Research into the accuracy of eye witness testimony

Misleading questions (acceptance of events prior to the main event)

Loftus 1975

P - showed participants a film leading up to a crash. Group was then divided into a control, and experimental group. The experimental group were asked a leading question asking about a barn which werent actually in the video. 

R - 17 percent of the experimental group made an error of a barn being there which actually hadnt.

C - some misleading post event information had actually been absorbed into the original memory of the vent. 

E - lab experiment, realistic material used, still artificial, participants told to pay attention - demand characteristics, witnesses would not be preapred in real life. 

Loftus 1980

P - offered a monetary reward to participants to recall an event correctly. They were shown a film of a car knocking over a pedestrian at a stop sign, while the other group were shown a car stopping at a give way sign. The participants were asked two days later questions about the incident, with one critical question misleading the participants to a stop, or a give way sign, and vice versa. They were then all asked to look at slides and point out which were from the original film, while dividing them up into - offered no…