Loftus And Palmer (1974) Flashcards
Where did the videos come from!
Seattle police dept
Evergreen road safety council
How many participants in experiment one and two?
Experiment one = 45
Experiment two = 150
What was the general aim?
To test whether the phrasing of questions about a car accident could alter participants memory of an event
What was the aim of experiment one?
To see whether using different verbs to describe a collision between two cars would effect estimates of the speed at which they are travelling when the crash took place
What was the experimental design? (1&2)
Independent measures design
How many films were participants shown in experiment one?
Seven films of car crashes
After watching the films, what were participants asked to do?(1)
Participants were asked to write an account of the accident and then to answer a series of questions
What was the critical question?(1)
About how fast were the cars going when they _______ each other?
What was the independent variable?(1)
The verb used in the critical question
hit, contacted, bumped, collided, smashed
What was the dependent variable?(1)
Mean speed estimate of the car
What was the data?(1)
Qualitative data
What did the results show?(1)
We are generally poor at estimating speed
What was the mean speed estimate in the smashed and hit groups?(1)
Smashed = 40.5 Hit = 34.0
2 possible reasons why speed estimated varied according to the verb used to describe the crash(1)
Response bias - verb indicates whether they should estimate high or low
Memory distortion - verb used in the question actually alters a participants memory of the crash
What was the aim of experiment two?
To investigate whether the different speed estimates found in experiment 1 were the result of a distortion in memory
How many films did participants watch and how long did it last?
How long was the crash itself?(2)
Watched one film which lasted less than one minute
The crash itself lasted about four seconds
What were participants asked to do after watching the film?(2)
Given a questionnaire which asked them to describe the accident in their own words and then to answer a series of questions
What were the two experimental groups and what was the critical question?(2)
Critical question - about how fast were the cars going when they ____ each other?
Group one = smashed verb
Group two = hit verb
How many people were in each group ?(2)
Smashed - 50
Hit - 50
Control - 50
What happened one week later? Critical question?(2)
All 150 participants were asked to return and answer a further 10 questions including a critical question - did you see any broken glass when the cars crashed?
How many people saw broken glass in the control, hit and smashed group?(2)
Smashed - 16
Hit - 7
Control - 6
Conclusion?
The way in which questions about events are worded an effect the way in which those events are remembered
Why are the results from experiment 2 important?
Suggest that conclusion isn’t simply due to response bias. Instead it seems that post event questions actually become part of the memory for that event. Wording of questions can distort memory
EVALUATION - sample and sampling method
•All American students, same age, predominantly white, middle class, same occupation - not representative of the population
Background - Bartlett?
Memories are not accurate records of our experiences - wel fill gaps in our memories with existing ideas/mental representations of the world
Told people a story and found that they retold it with western ideas to fill the gaps
Background - Marshall?
Airforce personal wee asked to estimate the speed of an airplane taxi car thing
A rural speed = 12mph
Estimates from 10-50mph
