Recently, Loftus and her associates have demonstrated that the ability of subjects to respond accurately to questioning about an event they witnessed can be systematically imparied by the interposition of misleading questions between exposure to the event and assessment of accuracy. One explanation for this low eyewitness accuracy is that it is due to demand characteristics created by the misleading questions. The present study addresses this issue using a modification of the paradigm developed by Loftus, Miller, and Bums (1978). The results indicate that even when the final accuracy test does not easily allow subjects to accede to demand pressure, significant impairment of eyewitness accuracy is still obtained. Since this lowered accuracy does not seem due to simple compliance to demand pressure, it suggests that misleading questions do in fact interfere with subsequent eyewitness accuracy. According to E. F. Loftus, questions that are subtly loaded with implications regarding an event can alter a witness's memories for that event (

In a recent, widely publicized finding (Loftus, 1974), eyewitness testimony heightened judgments of guilt even when the testimony was discredited In Study I we offered two hypotheses to explain this finding: that it depends on the order of presentation of evidence, and/or that the discreditors had low credibility due to their self-interest. Contrary to prediction, we found that eyewitness testimony did not heighten judgments of guilt when it was discredited. In Study 2, we replicated our results, again reversing Loftus' original findings, even when the eyewitness was allowed to reaffirm his identification after the discreditation.