eye witness testimony

eye witness testimony

1. loftus and palmer 1

   • aims and procedures
     • 45 participants shown 7 different films of car traffic accidents
     • pps were asked various questions about the accidents and one critical one about the speed
     • 5 groups and the verb in the critical question was changed for each one, 'smashed', 'collided', 'bumped', 'hit', 'contacted'
   • findings and conclusion
     • smashed produced the highest estimate (40.8 mph)
     • contacted was lowest (31.8 mph)
     • suggests the ewt might be biased by the way q's are asked after a crime is committed
   • evaluation
     • lacks ecological validity
       • film clips-not real accidents so less emotionally involved
       • yuille an cutshall involved people who witnessed a real armed robbery, they found peoples recall was still accurate despite misleading info

2. loftus and palmer 2

   • aims and procedure
     • 150 studens shown filmed car accidents and asked about the acidents
     • 3 groups; 'smashed', 'hit' and control-weren't asked the critical q
     • a week later pps were asked whether they had seen broken glass- there was none in the films
   • findings and conclusion
     • higher speed estimates for 'smashed'
     • twice as many pps reported broken glass in the 'smashed' group than other groups
     • shows memory is disorted by misleading info
   • evaluation
     • ecological validity
     • supported by other studies
       • eakin et al. showed slides of a man stealing from an office, recall was affected by post event info