The Dangers Of Source Confusion During Eyewitness Testimonies

Steve Titus’s circumstances illustrates the dangers of source confusion during eyewitness testimonies. Source confusion occurs when the context and details of a stimulus are misremembered or confused with another stimulus, which may only appear familiar. In this case, Titus resembled a rapist who was wanted, as well as his car was similar to the rapist’s car. When Titus was shown in a lineup, he was picked out as the offender. This situation shows that people are capable of having no source memory, but can still have a sense of familiarity. Another topic Loftus brought up was the impact of leading questions and how just the choice of one word can alter memories. During this study, participants were shown a series of images showing a car accident, then they were either asked the following question: “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” or “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?” A week later, the participants were also asked if they had seen any broken glass in the slides. The results showed participants from the “smash” group were more likely to assume that there was broken glass (although there was not),
Witnesses would remember that there was a yield sign in the picture, when asked a leading question that may have suggested there was a yield sign instead of a stop sign. The importance of this study indicates how easily a person’s memories can be tampered and how investigators must be careful during the interview process so that no questions are suggestive of a particular detail or event. This is often why witnesses are encouraged not to discuss the event with anyone else before the interview because how easily they can be fed misinformation. Illustrated in this study and the “Hit/Smash” study is the misinformation effect and its ability to produce false