Summary Of Eyewitness Testimony
American cognitive psychologist
Fields; Cognitive psychology, Psychology and law Misinformation effect and eyewitness memory
“Eyewitness testimony” book explores in depth how eyewitnesses can in fact be highly unreliable and the psychology behind why.
Expert on human memory.
Loftus’ previous studies revolved around whether memories are necessarily accurate
Inspired by a real case
The study was conducted in 1974
“Aim of study; Test their hypothesis that the language used in eyewitness testimony can alter memory” (simplepsychology.org)
Main focus; How the wording of questions can influence (mis)leading information to the eyewitness testimonies
The case- A man was convicted of rape just because out of the options given he was the closest
match to the rapist. A journalist later found the real rapist
Loftus and Palmer asked people to guess the speed of vehicles in the given situations when using different wording within the question
Watch video
Write details
Answer given questions about the speed of the car
45 students, seven film clips
They were asked to write an account of what happened straight after watching the clip
Out of the questions the main one about the speed of the car had been manipulated inorder to make the participants answer a certain way
It was found that the words used within the question did in fact influence the participants perceptions of the speed of the car
This graph shows how the wording of the question influenced how the participants viewed the seriousness of the accident
When asking children questions the need to be open ended question as it does not make them feel required to answer a certain way.
The language used within the question can make the child feel like they need to answer a certain way. E.g. “ Did he hit you “
Examples; “ Did mummy give you those bruises?” “Did you see hit ?” “Are you tired because you stayed at mum/dads last night?” If ever reporting a case of abuse asking the children leading questions can then make the account invalid
Fields; Cognitive psychology, Psychology and law Misinformation effect and eyewitness memory
“Eyewitness testimony” book explores in depth how eyewitnesses can in fact be highly unreliable and the psychology behind why.
Expert on human memory.
Loftus’ previous studies revolved around whether memories are necessarily accurate
Inspired by a real case
The study was conducted in 1974
“Aim of study; Test their hypothesis that the language used in eyewitness testimony can alter memory” (simplepsychology.org)
Main focus; How the wording of questions can influence (mis)leading information to the eyewitness testimonies
The case- A man was convicted of rape just because out of the options given he was the closest
match to the rapist. A journalist later found the real rapist
Loftus and Palmer asked people to guess the speed of vehicles in the given situations when using different wording within the question
Watch video
Write details
Answer given questions about the speed of the car
45 students, seven film clips
They were asked to write an account of what happened straight after watching the clip
Out of the questions the main one about the speed of the car had been manipulated inorder to make the participants answer a certain way
It was found that the words used within the question did in fact influence the participants perceptions of the speed of the car
This graph shows how the wording of the question influenced how the participants viewed the seriousness of the accident
When asking children questions the need to be open ended question as it does not make them feel required to answer a certain way.
The language used within the question can make the child feel like they need to answer a certain way. E.g. “ Did he hit you “
Examples; “ Did mummy give you those bruises?” “Did you see hit ?” “Are you tired because you stayed at mum/dads last night?” If ever reporting a case of abuse asking the children leading questions can then make the account invalid