Following a collision between a large delivery lorry and a stationary forklift in a busy supermarket loading bay, several warehouse staff members provided conflicting statements.
Two shift workers who witnessed the incident from the breakroom window were brought into the manager's office together to write a joint incident report. Both workers reported feeling extremely stressed by the loud crash. They claimed that the lorry driver had been "speeding" and had "smashed" into the forklift, causing a shower of broken glass from the forklift's cabin.
However, subsequent analysis of the lorry’s tachograph and loading bay CCTV showed the lorry was travelling at under 5 mph. Furthermore, the forklift’s cabin was entirely open with no glass panels, meaning no broken glass was present. During a subsequent internal review, it was found that the shift manager had asked the workers, "How fast was the lorry going when it smashed into the forklift?"
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.