Classic evidence- loftus and palmer Flashcards
What is our classical evidence?
Loftus and Palmer 1974- Reconstruction of automobile destruction: an example of the interaction between language and memory
What did our classic evidence aim to investigate?
The effect of leading questions on the estimate of speed
What are leading questions?
One that, by form or content, suggests to the witness what answer is desired or leads them to a desired answer
Why did L&P want to investigate this?
Because they wanted to see if words like ‘smashed, collieded or hit’ would affect results or try to influence results up for debate on how fast they were going as its difficult
Why did they choose the verbs ‘hit’ or ‘smashed’?
They involve specifications of different movements, different specifications of the consequences or event regarded gentle for hit
What’s an eyewitness testimony?
Witness of a crime asked to give evidence in court, usually concerning the identity of the perpetrator
How does the EWT relate to the computer analogy-
-Witness encodes details of crime into long term memory- (can be distorted or particular due to the pace of crime and emotion associated)
-Over time, parts of the memory can be forgotten or modified (other activity’s between encoding and retrieval can interfere as well (post event discussion)
-When the witness retrieves the memory from storage, the memory of the event is reconstructed (influence the presence of absence of affecting accurately
What is our experiment 1?
To see if the speed estimates were influenced by the verbs in the questions asked
Summary of experiment 1?
Loftus and Palmer showed 4 students split into 3 groups of 9
Experiment 1- Aims?
To see if the speed estimates were influenced by the verbs in the questions asked
Experiments 1- Methodology, research method?
Lab experiments
Experiments 1- Methodology, experimental design?
Independent group design
Experiments 1- Methodology, sample?
45 students
Experiments 1- Methodology, sampling method?
Opportunity (anyone that’s there at the time)
Experiment 1- procedure first step?
-45 american university students were split into 5 groups, with 9 p’s in each one. All groups were shown the same short 7 video clips (5-30 seconds long) of car accidents with the order changes
Experiment 1- procedure second step?
All participants filled in a short questionnaire, that included a few filler questions and the critical question
‘About how fast were the cars going when they ___ each other
What were the 5 verbs?
Hit
Smacked
Collided
Bumped
Contacted
Acronym to remember 5 verbs?
She
Can
Buy
Her
Car
Findings- The verb vs mean estimate of speed (mph)
Smashed?
40.8
Findings- The verb vs mean estimate of speed (mph) collided?
39.3
Findings- The verb vs mean estimate of speed (mph) bumped?
38.1
Findings- The verb vs mean estimate of speed (mph) hit?
34
Findings- The verb vs mean estimate of speed (mph) contacted?
31.8
Summary of findings e1?
They suggest its not always reliable as memory can be distort the situation due to question asked, in conclusion the leading question can affect accuracy of memory legal
Conclusions of e1?
Response bias- the different speed estimates occured due to critical word (e.g. smashed, hit) influenced the p’s response
-Memory bias, the result could be due to critical word changing the p’s memory, so they actually recall incident differently i.e more or less
Experiment 2- aims?
To investigate weather leading questions simply bias a person’s response or actually alter the memory that is stored
Experiment 2- methodology research method?
Lab experiments
Experiment 2- methodology experimental design?
independent group design
Experiment 2- methodology, sample?
150 students
Experiment 2- methodology, sampling method?
Opportunity
Experiment 2- procedure step 1?
-150 students- split into 3 groups of 50 (American uni students)
Shown a short film that showed a multi vehicle car accident and then they were asked questions about it
Experiment 2- procedure step 2?
Group 1- how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other
Group 2 asked- How fast were the cars going when they hit each other
Group 3- was not asked about the speed of vehicles
Experiment 2- summary of procedure?
All were asked if they saw glass in the crash
Group 1- smashed
2- hit
3- none
Findings experiment 2 did they see glass- smashed?
Yes- 16
No- 34
Findings experiment 2 did they see glass- Hit?
yes- 7
no- 43
Findings experiment 2 did they see glass- control?
Yes- 6
No- 44
Summary of findings experiment 2?
Participants in the smashed conditions were more likely to report seeing broken glass in the hit then the control condition
-31% reported seeing glass- smash
-14% reported seeing glass- hit
Experiment 2- conclusion?
-Memory altercation, the effect of leading questions is not due to responder’s bias but is due to memory being altered- P’s say they saw broken glass when they didn’t
-Leading questions may alter people’s memory of an event, By using smashed vs hit,the severity of the verb altered the perception of the severity of the crash- leading them to recall seeing glass is smashed condition when there wasn’t any
-Leading question can lead to memory to become reconstructed, The p’s created an original perception of the event witness, the post event information (leading q) is then integrated into this perception over time, leading to a reconstructed memory of the actual event
