Psychology 2032A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Fortune-Telling, Psych, Elizabeth Loftus

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2032A/B
• Professor: John Campbell

Document Summary

Harder than it looks on tv: history and challenges of forensic psychology. Planted information alters memory~ the misinformation effect. Wording of a question can create misinformation, can manipulate memory. Memory and factors that can distort it. Played around with wording of question after viewing a video of an accident, ex. Its impact on eyewitness memory and testimony vs. smashed, changing descriptor, same event, higher speeds with smashed. Has changed how police handle eyewitness and lineups, how court utilized eyewitness testimony, how it can be reported and changed. One of the first studies of accuracy of memories. Conducted experiments looking at what today would be called the psychology of eyewitness testimony. What was the weather like 1 week ago today? . In which direction do the seeds of an apple point? . Key finding was not only that students were inaccurate but they were often quite confident in their answer despite the inaccuracy.