Loftus and Palmer

Question 1

What was the aim?

Answer 1

To test their hypothesis that eyewitness testimony is fragile and can easily be distorted.

Question 2

What is a schema?

Answer 2

A schema is the idea of our knowledge that is built through experiences from the world.
(They can change through accommodation an assimilation.)

Question 3

What was the aim of experiment 1?

Answer 3

To see whether the use of different verbs to describe a collision between two cars affects the estimated speed of the collision.

Question 4

What was the methodology for experiment 1?

Answer 4

Lab experiment
Independent measures design

Question 5

Who were the PPTs in experiment 1?

Answer 5

45 students who were divided into 5 groups.
(Each group was given a verb)

Question 6

What were the verbs used?

Answer 6

Smashed
Collided
Bumped
Contacted
Hit

Question 7

What was the procedure of experiment 1?

Answer 7

-They were shown 7 different clips of car crashes (all lasted 5-30 secs)
-Four of the clips were staged crashes and the speeds were known (20mph, 30, 40 & 40)
- After each film they were given questionnaires, all but one question was a filler.

Question 8

What was the critical question?

Answer 8

All other questions were general filler questions about the clip they had seen.
They were then asked a critical question about the speed of the vehicles involved.
They were asked how fast were the cars going when they (given verb, e.g hit)

Question 9

How did they counteract order effects?

Answer 9

For each group they would play the clips in different orders.

Question 10

How long did experiment 1 last?

Answer 10

1 hour and 30 minutes.

Question 11

What were the estimated speeds to real speeds?

Answer 11

Speed estimates compared to actual speed
37.7:20
36.2:20
39.7:40
36.1:40

Question 12

What were the estimated (mean) speeds compared to the verb given?

Answer 12

Smashed:40.8
Collided:39.3
Bumped:38.1
Hit:34
Contacted:31.8`

Question 13

What conclusions can be drawn?

Answer 13

Results show that the form of question can significantly impact the answer given by the eye witness.

Question 14

What was the aim of experiment 2?

Answer 14

Whether the wording of a question can influence the recollection of memory.

Question 15

What was the method of experiment 2?

Answer 15

Lab experiment

Question 16

Who were the PPTs?

Answer 16

150 students, different from the previous study.

Question 17

What was the procedure?

Answer 17

-Shown a film depicting multiple accidents
-The film was less than a minute long and each clip was 4 secs
-They were given a questionnaire
-The first question was to describe the crash in your own words
-The critical question was ‘How fast was the car going when they ‘given verb’ into eachother?

Question 18

What was the critical question of experiment 2?

Answer 18

How fast was the car going when they ‘given verb’ into eachother?
(e.g smashed, hit, collided)

Question 19

What happened a week later (after the initial procedure)?

Answer 19

-PPTs returned, they were not shown the videos again
-They were asked did you see any broken glass at the accident?

Question 20

Why was the critical question of ‘was there any broken glass?’ important?

Answer 20

There was never any broken glass in any video

Question 21

What were the results of experiment 2?

Answer 21

Verb:Estimated (mean) speed
Smashed:10.46
Hit:8

Question 22

What were the results of ‘was there any broken glass?’

Answer 22

Response:smashed:hit:control
Yes:16:7:6
No:34:43:44

Question 23

What can we conclude from this?

Answer 23

From this we can conclude the likelihood of reporting seeing glass increases with the severity of the verb.