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02-01-2006, 03:28 AM

Eye-witness Testimony

Loftus and Palmer (1974) showed participants a film involving a road accident and asked them to estimate the speed of the vehicles involved. If the verb used in the question was “hit”, the average speed was estimated at 31 mph, if “smashed” then 41mph. A week later 32% of subjects who heard the word “smashed” said there was glass present while only 14% who heard the word “hit” did.
Loftus has said that we alter information for a number of reasons: because of our own beliefs or prejudice or because of suggestions made to us. This fits in with Bartlett’s research (see above) showing that many factors can affect the reliability of memory. This highlights the dangers of leading questions, for example in court. However Loftus (1979) has also shown that more important events are not so likely to be so influenced. In an experiment where participants were shown a man stealing a red purse subjects could accura نقرتين لعرض الصورة في صفحة مستقلة

y report the colour even when told it was brown.
Criticisms of these experiments:
It may be that participants think they should overestimate speed because it is expected, i.e. “demand characteristics”. Other experiments have shown that memory for the original event does not change as Loftus suggests. Even when
they have been misled their original memory remains. Neutral questions seem to be important.
Factors involved in eye-witness testimony:
1. Leading questions – see above
2. Emotion – studies by Loftus have found that people’s memory for faces is less accurate when there is a weapon involved. Witnesses seem to focus on the weapon not the face of the criminal.
3. Context – see divers’ study above. The police now help the witnesses to recreate a similar context (by e.g. imagining what they were wearing and their mental state) and thus improve their recall.