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Journal Article Summary 3
Your Name
Liberty University
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APA reference of article being reviewed
Murphy, G., & Greene, C. (2016). Perceptual Load Affects Eyewitness Accuracy and
Susceptibility to Leading Questions. Frontiers in psychology, 7, 1322.
doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01322
What is the research problem that is being investigated? What is the purpose of the
research being conducted?
The experiment is conducted to see what level(high/low), if any does a Perceptual load
have on the memory of an eyewitness. The purpose of the research is to question the accuracy of
eyewitness memory perceptual capacity under high loads. They hypothesize that due to
perceptual load, eyewitness memory will be less accurate and will cause one to reconstruct their
memory based on peripheral cues.
What is the research question?
Visually, does perceptual capacity of high loads affect the accuracy of information recalled from
eyewitnesses?
What are 2 or more theories that are discussed in the Introduction? How are they used to
motivate (or set up) the research question? Do the authors agree or disagree with these
theories?
One theory mentioned is the Load Theory Lavie (1995,2005), which is used to motivate
the research question. This is relevant to the research in providing an explanation that irrelevant
distractions, such as unintentional blindness depend on the level (high/low) and available stimuli
or information that is processed discredits eyewitness testimony and they rely on objects around
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them to dictate what they have seen. The authors agree with this this because, they believe that
eyewitness testimony is not as accurate under high loads because of irrelevant distractions,
which is consist with this theory.
Another theory mentioned is Selective Attention Theory, which is also relevant to this
research because it states that one can tune out distractions and focus on essential information
and provide accurate detail of eyewitness testimony. Author do not agree with this theory
because it is contrary to and challenges the Load Theory
How is the research question operationalized? First, identify the abstract constructs being
studied. Next identify the concrete way these are being observed or measured. This should
include your IV and DV.
The constructs being studied is the perpetual load from irrelevant distractions and can be
operationalized by either manipulating the number of task-related stimuli or by changing the
task to be completed on the same stimuli. The IV being observed is the high load that disqualifies
eyewitness testimony. The DV being measured is the amount of distracting information and
irrelevant stimuli.
Pertaining to the research, in the case of High Load producing Unintentional Blindness
conducted by Cartwright-Finch and Lavie (2007), participants were presented with a cross to
distinguish the blue color (low load) from the arm length (high load). The information presented
was the awareness to the shape, in which 10% under high load were aware of the shape in
comparison to 55% under low load. Proving that perceptual load (in favor of load theory) affects
on awareness and attention. A manipulation of experiment was also conducted by Rivardo et al.
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(2011), of eyewitnesses experiencing inattentional blindness when watching a video of a theft,
but due to distracting information, they were less likely to recall other details from the video.
Experiment 1A, Culture Night at UCC School of Applied Psychology, includes 111
visitors and 66 of them were females. Individuals were randomly assigned into 1 of 4 conditions
high vs low perceptual load video, along with a questionnaire. Asked to pay close attention as a
robbery took placed in the video, meanwhile midway into the video irrelevant distractions were
presented. Two versions of the video were presented to the participants, in which one of the
videos was manipulated (included extra objects) with either high or low perceptual loads. The
high load video contained 51 extra objects, while the low load only contained 13. They were
presented with questions immediately following experiment. Results concluded that the
participants were extremely less accurate when under a high load, with a significant effect on
peripheral objects, but able to recall significantly better on low loads.
In Experiment 1B, was a repeat of experiment 1A with a larger sample size, including
270 participants with 181 being female. The video and questionnaire were identical experiment
1A, in which the results are now replaced with a significantly greater accuracy. As in the same
as experiment 1a, participants were more accurate under low load vs high load. Questionnaires
were also administered as a portion of the experimental perceptual load leading questions. In
experiment 1A, the results concluded that participants were less affected by the question under
low load, but result provided to be unmeasurable when doing multiple comparisons.
Experiment 2, “Culture Night” was an extension of experiment 1 with an added realistic
stimulator driving scenario from the UCC School of Applied Psychology. Participants total was
93 and 58 were females. With all being equipped with driving license and experience, they were
randomly assigned to 1 to 4 high or low perceptual load conditions and questions. The
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stimulator presented a accident a four lane accident, cars, motorcycle, distraction noises of glass
smashing and tires screeching. Just as the first experiment, this experiment presented two
different version along with extra objects introduced in the scene. Results concluded that
eyewitness accounts are less accurate under high loads but more susceptible to suggestion,
meanwhile more accurate under low load.
What is the research design (i.e. between or within subjects, what type of statistical tests
were used, what were the levels of each variable)?
The research designed used was Cohen’s d effect-size for within-subjects. Effect sizes are
reported using Cohen’s d for main effects and eta squared for interactions, participants were
significantly not as accurate under high load, more accurate under low load, load did have a
significant effect on peripheral objects, however participants were less affected by leading
questions under low load and participants rated themselves significantly more confident in the
accuracy of their memory under low load.
Describe the results (but not their broader implications). Were the results significant?
Which ones? Do these supports or not support the hypothesis?
The results of both experiments are in favor of the hypothesis that suggest perceptual
load may affect the memories eyewitness. P < 0.001, d = 1.31. Participants in high load
conditions were significantly less accurate in their video recall during both experiments and
manipulation perceptual load by varying the task of objects, which proved participants were
significantly less accurate and more open to suggestion. p < 0.001, d = 0.93. These experiments
do support the hypothesis, that due to perceptual load, eyewitness memory will be less accurate
and will cause one to reconstruct their memory based on peripheral cues.
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What limitations are mentioned? Why are these limitations theoretically interesting?
Some of the limitations include favoritism towards the load theory when participants
were asked to pay attention to all detail in one thing but were asked not to engage in any
secondary task, knowing it would divide their attention to detail. Also, the different load
manipulations and by testing both university and public samples, however, one limitation of this
study is that the levels of load imposed by the two tasks were assumed to be low and high, but
intentionally used only materials depicting both extremes. In doing so, it’s unclear how they
essentially compared lower load with higher load. Then they make some assumptions based on
previous research, but they do not know what effect load it may have on memory. Future
research should closely observe the shift from low to high load to research these issues in further
dept. This is important because this affect the results towards stronger support for the load
theory.
