Outline and evaluate research into the effects of misleading information on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

Loftus carried out an another experiment in which she showed her participants a film of events leading up to a car accident. One of the groups were asked consistent questions consistent to the film while the other group was asked the same question except for one concerning a barn. When the participants were asked to recall the film 17% of the misled group reported seeing a barn while only 3% of the other group claimed to have seen a barn. This study concluded with similar result to the previous one that misleading information can affect the recall of an eyewitness.

In spite of this, the studies conducted by Loftus lacked mundane realism and ecological validity due to their nature of being lab experiments. The participants were shown films of care accidents, which does not represent real life as they were not emotionally aroused in the way that they would have been in an real accident. Foster et al. found that if the participants thought that they were watching a real robbery and that their response would influence the trail, their identification of the robber was more accurate.

Furthermore, contradictory evidence from Yuille and Cutshall weakens the credibility of the study. They interviewed 13 people involved in armed robbery in Canada. They were interviewed 4 months after the incident, which included two misleading question. Despite this, the witnessed provided accurate recall that matched the detailed report. This suggests that post-event information may not affect memory in real life EWT.