Describe ONE research method usas it is used in criminological psychology. In your answer you must refer to how the research method is used in criminological psychology. (4 marks - Edexcel)

In a laboratory experiment a participant will witness a controlled incident which is linked to a crime. This incident is artificially set up by the researcher in a laboratory setting. The witness may be showed an incident via video footage. The independent variable is something affecting the witness' recall such as a leading question. For example in Loftus and Palmer (1974) used the leading question ''About how fast were the cars going when they ***** eachother?''. The dependent variable is measured - for example the quality of the witnesses recall or in Loftus and Palmer (1974) they mesured the estimated speed of the car in the video before it crashed in mph. Within laboratory experiments all variables are controlled so that cause and effect conclusions can be gathered.