Lofts and Palmer - reconstruction of vehicle destruction

Question 0

Aims

Answer 0

1) To investigate the effect of leading questions

2) To see if the effects are due to distortion of memory rather than response bias

Question 1

Context

Answer 1

Eye witness testimony has been shown to be inaccurate this may be due to leading questions. People are not good at estimating speed.

Question 2

Procedures

Answer 2

Experiment 1: Film car accident, set of questions included critical question about speed (smashed, collided, bumped, hit, contacted)

Experiment 2: after film asked a critical question (smashed, hit and control) one week later asked about broken glass.

Question 3

Findings

Answer 3

1) Smashed led to the highest speed estimate (40.8 mph) contacted led to the lowest estimate (31.8 mph)

2) Smashed group lead to the highest speed estimate
Smashed group more likely to report broken glass (16/50) than the hit group (7/50) in the control group 6/50 reported seeing glass

Question 4

Conclusions

Answer 4

Leading questions distort memory itself and don’t simply bias the response

Question 5

Alternate Evidence

Answer 5

Loftus and Zanni - Showed participants a film of a car accident, they then asked some participants “Did you see a broken headlight” the asked the others “Did you see the broken headlight”. In the first group 7% reported seeing a broken headlight. In the second group 17% reported seeing the broken headlight.

Loftus - Showed some participants a series of pictures of a man stealing a red wallet, later 98% of participants identified the colour correctly despite being given a description of the wallet as brown.

Braun - 120 participants told they were going to evaluate an advertisement of a trip to disney. Group 1 was given a generic report mentioning no cartoons. Group 2 were given the same report but there was a cut out bugs bunny in the corner of the room. Group 3 read a fake report with bugs bunny. Group 4 read both the fake report and saw the cut out

Question 6

Methodology

Answer 6

Lab experiment
A number of other studies have produced similar results
Lacked ecological validity
The participants were all US college students
Did not gain fully informed consent