Eyewitness testimony: the effect of misleading information (leading questions and post-event discussion)
Eyewitness testimony is the evidence a witness gives about a crime or accident they observed, which research shows can be distorted by misleading information encountered after the event, including leading questions and post-event discussion with other witnesses. Because eyewitness accounts carry strong weight in criminal trials, such distortion risks serious miscarriages of justice.
Before you start
Make sure you're comfortable with these topics first:
Method
- Learn the definitions of misleading information, leading question and post-event discussion, each with a simple example.
- Learn Loftus and Palmer's procedure and findings on how the verb used in a question about a car accident affects estimated speed and later false memories (e.g. of broken glass).
- Learn the two explanations for why leading questions distort memory: response-bias (the report changes, not the memory) and substitution (the memory itself is altered).
- Learn Gabbert, Memon and Allan's research on post-event discussion and the term memory conformity.
- When given a new scenario involving a witness being questioned or discussing an event with others, identify which mechanism (leading question or post-event discussion) applies and state the likely effect on their testimony.
- Learn at least one piece of evidence that challenges the lab-based findings (e.g. Yuille and Cutshall's real-world study) and one real-world application (e.g. avoiding leading questions in police interviews), so the topic can be evaluated as well as described.
Worked example
Two friends, Ben and Chloe, watch a bicycle theft from different sides of a car park. Before being interviewed by store security, they spend ten minutes discussing what they saw. Chloe later reports seeing the thief wearing gloves, a detail Ben mentioned but that Chloe herself could not have seen from her position. Using the concept of memory conformity, explain what has likely happened to Chloe's account.
- Identify the process at work: Ben and Chloe discussed the event before being interviewed, so this is a case of post-event discussion.
- Identify the specific effect: Chloe has reported a detail (the gloves) she could not have personally observed, matching the pattern found in research such as Gabbert, Memon and Allan's study.
- Name the effect: this is memory conformity, where one witness's account comes to include details only learned from a co-witness.
- Explain the mechanism: during discussion Ben mentioned the gloves, and Chloe appears to have incorporated this detail into her own memory, believing she recalls it herself.
- State the implication: Chloe's evidence about the gloves is unreliable, since it may have originated from Ben's account rather than her own observation, so the two witnesses' testimony is no longer fully independent.
Practice questions
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Q1What term describes a question phrased in a way that suggests a particular answer to a witness?Show answer
Answer: A leading question.
Q2In Loftus and Palmer's study, which verb produced the highest average speed estimates?Show answer
Answer: 'Smashed'.
Q3What is the name of the explanation which claims that a leading question only changes a witness's reported answer, not their actual memory?Show answer
Answer: The response-bias explanation.
Q4What is the name of the explanation which claims that misleading information becomes part of the witness's actual memory?Show answer
Answer: The substitution explanation.
Q5What term describes witnesses' accounts becoming similar or contaminated after they discuss an event together?Show answer
Answer: Memory conformity.
Q6Which real-world study of witnesses to an actual armed robbery found that misleading questions had little effect on recall accuracy?Show answer
Answer: Yuille and Cutshall (1986).
Exam-style questions
Written in the style of a A Level Psychology exam paper, with a full mark scheme.
Explain the difference between the response-bias explanation and the substitution explanation for the effect of leading questions on eyewitness testimony.
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A market trader witnesses a shoplifting incident and is interviewed by a store detective who asks: 'How quickly did the shoplifter run when they barged past the till?' Using research into leading questions, explain how this question could distort the trader's account, and suggest one way the detective could have worded the question to avoid this risk.
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