Police investigations following the theft of a modern sculpture from an upscale art gallery revealed significant discrepancies in eyewitness accounts.
A group of gallery visitors who witnessed the suspect flee were kept in the exhibition lobby together while waiting for police arrival. During this time, they discussed the incident animatedly, with several mentioning how terrified they felt due to the suspect's aggressive behaviour. When interviewed later, multiple witnesses claimed they saw a tall, muscular man in a leather jacket carrying a heavy black crowbar, who forced open the gallery's side fire exit.
However, security footage later proved the suspect was of slim build, wearing a navy cardigan, and was carrying a rolled-up black poster tube he had bought from the gift shop. He had exited through a push-bar door that was already unlocked, and no force was used. It was later revealed in court that the responding officers had asked the witnesses during their interview: "Which direction did the thief run after he smashed the security lock with his crowbar?"
Using your psychological knowledge, suggest how eyewitness testimony could have been improved in relation to the incident reported in the article.
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.