Starter: how good is your memory? Draw an accurate picture of the ‘head’ side of a 10p coin (try and get the right size) Who is on the back of the new five pound note? Who is the current home secretary? What clothes was I wearing in your previous lesson?

Starter: how good is your memory? Answers Get and a 10 pence piece and check. How close were you? Did you get the right size (diameter = 26.5 mm)? Was Queen Elizabeth II facing the right way (from left to right) ? Winston Churchill Amber Rudd Will I remember…..?

What was your score? Did anyone get all four questions correct, or nearly correct? These questions have answers that you should all know, as you have seen or heard the answers, sometimes many, many times (how often have you held a 10p or a £5 note?) So what does this tell us about our LTMs? What do you think we are covering today?

Factors affecting the accuracy of EWT

Objectives By the end of the lesson… Will be able to describe Eye Witness Testimony (EWT). C Will be able to explain the role of leading questions in EWT. A Will be able to fully describe Loftus and Palmer’s study and understand how it applies to EWT.

Memory in Real Life An ‘eyewitness’ is someone who has seen or witnessed a crime, usually present at the time of the incident. They use their memory of the crime to give their testimony or a ‘reconstruction’ of what happened. ‘Eyewitness Testimony’ = the evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime, with a view to identifying the perpetrator.

I saw a skinhead trying to steal a man’s briefcase How often do we get the whole picture? How accurate is Eye Witness Testimony/ reconstructed memories? What might affect the accuracy of an Eye Witness account? If it wasn’t for that bloke, the old man could’ve been killed! I saw a young man running up to an old lady. She looked really scared!

Let’s find out how accurate EWT might be…? Watch the incident video in silence. Pay attention, you are the eye witnesses and will be asked a question about it later… Crime Incident

EWT Questioning… The police have been called to the scene and want to ask you one vital question about the incident. On each table there is a question. Turn it over and write down your own answer individually! Do not confer with anyone else!

Results from your study Do we have different average estimates for each of the groups? Why do you think this was (or wasn’t) As the verb ‘smashed’ as connotations with increased speed… this group estimated the speed as higher than the other groups. This shows that misleading or suggestive information can distort Eye Witness Memory Group A Group B Group C Group D total mean

Leading Questions: Experiment 1 Loftus and Palmer (1974) Leading Questions: Experiment 1 45 students shown 7 films of traffic accidents. Students were given questionnaire There was one critical question about how fast the cars were going – each with a different verb. Do our findings match what Loftus and Palmer found? You weren’t naïve participants, why might this be a confounding variable? (a confounding variable is an extraneous variable that has caused changes in the DV, eliminating internal validity from the study) Read the overview handout on Loftus and Palmer and answer the questions

Activity 1: suggested answers 3) Such a biased sample would mean we cannot generalise to other populations. Students are especially biased as they tend to be middle class, white, young, and in this case, from the United States. 4) There is concern that watching a video and answering questions is nothing like witnessing a real event, which increases anxiety and psychological arousal. This criticism is supported by the findings that investigations into the witnesses of real crimes find that memories are robust and tend not to be altered as easily as Loftus found in the laboratory. 5) If findings are not reliable then we are uncomfortable in claiming that the theory is accurate under all conditions. In this case, we can only state that evidence shows that testimonies can be corrupted in certain conditions, for example, when there are subtle changes. We certainly cannot conclude that all EWT would be changed due to any type of misinformation.

So what is a leading question? “A question that either by form or content, suggests a desired answer or leads a witness to believe a desired answer.” Leading questions contain misleading pieces of information or wording and are usually closed. Activity 2: Change these questions so that they do not lead the suspect

Activity 3 Read the text and answer the questions Suggested answers: Why might we argue that this has a greater level of ecological validity than the original study of the car crash? Because the researcher is using their memories of real events which happened to them, this means that generalisations can be made beyond what might be recorded in a laboratory setting What does this study tell us about when false memories occur? During when the event occurs or during the exposure to misleading information? It suggests that memories can be distorted during exposure to the misleading information, and not when the memories are first formed. In other words, we change existing memories Why might advertisers be interest in this type of research? Because if advertisers can implant false memories, they can make people feel positive about their product, even if there is a previous negative reputation (Primark, Lidl, Virgin trains etc.)

Activity 4 Foster et al. (1994) showed that EWT was more accurate for real life crimes as opposed to simulations… So it is likely that in court for real crimes, eye-witness testimonies are more reliable than Loftus states, even with the presence of misleading information. This suggests that they should be used as evidence, as long as other evidence supports the account as a safeguard. Subtle and plausible misleading information is much more likely to alter the accuracy of an EWT compared with obviously misleading information… It is important to be extra careful during EW interviews not to use subtle misleading information, even at an unconscious level. Therefore it is vital that police officers should be trained well in interview techniques (see cognitive interview)

Activity 4 Some critics are concerned with the ethical implications of research into misleading information, such as deception, informed consent, and psychological harm… The researchers must use ethical committees and complete a cost benefit analysis before the research, if the findings mean that fewer innocent people are sent to prison, and more guilty people are, the benefits may be considered to outweigh the costs. However, this would need to be checked by gaining presumptive, prior general or/and retrospective consent

Activity 4 Some critics are concerned with psychological research into misleading information as this may be exploited by advertisers who manipulate people’s memories to sell their products. In the early 2000s, Virgin trains had a poor reputation for unreliability and were viewed negatively by the public. With a basis in psychological research, a new advertising campaign called “falling in love again” linked the positive image of ‘the golden age of train travel’ with Virgin trains. This created a false truth in people’s memories which removed the negative view of the company. Sales rose 20% during the advertising campaign (Goode, 2007)… Some people may see this as a benefit of the research as it could work to stimulate the finances of companies, safeguarding jobs, however, others may think that psychological research should not be used in a way that may exploit people, which some believe advertisers do.

Activity 5 - Exam question A witness was being questioned about a car crash she had seen, the officer asked to estimate the speed of the car before impact. She gave an estimate of about 25-30 mph. Another witness was asked ‘how fast was the car going when it smashed into the wall?’. This witness gave an estimate of about 40 – 45 mph. Use psychological research to illustrate why the second witness gave a higher estimate (3 marks)

A poor answer Loftus and Baddeley (1990) found that they will conform to estimates because of the words used by policemen. If the policemen asked them if they were going fast, people would say yes, but would say no if they were asked if they were going slow. This shows that there is a defect in peoples memory when they are misslead by policemen and the policemen shouldn’t do it. Find five criticisms of this answer. Possible answers: no link to the text in the question, very poor reporting of research, wrong names and dates used; incorrect information about Loftus and Palmer’s (1974) findings; sexist language of ‘policemen’, poor construct of conclusion, unclear who ‘they’ and ‘it’ are; Misspelling of misled What would you give out of 3? This answer would get zero marks

Activity F - Exam answer The second witness had been influenced by misinformation by exposure to a leading question (1 mark) Loftus and Palmer (1974) found that participants gave a higher estimate of speed when watching a film of a car crash when they were asked, how fast were the cars going when they smashed each other (40.8mph) compared with when smashed was replaced with contacted (31.8 mph) (2 marks). In the case in the scenario, the word impact suggests a lower speed than the word smashed, and this explains why the two estimates are significantly different, mirroring Loftus and Palmer’s findings (3 marks)

The correct answer is… c) Knocked Test Yourself… 1. Which of the following was not a cue word in the experiment by Loftus and Palmer? Smashed Contacted Knocked Hit The correct answer is… c) Knocked Resource Developed By: Miss A Simpson

The correct answer is… a) Estimate of Speed EWT Test Yourself… 2. The DV in the first experiment was… Estimate of speed The verb ‘smashed’ The question about broken glass The film The correct answer is… a) Estimate of Speed Resource Developed By: Miss A Simpson

The correct answer is… c) 5 EWT Test Yourself… 3. In Experiment 1, how many experimental conditions were there? 1 3 5 7 The correct answer is… c) 5 Resource Developed By: Miss A Simpson

The correct answer is… b) 2 EWT Test Yourself… 4. In Experiment 2, how many experimental groups were there? 1 2 3 4 The correct answer is… b) 2 Resource Developed By: Miss A Simpson

The correct answer is… c) 1 week EWT Test Yourself… 5. In Experiment 2, participants were tested immediately and then asked to return for some more questions. How long afterwards was this? 1 day 3 days 1 week 2 weeks The correct answer is… c) 1 week Resource Developed By: Miss A Simpson

Test Yourself… EWT The ‘smashed’ group The ‘collided’ group 6. In Experiment 2, which group saw the most broken glass? The ‘smashed’ group The ‘collided’ group The ‘hit’ group The control group The correct answer is… a) The ‘smashed’ group Resource Developed By: Miss A Simpson

7. Which of the following is true? EWT Test Yourself… 7. Which of the following is true? Experiment 1 and 2 were both repeated measures Experiment 1 and 2 were both independent measures Only Experiment 1 was repeated measures Only experiment 1 was independent measures The correct answer is… b) Experiment 1 and 2 were both independent measures Resource Developed By: Miss A Simpson

The correct answer is… b) Students EWT Test Yourself… 8. The participants in this study were: Children Students Teachers Adults The correct answer is… b) Students Resource Developed By: Miss A Simpson