Preview

Effect Of Misinformation On Eyewitness Memory And Testimony

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1682 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Effect Of Misinformation On Eyewitness Memory And Testimony
Early Methods Section
Beth Boardley
Argosy University

1. What is your research question?
Does the influence of direct or indirect exposure to misinformation have an effect on eyewitness memory and testimony?
2. What is your hypothesis or hypotheses? What is the null hypothesis?
Hypothesis: If one is exposed to misinformation then it can lead to distortions in human memory for genuinely experienced events, as well as details of people, things, and places and eyewitness’s can be misled leading them to depict false information.
Null Hypothesis: There is no affect to human memory, genuinely experienced events, nor details of people, things, and places, nor can eyewitness’s be misled leading them to depict false information when one is
…show more content…
The environment would be a variable as well as the person presenting the information. The information presented itself would be considered a variable as some will receive misinformation and some will not. The method in which the information is presented is also a variable as some may receive misinformation from a discussion (person) some may read it in a paragraph form. The event witnessed is also a variable. Another variable will be the survey the participants have to take.
6. Provide operational definitions for each variable.
Gender: Relating to a person’s sex.
Age: The determination of the number of years passed since one’s birth configured by subtracting the birth year from the current year. If the month and day have yet to be reached in the current year, subtract 1.
Race: A social concept in which we use to classify humans by anatomical, cultural, ethnic, genetic, geographical, historical, linguistic, religious, and/or social affiliation.
Ethnicity: The classification of person’s as European American, African American,
Asian American/Pacific Islander, Latino, Native American, or Other.
Information: Facts or details about a subject; knowledge that one obtains from something or someone.
Misinformation: Information that is inaccurate and intentionally false that is spread deliberately.
Discussion: The act of talking between a person(s) about a topic(s) to reach a decision or to exchange
…show more content…
(2014, January 1). Survey. Retrieved November 19, 2014, from http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Survey
Argosy University Online. (2014, January 1). Research Methods Module 1- Module 3. Retrieved November 19, 2014, from http://myeclassonline.com/re/DotNextLaunch.asp?courseid=10686823&userid=22842622&sessionid=cd4d8605a8&tabid=gs7W9eYaOK //4xGN6qdrZ86vKRPLAncccqnKo9fR/7rz7deMbJF5F v39z5aoEL&sessionFirstAuthStore=true&macid=tBumIee7T6ii8Ydl1uinSpoFk5toNhAsRXyEm3P27ex4PI8u/
Carroll, S. (n.d.). Types of research designs you can use for your dissertation. Retrieved November 19, 2014, from http://www.dissertation-statistics.com/research-designs.html
Cohen, E. (2009, September 19). Measurement. Retrieved November 19, 2014, from http://www.sjsu.edu/people/edward.cohen/courses/298/s6/Week 4 handout Measurement.pdf
Convenience sampling | Lærd Dissertation. (2012, January 1). Retrieved November 19, 2014, from http://dissertation.laerd.com/convenience-sampling.php
Santayana, G. (2011, July 17). Measurement in Research. Retrieved November 19, 2014, from

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Research suggests that anxiety and the age of witnesses can affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony (EWT) for a variety of reasons. The age of a witness can affect the accuracy of eye witness testimony and it is thought that as a result, EWT is often inaccurate. Research by Geiselman and Padilla (1988) found that children were less accurate when reporting events of a filmed bank robbery than adults; despite this, other research has failed to find much of a difference between adults and children, especially when free recall instead of structured interview is used. Furthermore, Children appear to be more susceptible to leading questions than adults (Goodman & Reid, 1986), and younger children are more likely to incorporate misleading information into their memories of the events if they are asked the same question repeatedly (Leichtman & Ceci, 1995). Most research into the accuracy of children’s memory has come from laboratory research, therefore it allows for precise control of variables, the experiments can be replicated for reliability and the independent variables will be carefully constructed allowing good inference of cause and effect. On the other hand, lab experiments are artificial as the setting is not typical of real life situations, therefore lacking ecological validity. It is not just the memory of children that has been tested; Anastasi & Rhodes (2006) used participants aged 18 – 78 years and found that young and middle-aged participants were more accurate at recognising photographs than older participants. Furthermore, Yarmey (1984) and Cohen & Faulkner (1988) found older people made more recall errors than younger people. Both researches suggest that the memory and therefore EWT is probably as unreliable as a child’s.…

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    suggests that the use of more violent verbs lead to the witness to recall the car going…

    • 590 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Memory and Eyewitness Testimony are two concepts which are studied within the topic of cognitive psychology. It is important to investigate these processes to aid in the understanding of how individuals cognitively process ideas and how this may affect specific behaviors. From a psychological perspective, memory can be defined as, “The capacity to retain and store information” (holah.co.uk, 2006). The further researches into the topic of memory allow it to greatly contribute toward societies' legal system, specifically in the sense of Eyewitness Testimony. Individuals may feel confident towards their memory abilities but according to many researchers, one's memory is not always reliable. (Bartlett, 1932) believed that memory is unreliable due…

    • 358 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Loftus and palmer were interested in seeing how misleading questions affected eyewitness testimony, they conducted a lab experiment in which 45 students were shown films of traffic accidents, they were then asked a question about how fast the car was going, students were either given the verb hit, smashed, contacted, collided or bumped. The group with smashed estimated the highest speed whereas the group given the word contacted estimated the lowest speed, this suggests that leading questions have a significant effect on memory. Loftus et al conducted another lab experiment to assess the effect of misleading info on EWT.…

    • 241 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    3. Based on psychological research, would you agree or disagree with the conclusion that eyewitness memory is generally accurate?…

    • 385 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There is a common misconception that the human mind works much like a video recorder. People believe that memories are recorded and can be played back and recalled exactly as they happened. However, that is not the case. In fact, there is much subjectivity in how people remember events that occurred. As such, there are numerous factors, which may impact the accuracy and reliability of eyewitness testimony. In general, these factors are separated into two categories – estimator variables and system variables.…

    • 592 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    eyewitness testimony

    • 1240 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Hal Arkowitz and Scott O. Lilienfeld, (Jan8, 2009). Why Science Tells Us Not to Rely on…

    • 1240 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    ~*~ PURPOSE .:. HYPOTHESIS .:. METHOD .:. SET UP .:. RESULTS .:. RAW DATA .:. DISCUSSION .:. LINKS .:. RETURN TO RESEARCH PAGE ~*~…

    • 620 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Race and Ethnicity

    • 1687 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Race is defined in layman terms as “the concept of dividing people into populations or groups on the basis of various sets of physical characteristics which result from genetic ancestry” (Diffen, 2013). Race encompasses the color of one’s skin (Causcasion – white, Asian – yellow), facial features (African American – physical features, Latinos – height) and so on.…

    • 1687 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I chose news anchor Brian Williams false memory report claiming that there was a threat to his life when his helicopter had come under fire in an Iraqi war zone and it was shot down in 2003. In the case of Brian Williams, that misleading information may have been in the form of seeing the footage of him and his film crew examining the damage to the helicopter that was hit and seeing it repeatedly. According to researchers about journalists, false and flawed memory suggests that journalists must feel the pressure of harsh penalties for ethics violations so that they will work hard to disallow any natural disposition to let their guard down and not carefully check the accuracy of their memories. They also stated that human decision making and…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    the article writer Elizabeth F. Loftus wrote from her experience in creating false memory some fascinating experiments and some real life situations, like the woman who was convinced that she was raped by her father and forced to abort her fetus ,but when the doctors examined her they found out that she never been pregnant, and the other woman who thought she were abused by her family, and other examples.…

    • 321 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Misinformation effect” is a study Loftus made, and this study was used as evidence. This form of study showed that a person’s memory can often be manipulated or diverted when misleading information or wording is presented to them. In another study, evidence was provided, even without hypnosis false memories can be implanted through misleading context or false evidence provided by…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I totally agree with your post. Statistics are a vital asset when they are reputable and can be validated as true. I do not take everything I hear as truth. Statistics can easily be construed into what the person wants the data to mean for themselves or the situation present. Even more of a reason to always do research to make sure the information we are receiving is credible. Moreover, I am a firm believer that the web displays lots of information that is not completely trustworthy or authentic. In addition, I have also found Wikipedia to be a major popular site in which a lot of people flock to for information. Even more so as noted by Potash (2010, p. 98) that, “Popularity, however, does not ensure credibility.” It is evident that even though many people resort to the web and wikipedia for information and news, it is clear that even those popular sites contain unjustifiable information at times that lacks credibility. Much of the time we continue to utilize those sites out of routine because we take an interest in what those sites offer in content.…

    • 432 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In 2011, Igor Areh conducted a study that focused on the “gender differences in memory recall when participants are asked to describe an event they believe to be true” (Areh, 2011). Areh had his participants watch a two minute video that consisted of a woman getting robbed by a man. In order to “achieve higher ecological validity of research results”, Areh used deception in his research experiment and told his participants that they were helping the police with a criminal investigation that was taking place; the police wanted to know if their assumptions about the investigation were correct (Areh, 2011). After Areh’s participants watch the video, he had his participants fill out a checklist a week later. Once Areh conducted his experiment,…

    • 195 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    TOK PAPER

    • 297 Words
    • 1 Page

    K.I. What role does perception have in order to cope with the combination of stories and facts?…

    • 297 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays