EWT: Misleading information

Response-bias explanation: wording of a question has no effect on EW's memory of an event, but influences the kind of answer given.

Substitution explanation: the wording of a question inteferes with the original memory (distorting accuracy), rather than effecting memory directly.

Loftus and Palmer

• 45 PP's watched clips of car accidents and then answered questions about speed.

• 5 groups, each given a different verb.

Verb - contacted: 31.8mph

Verb - smashed: 40.5 mph

Leading question biased EW's recall of an event. Smashed suggested a faster speed of the car than contacted.

Memory contamination: when witnesses discuss a crime, they mix info from others with their own memory.

Memory conformity: witnesses go along with each other to win social approval or because they believe that the other witness are right.

Gabbert

• Paired PP's watched a video of the same crime, but each PP coudl see elements that the other couldn't.

• Both PP's discussed the video, then individually completed a test of recall.

71% mistakenly recalled aspects of the event which they hadn't seen.

In a control group, there was no discussion and no error.

Research into misleading information has real-life application

- Practical uses for police officers.

- Officers need to be careful about how they phrase questions.

- Can make a difference to the lives of real people.

Loftus + Palmer study used artificial materials

Watching a fake accident is different to witnessing a real-life one. Yuille + Cutshall found that witnesses of a real crime had accurate recall after 4 months. Tells us little about how leading questions effect EWT in real-life.

There may be individual differences in accuracy of EWT

Anastasi + Rhodes found that older people were less accurate than younger people. Own age bias - all age groups more accurate when identifying people of their own age group. Research often used younger people as the target. Some age groups may seen less accurate but this is not really the case.

Lab studies suffer from demand characteristics

PP's want to be helpful, so they give answers they think will be so. Studies are supposed to measure accuracy of EWT but answers given may not reflect their memories, therefore this challenges the validity of EWT research.

Many studies lack external validity

Info remembered can have important consequences, but this is not the case in research studies. Real-life EW's search memories deeper because it may lead to a sucessful/wrong conviction. EWT accuracy may be greater in the real-world because of the seriousness.