This was the question Philip Higham sought to understand. In his experiment he presented a video and then followed the video with a suggestive statement about what the person had seen. When the person was asked to recall what they had seen they added the suggestive statement into their memory of the video. This experiment confirms that suggestive questions can lead to memory distortion from source memory problems, but it also showed an even more important finding. The findings imply memory can be distorted even if the participants realize that the experimenter gave the important information. Suggestion can play an even more subtly role in witness memory distortion, by simply providing an affirming response after a persons testimony can solidify their memory even if it is distorted. This finding was confirmed through the experiments of Wells and Bradfield, in which they showed that by providing positive affirmation after a participant misidentified a culprit the participant claimed higher confidence and trust in their memories. These findings have lead law enforcement to try and implement broader questions during interrogations in order to control for
This was the question Philip Higham sought to understand. In his experiment he presented a video and then followed the video with a suggestive statement about what the person had seen. When the person was asked to recall what they had seen they added the suggestive statement into their memory of the video. This experiment confirms that suggestive questions can lead to memory distortion from source memory problems, but it also showed an even more important finding. The findings imply memory can be distorted even if the participants realize that the experimenter gave the important information. Suggestion can play an even more subtly role in witness memory distortion, by simply providing an affirming response after a persons testimony can solidify their memory even if it is distorted. This finding was confirmed through the experiments of Wells and Bradfield, in which they showed that by providing positive affirmation after a participant misidentified a culprit the participant claimed higher confidence and trust in their memories. These findings have lead law enforcement to try and implement broader questions during interrogations in order to control for