Factors affecting EWT: misleading information

Factors affecting EWT: misleading information

1. Leading questions

   • Loftus and palmer (1974) arranged participants to watch film clips of car accidents and gave them questions about it.
   • 5 groups of participants, each was given a different verb in the question.
   • Found verb 'contacted' resulted in a mean estimated speed of 31.8 mph. For the verb 'smashed', the mean was 40.5 mph. Shows leading questions biased the eyewitness recall of event.

2. Why do leading questions affect EWT

   • Response- bias explanation suggests wording of question has no affect on participants memory, just influences how they answer.
   • Loftus and Palmer conducted a second study that supported substitution explanation- the wording of leading question changes the participants memory of film clip.

3. Post- event discussion

   • Gabbert at al (2003) studied participants in pairs. Each watched a clip of different crime, but from different points of view.
   • Participants then discussed what they had both seen.
   • Found 71% of participants mistakenly recalled aspects of events they didn't see but picked up in discussion. However, in a control group where there was no discussion was 0%.
   • Gabbert et al concluded witnesses go along with others to gain social approval, or because they believe they are right.

4. Evaluation

   • Useful real life applications- could help prevent miscarriages of justice and change police interviewing.
   • Tasks are artificial- watching film clips ignores stress and anxiety associated with real accident or crime.
   • Individual differences- older people may be less accurate because of own age bias.