Page 25 - Veritas

Her findings indicate that memory for a witnessed event is highly flexible.
If someone is exposed to new information during the interval between wit-

nessing the event and recalling it, this new information may have marked

effects on what they recall. The original memory can be modified, changed
or supplemented.

Loftus and Palmer (1974) conducted a study - Reconstruction of Automo-

bile Destruction aiming to show that leading questions could distort eye-
witness testimony accounts and so have a confabulating effect.

In this study, Loftus and Palmer (1974) asked people to estimate the speed

of motor vehicles using different forms of questions.

The estimated speed was affected by the verb used. The verb implied in-

formation about the speed, which systematically affected the participants’

memory of the accident.”

Methodology:
Methodology:
Two different experiments were conducted and data were collected from

both to then be compared and analysed. In both the experiments, the sub-
jects were shown a video of a crime happening and were later shown a
line-up of suspects and were questioned about what they saw in the video.

However, the perpetrator in the video was never present in the line-up.

This was done to see if the subjects would misidentify or give a correct
response.

Experiment 1: The subjects were asked - “Can you point out the suspect
Experiment 1:
that you saw in the video from the line-up?” implying that the suspect was
already there in the line-up. Their answer and the age were noted down.
The experiment was conducted on Indians and the videos shown had sus-

pects who were Caucasian.

Experiment 2: There were two different types of questioning conducted on
Experiment 2:
the subjects.

One set of subjects were asked – “Can you point out the suspect that you

saw in the video from the line-up?” implying that the suspect was already

10 VERITAS