Classic Evidence Flashcards
Who wrote the classic evidence for the cognative approach?
Loftus and Palmer (1974)
What is Loftus and Palmers (1974) methodology?
The study consisted of two lab experiments using an independent group design
Experiment 1 had 45 student participants
Experiment 2 had 150 student participants
What were Experiment 1’s procedures?
Participants were shown 7 film clips of traffic incidents
After each clip participants were given a questionnaire. With a choice of 5 different critical questions. (E.g how fast was the car going when it _____ into the other)
Each was asked to 9 participants and their estimate of speed was recorded in Mph
What were the 5 choices of critical questions in experiment one?
About how fast was the car going when they (key verbed) eachother?
*Hit
*Smashed
* Collided
*Bumped
*Contacted
What was the procedure of part one of experiment 2?
Participants were shown a film of multiple car crashes, the incident lasted less than 4 seconds.
They were asked a critical question about speed. Split into 3 groups of 50 participants and asked different question
G1) how fast when smashed
G2) how fast when hit
G3) were not exposed to a question
What was the leading question for the 3 different groups in part 1 of experiment 2?
G1: How fast were the cars going when they smashed into eachother
G2: How fast were the cars going when they hit into eachother
G3: control group , was not exposed to a leading question
What was the procedure of part 2 of experiment 2?
A week later the participants were asked to return and were all asked ‘did you see any broken glass?’ . But There was no broken glass in the film
What are the findings of experiment one?
The mean speed estimate varied greatly depending on the control word with the highest being ‘smashed’ with 40.8 Mph and the lowest being ‘contacted’ with 31.8 Mph
What were the findings of part 1 of experiment 2
Participants gave higher speed estimates in the ‘smashed’ condition just like in Experiment 1
What were the findings of part 2 of experiment 2?
G1: ‘smashed’- 16 reported broken glass , 34 did not
G2: ‘hit’ - 7 reported broken glass , 43 did not
G3: control group - 6 reported broken glass , 44 did not
What were the conclusions that Loftus and Palmer drew from their findings?
The words used in a question influence of biases someone’s response
The memory representation is altered by critical words - e.g imagining glass
Why did Loftus and Palmer (1974) lack ecological validity?
The students were asked to recall details from an accident in an atrifical context (lab) meaning it lacks ecological validity. Evidence suggests that EWT is more reliable irl
Evidence - Foster et al (1994) : faked a real life robbery , witnesses were able to identify the robber acturate despite leading questions
Why is Loftus and Palmer (1974) being a controlled experiment a strength?
It is a strength as due to the IV and the DV being measured and controlled, we can draw a causal conclusion from findings as the variables are controlled
Why is the sample of Loftus and Palmer (1974) debated?
The sample is bias as it is made from US college students. As the ppts are all from the US it is an ethnocentric sample. The age of ppt is significant as there may be diffrences in memory of younger people
Evidence: Schacter et al (1991) - elderly have worse memory than young people , may effect validity of EWT
Why is Valid consent an potential issue for Loftus and Palmer (1974)?
They decieved their ppts by not revealing the true aim to them (investigating the reliability of EWT , instead they decived their ppts by testing the effect of critical words on their responses. Therfore they didnt receive valid consent
What was the IV of Loftus and Palmer (1974) ?
The verb used to describe the impact
What was the DV for Loftus and Palmer (1974) ?
Estimate of speed
