Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Question 0

How many experiments were carried out?

Answer 0

Two experiments were carried out within one study

Question 1

What year did Loftus and Palmer conduct their experiment?

Answer 1

1974

Question 2

What did Bird (1927) find?

Answer 2

That people are inaccurate at reporting numbers relating to time, speed and distance. This is particularly true of speed.
Estimates of speed are likely to be influenced by variables. This is what Loftus and Palmer’s study is all about.

Question 3

What is the aim of Loftus and Palmer’s study?

Answer 3

To see if the estimates of speed would be affected by the phrasing of a question. The findings would be applied to the idea of leading questions in court.

Question 4

In the procedure of experiment 1, how many students were put into groups?

Answer 4

45 students were put into groups.

Question 5

How many films were shown?

Answer 5

7 films were shown.

Question 6

What did each of the 7 films involve?

Answer 6

Each of the 7 films involved a traffic accident

Question 7

How long did each of the 7 films last, respectively?

Answer 7

Each of the 7 films lasted between 5 and 30 seconds.

Question 8

What happened after every of the 7 films?

Answer 8

After every film the pps were made to fill in a questionnaire.

Question 9

What were the pps required to do in the questionnaire?

Answer 9

The pps were first required to give an account of the incident
They were then required to answer specific questions.

Question 10

What was the critical question?

Answer 10

The critical question was the one asking about the speed of the vehicle

Question 11

What were 9 of the pps asked?

Answer 11

9 pps were asked ‘about how fast were the cars going when they hit each other’

Question 12

How many pps were asked the same question?

Answer 12

Equal numbers of the rest of the pps were asked the same question.

Question 13

What other words were used in place of ‘hit’ when asking the other pps?

Answer 13

The word ‘hit’ was replaced by ‘smashed’, ‘collided’, ‘bumped’ or ‘contacted’.

Question 14

What procedure was taken for the other films?

Answer 14

The same procedure was followed for each film.

Question 15

In the results, how many of the films used stage crashes?

Answer 15

4 of the 7 films used stage crashes.

So the speed of the cars was known.

Question 16

How many of the cars were travelling at 20mph?

Answer 16

1

Question 17

How many of the cars were travelling at 30mph?

Answer 17

2

Question 18

How many of the cars were driving at 40mph?

Answer 18

1

Question 19

Which of the words gave the highest mean estimate of speed?

Answer 19

‘Smashed’

Question 20

Which of the words gave the lowest mean estimate?

Answer 20

‘Contacted’

Question 21

What was the conclusion?

Answer 21

It was concluded that the form of a question can affect a witness’ answer.

Question 22

What is the theory about changing memory?

Answer 22

It may be possible that the question changes the memory of the accident so that the pp sees the accident as more severe with the use of the word ‘smashed’.

Question 23

What idea was Loftus and Palmer’s second experiment run to test?

Answer 23

The idea that if it was about changing memory, then other aspects of memory may be affected.

Question 24

In the procedure of experiment 2, how many pps were involved in the experiment?

Answer 24

There were 150 pps involved in experiment 2

Question 25

What film was shown in experiment 2?

Answer 25

A film with a multiple car accident was shown in experiment 2

Question 26

That was the film with a multiple car followed by?

Answer 26

The film with a multiple car accident was followed by a questionnaire.

Question 27

How long did the film last?

Answer 27

The film lasted less than 1 minute

Question 28

How long did the accident take?

Answer 28

The accident took 4 seconds

Question 29

What did the questionnaire at the end of the film ask the pps?

Answer 29

The questionnaire at the end of the film asked pps to describe the accident in their own words and then to answer some more questions.

Question 30

When asked about the speed, what word was used?

Answer 30

Some pps were asked about about the speed using the word ‘smashed’ as part of the question

Question 31

What other words were used when asked about the speed?

Answer 31

Some were the asked the same question with the word ‘hit’ replacing ‘smashed’.
Some were not asked about speed

Question 32

What happened one week later?

Answer 32

One week later, the pps came back but were not known the film again.

Question 33

What other questions were the pps asked?

Answer 33

They were asked questions like ‘Did you see any broken glass?’

Question 34

Was there any broken glass in the film?

Answer 34

There was no broken glass in the film

Question 35

Why were the pps asked about a broken glass?

Answer 35

Because it was thought that the word ‘smashed’ would lead to more broken glass being ‘remembered’ by the pps.

Question 36

What did the results show?

Answer 36

More pps answered ‘yes’ to the questions about whether there was broken glass which used the word ‘smashed’.

Question 37

What were the conclusions of the study?

Answer 37

The study concluded that the way the question is asked can affect the answer given.
The word change in the question had consequences a week later

Question 38

What was the conclusion in regards to memory?

Answer 38

The event as well as external information provided afterwards feeds the memory . As we have only one memory, these informations are integrated overtime.
Internal memory is provided by the film and the ‘smashed’ or ‘hit’ question adds external information.

Question 39

What is a strength of Loftus and Palmer’s 1974 study?

Answer 39

It was conducted as a laboratory experiment with clear controls. For example, all the pps watched the same film and were asked identical questions (except a word change).

Question 40

Why is the Loftus and Palmer 1974 study replicable?

Answer 40

Because of the strict controls and careful documenting

Question 41

Why is the Loftus and Palmer 1974 study reliable?

Answer 41

The Loftus and Palmer study’s findings are reliable because the researchers replicated it themselves and found that the use of the word ‘smashed’ gave a higher estimate of speed

Question 42

What is a strength of the Loftus and Palmer 1974 study?

Answer 42

Quantitative data was gathered by the researchers through their use of estimates of speed. Therefore they had no reason to interpret the data making their study more objective.

Question 43

What kind of research method was used by the researchers in the Loftus and Palmer 1974 study?

Answer 43

Quantitative data

Question 44

What is a weakness of the Loftus and Palmer 1974 study?

Answer 44

The finding might have lacked validity as the students who participated might not have been under the same emotional stress as if they had really witnessed a car accident.

Question 45

Why does the Loftus study lack validity?

Answer 45

Because the students who participated might have not been under the same emotional stress as if they had really witness a car accident.

Question 46

What is another weakness of the Loftus 1974 study?

Answer 46

The findings of the experiment might not be generalisable to the whole population as the participants were students and they may have had different motivation when catching out the study.

Question 47

Why might the Loftus study not be generalisable to the whole population?

Answer 47

Because the participants that took part were students and they might have had different motivation when carrying out the study.

Question 48

What is another weakness of the Loftus and Palmer 1974 study?

Answer 48

Demand characteristics may have taken place in that the pps may have picked up that this was about the car accident and that the word ‘smashed’ was means to be misleading.
Therefore, the students would have been able to work out what was required of them and so they answered accordingly.

Question 49

What other supporting evidence is there for the Loftus and Palmer 1974 study?

Answer 49

Loftus and Zanni 1975 found that when asked about ‘the’ broken headlight rather than ‘a’ broken headlight, pps were more likely to ‘remember’ broken glass when in fact there was no broken headlight.