Loftus And Palmer #2

Question 1

Why did Loftus and Palmer carry out a second experiment?

Answer 1

Loftus and Palmer carried out a second experiment with a similar procedure to the first in order to test the effect of leading questions.

Question 2

What was the aim of this experiment?

Answer 2

The aim of this experiment was again to determine whether leading questions would influence the response of an eyewitness.

Question 3

How many participants were used in this study?

Answer 3

150 (a bigger sample than the first experiment)

Question 4

How was the film shown different?

Answer 4

It was a one minute film which contained a 4 second scene of a multiple car crash.

Question 5

How many conditions were there?

Answer 5

3

Question 6

What were the first 50 participants asked?

Answer 6

‘How fast were the cars going when they HIT eachother?’

Question 7

What were the second lot of 50 participants asked?

Answer 7

‘How fast were the cars going when they SMASHED into each other?’

Question 8

What were the last 50 participants asked?

Answer 8

They were not interrogated about the speed of the vehicles.

Question 9

What happened one week later?

Answer 9

One week later, the participants retured and without viewing the film again, they answered a series of questions about the accident.

Question 10

One week later when the participants came back, what was the critical question embedded in a longer series of questions given to the participants?

Answer 10

‘Did you see any broken glass?’

Question 11

Whats important to remember about this critical question on broken glass.

Answer 11

That there was no broken glass.

Question 12

In the ‘smashed’ verb condition, how many participants said yes and no to the question about broken glass?

Answer 12

Yes: 16
No: 34

Question 13

In the ‘hit’ verb condition, how many participants said yes and no to the question about broken glass?

Answer 13

Yes: 7
No: 43

Question 14

In the control condition, how many participants said yes and no to the question about broken glass?

Answer 14

Yes: 6
No: 44

Question 15

What did the results show?

Answer 15

The results showed a significant effect of the verb in the question on the mis-perception of glass in the film. The participants that heard the word smashed were more that twice as likely to falsely recall seeing broken glass.

Question 16

What did Loftus and Palmer develop in their conclusion?

Answer 16

They developed the reconstructive hypothesis.

Question 17

What did the reconstructive hypothesis argue?

Answer 17

It argued that two kinds of information go into a peron’s memory of an event.

Question 18

What is the first kind of information that goes into a persons memory of an event according to the reconstructive hypothesis?

Answer 18

The information obtained from perceiving an event (eg witnessing a video of a car accident)

Question 19

What is the second kind of information that goes into a persons memory of an event according to the reconstructive hypothesis?

Answer 19

The second is the other information supplied to use after the event (eg, the question containing hit or smashed).

Question 20

What happens over time according to the reconstructive hypothesis?

Answer 20

Over time, the information from these two sources may be integrated in such a way that we are unable to tell from which source some specific detail is recalled. All we have is one ‘memory’.

Question 21

Give an example from the study that supports the reconstructive hypothesis.

Answer 21

For example in Loftus and Palmer’s 2nd experiment, the participants first form some memory of the video they have witnessed. The experimenter then, while asking, “About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” supplies a piece of external information, namely, that the cars did indeed smash into each other. When these two pieces of information are integrated, the participant has a memory of an accident that was more severe than in fact it was. Since broken glass corresponds to a severe accident, the participant is more likely to think that broken glass was present.