Introduction and literature review

1. What are the key terms/concepts that we need to understand? What do they mean?

Key terms:
- Eyewitness testimony: a witness’s recall of a crime scene. It is considered a reliable
evidence, however, is often inaccurate.
- Leading question: a question that by its form or content suggests to a witness the
answer he should give, as in the classic “When did you stop beating your wife?”
- Memory is reconstructive. The stored memories are recalled using available inferences
and cues which means the memory is reconstructed during the time of the recall but
also information would have gotten added and/or modified throughout time.

2. What are the 2-3 cited articles in this section that help set the stage for the current
article?
- The study conducted at Dartmouth in the 1930s where students had to identify a man
who came to the class from a group of 6 group of men all dressed in a workman’s
overalls.
- The study conducted by Buckhout et al at California State University.
- Loftus et al study on the influence of a single eyewitness can have in the courtroom
where students were put into a juror’s shoes and asked to give a guilty or not guilty
verdict after receiving a summary of grocery store robbery.

3. What is the gap in knowledge that the current article is trying to address? What is the
research question? Why is this question important?
There have been many studies on the credibility of eyewitness testimony and why it should
not be considered a reliable evidence in courtroom. The current study is looking at the
reason of this distortion in the memory and what makes this distortion to happen.

The aim of the study was to examine whether leading information alters eyewitness
testimony.

Methods
4. Who are the participants and what was the samples size? Were these appropriate for
the study?
- 145 - 100 College students in the IV groups of the first experiment, 45 in the second
experiment
- Yes, these were appropriate for the study.

5. What were the IV(s), DV(s), and design(s)? what were the key materials and apparatus?
What were the key procedural details (i.e., timeline of participant experience)?
IV: leading questions
- Use of article for questions like “was there a broken headlight?”
o The
 o A
- Different verbs used in the main question:
o Smashed
o Collided
o Bumped
o Hit
o Contacted
- Use of verbs for recollecting whether there was broken glass
o Smashed
o Hit
DV:
- Broken headlights?
o Yes
o No
o do not know
- speed estimates
- reported seeing broken glass or not

• Design: a laboratory experimental design with between-subjects design

• There was the first experiment where participants reported seeing something that was
either present or not present in the film, but the leading questions asked as “did you see
the X?” and “did you see a X?”
• The second experiment had participants estimate the speed of the cars by framing the
question using leading verbs.
• Then participants were asked to answer whether they saw broken glasses and were
analyzed based on the verbs they got in the previous part of the experiment.

6. What were the research hypotheses? That is, what did the researchers expect to
happen and why?
The researchers expected alteration in the responses of the participants due to the leading
questions and verbs used to show that memory is unreliable.

Results
7. What are the main results of the study (as they related to the IV(s) of interest)?
- Witnesses who received questions with the were much more likely to report having
seen something that had not really appeared in the film; 15% || 7% of witnesses who
received questions with a made that error || those who were in a condition were more
likely to respond, “don’t know”, both when the object had been present and when it
had not.
- The speed estimates varied considerably, depending on which verb question they were
answering. The contacted group gave the lowest speed estimates with 31.8 mph, while
those in smashed group gave the highest estimate 40.8 mph. collided had 39.3 mph,
bumped had 38.1 mph, and hit had 34.0 mph.
 - Twice as many as subjects who answered the smashed question reported seeing the
non-existent glass as those queried with hit.

8. Were the results consistent with the research hypotheses? Can they be generalized
beyond the context of the study?
The results were consistent with the research hypothesis. The leading questions and verbs used
made a significant difference in the responses of the participants in different IV conditions. Yes,
the results can be generalized to a larger population beyond the context of the study.

Discussion
9. How do these findings mesh with previous research on this topic?
In the study conducted at Dartmouth, students were asked to choose a man who they saw a
few weeks ago. 17% of students chose the wrong man from a group of 6 men. 29% of students
who did not witnessed the event but were told they had seen it, pointed to a man. This showed
that other’s accounts of events can make people to “recall” something that they have never
witnessed.

The study conducted at California State University also saw inaccurate recalling. Therefore, the
result from the current study is very strongly backed up by both these studies.

10. Are there any obvious limitations of the study or general critiques of the article?
- A real-life car crash incident would be more stress inducing than watching a clip of a
simulated crash which is a more artificial setting.
- There could have been participants who might not have driving experience or
knowledge about speed units.

11. Did the authors identify directions for future research?

There were not any evident future research ideas.

12. What was the overall take-home message of the article? That is, imagine you had to
distill this down into 1-min explanation to someone who hasn’t read the article, what
would you say to them?

The article was about the reconstructive nature of stored memories. Memories are not reliable
as the time from witnessing an event to recalling, there is so much difference in the content of
what we have remembered and what we actually saw. Eyewitness testimonies that are
considered very important and reliable in courtrooms are oftentimes false testimonies. By
asking leading questions, one can drastically influence the information of an event from getting
incorrect details of the event to testifying something that people have not even witnessed.