This document includes revision notes on factors affect eyewitness testimony, misleading information, for AQA A level psychology for the topic of memory in paper 1. All content follows the AQA specification.
Loftus and Palmer
A: To investigate the effect of leading questions on EWT.
P: 45 American students were divided into 5 groups of 9. Watched clips of car accidents
then answered the question:
- How fast were the cars going when they _______ each other?
- Each group given a different verb: Hit/contacted/bumped/collided/smashed
Contacted - average speed was 31.8 mph
Smashed - average speed was 40.5 mph
EXPERIMENT 2
Loftus and Palmer used a different sample of 150 students divided into 3 groups:
- Group 1: How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?
- Group 2: How fast were the cars going when they hit into each other?
- Group 3: control group (not asked about speed)
One week later, participants were asked a series of questions about the car accident.
Critical question: Did you see the broken glass?
- 32% of participants who were questioned with smashed reported they did see
broken glass, compared to 14% who were questioned with hit.
- 12% of the control group reported seeing broken glass.
Conclusion: Memory was falsified by the question, showing the power of leading questions.
Gabbert et al.
P: Studied participants in pairs. Each P watched a video of the same crime, filmed from
different perspectives - each P saw different elements in the event others could not. The
paired participants discussed what they saw before completing a recall test.
F: 71% of Ps mistakenly recalled aspects of the event they did not see in the video but heard
in the discussion. In the control group where there was no discussion – this was 0%.
STRENGTH: RLA
P: Research into misleading information has practical uses in the real world, consequences
of inaccurate EWT are serious.
E: Loftus: leading questions have a distorting effect, police need to be wary of phrasing their
questions to eyewitnesses.
J: Research in this area makes a difference, e.g improving how the legal system works.
LIMITATION: Artificial Tasks
P: Artificial tasks.
E: Loftus & Palmer's Ps watched clips of car accidents, a different experience from seeing a
real accident as clips lack the stress that would be experienced with a real car accident.
J: Using artificial tasks tells us little on how leading questions affect EWT. Researchers could
be pessimistic on the accuracy of EWT, and may be more reliable than many studies suggest.
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