Misleading information: Research and evaluation

Misleading information: Research and evaluation

1. A question or statement which wrongly implies that something happened when it did not, following an eyewitness experience.

2. RESEARCH

   • Elizabeth Loftus - investigated how information provided after the event may affect EWT memory
   • Experimental method
     • Controlled environment
     • Stimulus material mimics real-life situations
   • LOFTUS (1975)
     • Researched the effect of misleading information provided after the event
     • PPs were shown a film of a car accident, and afterwards were divided into two groups
       • Group 1: Asked 10 questions that were consistent with the film
       • Group 2: Asked the same 10 questions except one that was misleading 'How fast was the white sports car going when it passed the barn?' (there was no barn in the film)
     • After one week, PPs were asked 'Did you see a barn?'
       • Group 1: only 2.7% gave the incorrect answer and said 'yes'
       • Group 2: 17.3% answered 'yes'
     • The misleading information of the non-existent barn had been added to the PPs' memory of the event so that it was recalled as being part of the original event
   • LOFTUS (1979)
     • Investigated the effects of blatantly incorrect misinformation on recall of events
     • PPs were shown a set of slides that showed a large, red purse being stolen
       • In an immediate recall test, 98% of PPs correctly remembered the colour of the purse
     • Read an account of the incident allegedly written by a professor of psychology
       • Makes the account more legitimate
       • Account contained minor errors of unimportant details but also stated that the stolen purse was brown
       • All but two PPs correctly recalled that the stolen purse was red and so were able to resist the blatantly incorrect information
     • Memory for information that is very noticeable and important at the time is less subject to memory distortion than peripheral details
     • Under certain circumstances, people can ignore new information. This means that their original memory representation stays the same.

3. EVALUATION

   • Loftus' studies and findings has had important implications on how witnesses are questioned
   • Loftus' studies have been criticized for lacking ecological validity as they do not represent how a real-life questioning would happen
     • In real-life, witnesses are usually questioned unexpectedly and in an atmosphere of tension
     • It is difficult to reproduce the real-life conditions in a lab due to practical and ethical reasons
     • PPs know that the lab study only shows staged events and therefore their recall performance may not reflect how real events are remembered