Loftus and Palmer Flashcards
What was the aim?
To test their hypothesis that eyewitness testimony is fragile and can easily be distorted.
What is a schema?
A schema is the idea of our knowledge that is built through experiences from the world.
(They can change through accommodation an assimilation.)
What was the aim of experiment 1?
To see whether the use of different verbs to describe a collision between two cars affects the estimated speed of the collision.
What was the methodology for experiment 1?
Lab experiment
Independent measures design
Who were the PPTs in experiment 1?
45 students who were divided into 5 groups.
(Each group was given a verb)
What were the verbs used?
Smashed
Collided
Bumped
Contacted
Hit
What was the procedure of experiment 1?
-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.
What was the critical question?
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)
How did they counteract order effects?
For each group they would play the clips in different orders.
How long did experiment 1 last?
1 hour and 30 minutes.
What were the estimated speeds to real speeds?
Speed estimates compared to actual speed
37.7:20
36.2:20
39.7:40
36.1:40
What were the estimated (mean) speeds compared to the verb given?
Smashed:40.8
Collided:39.3
Bumped:38.1
Hit:34
Contacted:31.8`
What conclusions can be drawn?
Results show that the form of question can significantly impact the answer given by the eye witness.
What was the aim of experiment 2?
Whether the wording of a question can influence the recollection of memory.
What was the method of experiment 2?
Lab experiment
Who were the PPTs?
150 students, different from the previous study.
What was the procedure?
-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?
What was the critical question of experiment 2?
How fast was the car going when they ‘given verb’ into eachother?
(e.g smashed, hit, collided)
What happened a week later (after the initial procedure)?
-PPTs returned, they were not shown the videos again
-They were asked did you see any broken glass at the accident?
Why was the critical question of ‘was there any broken glass?’ important?
There was never any broken glass in any video
What were the results of experiment 2?
Verb:Estimated (mean) speed
Smashed:10.46
Hit:8
What were the results of ‘was there any broken glass?’
Response:smashed:hit:control
Yes:16:7:6
No:34:43:44
What can we conclude from this?
From this we can conclude the likelihood of reporting seeing glass increases with the severity of the verb.
