Looking at the effects of delayed recall, misinformation and suggestibility on an eyewitness's memory of an event
Authors
Walsh, Lisa
Issue Date
2005
Degree
BA in Psychology
Publisher
Dublin Business School
Rights holder
Rights
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Abstract
The aim of this study is to look at the affects of misinformation and suggestibility on memory and to look at the recall of these memories after some time has passed representing an eyewitness situation. A video player, television, questionnaire, video clip of the Soprano's and a misleading narrative was used to conduct the experiment. Participants watched a video clip and they were later asked questions about what they had witnessed, some of the questions contained misinformation, both the control and experimental groups received the same questionnaire. The independent variable was not only the questions asked but the experimental group was also read a narrative, and all conditions were retested a week later, all of these being independent variables. There were a total of 116 participants (males = 57; females = 59) and the experiment was a repeated measures design. The dependent variable was the amount of correct and incorrect responses to the questions. Results were not found to be significant. The misinformation effect did not take place and the leading questions did not influence the participants to answer incorrectly. Furthermore, the passage of time (a one week period) did not affect the participants, they still answered the questions correctly, and answers in the second week did not differ greatly from answers in the first week. If these results were found significant they would have implications in an applied perspective.