Discuss Research into the Influence of Misleading Information on the Accuracy of Ewt

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themselves or with a person of the similar age group. This was done so that they could unintentionally introduce misinformation in the discussion. An individual recall test was then taken to see the effects of the discussion on subsequent memory reports. 71% of witnesses who had discussed the event reported details acquired during the discussion. These were details that were impossible to see from the perspective they were in. In the control group where there was no discussion the figure was 0%. This shows that witnesses go along with each other whether to win social approval or they believe the other witnesses are right and they are wrong. This is known as the conformity effect.

Not all researchers agree with Loftus that eye witness testimony is generally inaccurate and therefore unreliable. Loftus’ experiment was a lab experiment therefore it might be of low ecological validity and not represent a real life situation.

Yuille and Cutshall (1986) found that recall is more accurate in real life. They assessed this by checking the testimonies of 13 people from murder and robbery cases in Canada. The interviews took place 4 months later and involved 2 misleading questions. Even though they had been given misleading questions their recall matches their initial EWT. This shows that post information may not affect memory In real life therefore EWT can be reliable.

Foster( 1994) also found that if participants thought they were watching a real life robbery and also though their responses would influence the trial, their identification of a robber was more accurate.

Age can affect EWT. You are more able to identify someone of your own age then a different one. This is perhaps due to us having more contact to someone of our own age. Anastasi and Rhodes (2006) used individuals from three age groups. They had to rate 24 individuals of different age groups on attractiveness. Later they were presented with 48 photos. 24 they had seen previously and 24 distractors. All age groups were more accurate when identifying people of their own age. This is called ’own age bias’.