Loftus And Palmer Flashcards
What area does this belong to?
Cognitive
What are the principles of the cognitive area?
• internal mental processes such as memory, thinking, reasoning, problem-solving and language are important features influencing human behaviour.
• the mind is mechanistic. This suggests that we process information like a computer and behaviour is predictable
• input —> process —> output
What is the background to the study?
Bartletts Schema theory- Knowledge is stored in memory as a set of schemas. Simplified, generalised mental representations of everything an individual understands by a given type of object or event based on their past experiences.
What was the aim?
To see if information received after an event in the form of leading questions would distort an individuals memory
Research method?
Both a lab experiment and independent measures
EXP 1
IV: was the wording of the critical question “about how fast were the cars going when they hit/smashed/collided/contacted/bumped into each other?”
DV: estimated speed given by participant (in mph)
EXP 2
IV: wording on question in a questionnaire. One group was asked the “smashed” and the other was “hit”. The third group was not asked about speed
DV: was if they answered yes or no to the broken glass.
What was the sample?
EXP 1
45 students- divided into 5 groups of 9
EXP 2
150 students- 3 groups of 50
Brief outline of the procedure (EXP 1)
• all participants were shown the same 7 clips of different traffic accidents.
• after each clip participants were given a questionnaire which asked them to firstly describe the accident and answer a series of questions about it
• there was one critical question “about how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”
• one group was “smashed” , “collided” , “contacted’ instead of “hit”
Brief outline of EXP 2
• all participants were shown a one minute film which contained a 4 second multiple car crash
• they were given a questionnaire and asked to describe the accident
• one group was “about how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other”
• another group was “hit”
• the third group did not have a question about vehicular speed
• one week later, all participants were asked a further critical question which was “did you see any broken glass?” There had been no broken glass
Key findings of EXP 1
Smashed 40.5
Collided 39.3
Bumped 38.1
Hit 34.0
Contacted 31.8
Key findings of EXP 2
Smashed. Hit. Control
Yes 16 7 6
No 34 43 44
Conclusions
The verb used in question can influence a participants response
People are not good at guessing vehicular speed
Misleading post event information an distort an individuals memory
How does the study relate to the area?
Shows that the brain is like a computer.
Firstly we see something (video clips of car crashes) which is the input, we are asked about it where we have to recover the memory, which is the process, then the output was the estimated speed given
Research method
+ lab experiment: high control of extraneous variables and it is objective.
- lacks mundane realism as there is an artificial environment and artificial task. Watching clips of car crashes and estimating speed is not an everyday task. Thus does not represent real life.
- participants could work out that the experiment is using particular words to get a high or low speed estimate and may respond a certain way to help the experimenter get the results they want.
Validity
- lacks ecological validity: artificial environment and task. Same reason as before with lacking mundane realism
Reliability
+ standardised procedure. We can replicate and check for consistency. All participants were shown the same vides clips.
