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Question 79

Panel Transcript: Reconstructing the Past

Judge Davis: "We must rely on the solemn word of witnesses. When a bystander stands in the box and swears they saw the defendant, their memory is a direct window into the event."

Dr. Vance (Cognitive Neuroscientist): "Actually, Judge, that 'window' is heavily distorted. Our recent legal symposium survey revealed some alarming discrepancies between legal assumptions and empirical science:

  • 74% of prospective jurors believed that memories of highly dramatic events are permanently 'etched' into the brain and cannot be altered by subsequent questioning, compared to 0% of memory researchers.
  • 63% of police officers surveyed believed that an eyewitness's confidence is the single most reliable predictor of their accuracy under cross-examination, whereas 91% of experts disagreed, noting how easily confidence is manipulated."

Outline the research conducted by Loftus and Palmer (1974) into eyewitness testimony and explain how its findings relate to the transcript above.

[6]
Markscheme

Memory Questions

  1. A Level
  2. /Psychology
  3. /Memory

163 exam-style questions on OCR A Level Psychology Memory, covering Loftus and Palmer (1974): Eyewitness testimony and Grant et al. (1998): Context-dependent memory. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.

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