of research into the effects of misleading information on EWT is that some studies suffer from low external validity & demand characteristics (e.g. social desirability bias).

• Evidence: For example, in Loftus & Palmer’s study, video footage of a car crash does not evoke the same emotional response as seeing a real-life event, where stress & emotion may impact the accuracy of EWT.

• Explain: Additionally, the participants knew they were in a psychological study & were aware their answers were not being relied upon in a court of law, so may have demonstrated the ‘Please-U’ or ‘Screw-U’ effect.

• Link: Therefore, this suggests the results may not generalise well to real criminal cases where stress & consequences are higher.

Discuss research into the effects of misleading information on eyewitness testimony (16 marks)

Write your limitation AO3 PEEL (Shaw & Porter)

• Point: One limitation of research into the effects of misleading information on EWT is that the role of individual differences is not considered.

• Evidence: For example, Shaw & Porter’s study involved participants being led to believe they had been involved in a minor crime or had a (fabricated) negative experience during childhood.

• Explain: Results found those with lower cognitive skills & personality traits that made them more gullible were more likely to develop a false memory.

• Link: Overall, this suggests there are legal risks where some eyewitnesses are exposed to post-event discussion, media reports or pressures from lawyers/investigators.