Eyewitness Testimony Research Paper

Eye witness testimony is a legal term for evidence which is supplied by people who witness a specific event and then have to rely on their memory to recall the situation as best as they can. They can often be misled when asked the questions. Misleading information is where a person may be asked a question to either provoke a specific answer or lead the witness to an out of context situation. Loftus and Palmer were interested to see how something as simple as a misleading question affected those who were taken as eyewitnesses. They found that more dramatic words can influence someone’s memory when asked to recall a situation, even after a week they found that the whole word had influenced their whole memory. Because of this study and other
studies psychologist suggest that the accuracy of eyewitness suggest that information given from them is far less reliable than we might have first thought. However you could criticise the Loftus and Palmers study and claim that it was not done in a real life situation so it may not have had the same impact as maybe a real life accident may have had as many may have not been emotionally effective. Moreover the participants were awaiting for something to happen to therefore you result in demand characteristics. Also they tested students who may be better at recalling information rather than someone much older which shows low population validity.