... that the effect of leading questions is largely insignificant, because they had little effect on the number of incorrectly recalled details. Therefore the experimental hypothesis can be rejected and the null hypothesis, which states leading questions have no effect on the recall of events, can be accepted. Introduction In order to ascertain whether or not leading questions have an effect on eyewitness we must define what a leading question is. Loftus describes a leading question as a question that portrays a certain desirable answer to the participant. For example a leading question may be 'did you see the red car?' this is leading as the critical word, 'the' in this instance implies that there was a red car, even though this may not be the case. The question should be 'did you see a red car?' for it to be truly valid. Loftus conducted a study into the area of leading ...

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