FACTORS AFFECTING EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY:

MISLEADING INFORMATION

 An eyewitness testimony is the evidence provided by a person who has witnessed a crime/incident with a view to identifying the perpetrator of the
crime
 A leading question is a question which is worded in a way to suggest a particular answer from someone
 Post-event discussion in when people discuss information after an event has taken place and can have an influence on an individuals memory

AO1:
The effects of leading questions: Loftus and Palmer The effects of post-event discussion: Gabbert et al.

Aim Aim
 To investigate the effect of leading questions in distorting the accuracy of  To investigate the effects of post-event information in distorting the
eyewitness testimony accuracy of eyewitness testimony

Procedure Procedure
 Carried our a laboratory experiment using and independent group design  Participants were split into pairs. Each participant watched a video of the
 45 American students were shown seven films of different car accidents same crime but from different viewpoints
 After each film, the participants were given a questionnaire asking them  This meant that each participant could see elements in the event that the
to describe the accident other could not i.e. only one could see the title of a book being carried by
 They were asked a series of specific questions including a critical a young woman
question: “about how fast were the cars going when they _____ each  Both participants then discussed what they had seen before individually
other?” completing a test of recall
 The participants were divided into five groups and each group was asked  In a control group, there was no discussion before the recall task
the critical question with one of the following verbs:
1. Smashed Findings
2. Hit  In the experimental condition 71% of the participants mistakenly recalled
3. Collided aspects of the event that they did not see in the video but had picked up
4. Bumped in the post-event discussion
5. Contacted  The corresponding figure was 0% in the control group

Findings Conclusion
 The estimated speed was affected by the verb used  Post-event discussion causes your memory to become distorted and
 The group given the word ‘smashed’ estimated the highest speed of 40.8 recall of information is affected
mph and the group given the word ‘contacted’ estimated the lowest
speed of 31.8 mph

Conclusion
 The wording of questions can have an effect on the recall of information

 Reliability
P One strength of Loftus’ research
is that it is highly replicable
E For example, Loftus tended to
use a range of controlled
experiments illustrating different
examples of EWT. Due to the
control over extraneous variables E For example, Loftus’ research
in much of Loftus’ research it is
easy to replicate
E This is a strength as this means
that researchers using identical
procedures should produce
similar results. Indeed, Loftus has
conducted a large number of
studies into EWT and invariably
found the same outcome – that
misleading information negatively
affects EWT
L Therefore the ability to replicate
Loftus’ research allows for
reliability to be tested and has
thus yielded reliable findings
AO2/AO3:
 Practical application ー Lacks ecological validity
P A further strength of research on P A limitation of Loftus’ research is
EWT is that it has practical that the tasks used are artificial
applications for the real world E For example, Loftus used a video
where the consequences of of a car accident and this not the
inaccurate EWT can be very same as experiencing a real
serious incident. It is difficult to
reproduce real life EWT
revealed that leading questions conditions in a laboratory for
can lead to significant distortions practical and ethical reasons
in memory E This is a problem as real life
E This is a strength as events often take place
understanding this informs unexpectedly and in an
interviewers of the need to avoid atmosphere of high tension,
biased questions when trying to meaning they may be recalled
gather information from significantly different to
witnesses. This is particularly laboratory settings. Furthermore,
important in the legal system Foster et al. found that if
when interviewing eyewitnesses participants thought they were
and therefore this understanding watching a real life robbery
should help improve their important to a real trial, their
accuracy of recall of events identification of the robber was
L Therefore the findings from much more accurate
Loftus’ research is useful as it L Therefore controlled research
makes an important positive settings such as Loftus’ may lack
contribution to the real world ecological which in turn may
undermine the findings
ー Contradictory real life research
P A further limitation of Loftus’
research is that there is
contradictory evidence from real-
life research
E For example, Yuille & Cutshall
studied a real-life situation of a
shooting outside a gun shop in
Canada. They examined
witnesses’ recall of a real-life
crime five months after the
incident and asked them two
misleading questions. They found
the misleading questions did not
alter accuracy of recall from their
original statements
E This is a problem as in Loftus’
research the important
information (the speed of the car)
was distorted simply by the verb
used. However, EWT studied in
real life situations has
contradictory results, where
misleading information did not
distort accuracy of recall
L Therefore the validity of Loftus’
methodology and findings are
reduced

NOTE: Only select the relevant AO1s (e.g. 2/3 points) and four evaluation points (AO2/AO3)