Outline research into the effect of misleading information on the accuracy of EWT [6]

1. Strength – Practical applications - A strength of research into leading questions is that it has real-life application because it has provided the criminal justice system with scientific evidence which highlight the problems of using evidence from EWT.
2. This is beneficial because it shows that caution must be taken when using EWT in criminal trials to prevent the conviction of innocent people as a consequence of leading questions.
3. This is supported by Wells and Orson who found recent cases where DNA has shown that EWT are often inaccurate. Loftus even argued that leading questions distort memories so much that police need to be careful during interviews and thus her research has been extremely useful in improving the accuracy of police interviews to avoid using leading questions.
4. Limitation – artificial tasks - A limitation of research into leading questions is it often uses artificial tasks – e.g. Loftus and Palmer asked pps to watch a film clip of an accident.
5. This is very different experience to witnessing a real-life accident, where one is in the presence of high levels of stress and adrenaline.
6. This is a problem because Yullie and Cutshall found that witnesses of a traumatic armed robbery had very accurate recall which suggests that Loftus and Palmer’s study might not reflect the true accuracy of recall in real-life.