Loftus and palmer (eyewitness testimony)

Question 1

Keyword
Reconstructive Memory?

Loftus and palmer

Answer 1

Memory is Deconstructed in storage (simplified important points into a
schema) and Reconstructed in recall (create an understandable story
from incomplete information)

Question 2

Keyword
Schema Driven Memory?

Loftus and palmer

Answer 2

a pattern of thought or behaviour that organises categories of information and the relationships among them.

Question 3

Keyword
EWT?

Loftus and palmer

Answer 3

Eye Witness Testimony

Question 4

Keyword
Leading Question /
Misleading Information?

Loftus and palmer

Answer 4

A question biased towards the asker’s viewpoint and contains/suggest the desired answer.

Question 5

Keyword
,Response Bias?

Loftus and palmer

Answer 5

The verbs were too strong to resist impact on response

Question 6

Keyword
Demand Characteristics?

Loftus and palmer

Answer 6

Biased methodology to achieve desired responses

Question 7

Theories?

Loftus and palmer

Answer 7

Schema theory proposes that memory is influenced by what an individual has already experienced (existing schemas, stereotypes etc) and that the use of past experiences, facilitates storage and subsequent recall of new experiences.

Knowledge is stored in memory as a set of schemas – simplified, generalised mental representations of everything an individual understands by a given type of object or event based on their past experiences.

Existing schemas are central to Bartlett’s theory of reconstructive memory. This theory is developed/challenged by Loftus and Palmer’s study into Eye Witness Testimony (EWT).

Fredrick Bartlett created the concept: of ‘RECONSTRUCTIVE’ - reconstruct = rebuild from original pieces.

Question 8

Background?

Loftus and palmer

Answer 8

Research has shown that information can be added to a particular memory after the event (post-event information), and later recalled as part of the event itself.

This is important when someone is being asked to give eyewitness testimony in court. A person may believe they are being accurate without realising their memory has been interfered by ‘leading questions’ (aka. Misleading Information).

emory involves interpreting what has been seen or heard.

As with reconstructive memory, Loftus and Palmer were investigating the effect ‘leading questions’ have on the reconstruction of stored incomplete information.

Loftus and Palmer conducted many studies investigating ways in which memory can be distorted, many of which suggest that EWT is highly unreliable

Question 9

Results?

Loftus and palmer

Answer 9

Bartlett’s results:
Two methods led to very similar findings.
Serial reproduction:
- the stories became shorter each time and their distortions in the story.

• These distortions made the story more understandable from the participant’s experiences and cultural background.
• Things culturally to the participants were replaced with familiar ones (hunting seals to fishing.)
• Which shows that schemas were used in the recall.

Question 10

Aim?

Loftus and palmer

Answer 10

Loftus and Palmer (1974) investigated how information supplied after an event
can influence the witness’s memory and recall of an event.

A process where post-event information gets integrated with the original information and corrupts our earlier memories.

Question 11

Participants used?

Loftus and palmer

Answer 11

Experiment 1 =
45 students who were divided into five groups with nine participants in each group.

Experiment 2 =
150 students who were divided into three groups with 50 participants in each group.

Evaluation point: Sampling bias, as all were her own psychology students in the USA. Generally, all psychology students have to take part in research as part of their course (RPS Points for research participation)

*Ethical guidelines: ‘sample’ dehumanises the participant’s

Question 12

PROCEDURES: Experiment One

Loftus and palmer

Answer 12

1. The 45 participants all saw the same seven short video clips of traffic accidents each ranging from 5-30 seconds.
2. First, after each video, the participants were asked, “please give a short written summary of the accident you have just viewed”. (NB. To make them think about what they had just watched – qualitative data)
3. Before the experiment, the participants had been allocated into one of five groups of nine, and were unaware that each group were about to be asked a slightly different critical question about each video

Note: The participants would have each been asked a range of questions on each accident (eg.
colour of cars, make of cars, gender of drivers etc).

This would be to disguise the true nature of the experiment and the purpose of the critical question.

The critical question (estimate of speed) is the only important one and the only one which was to be statistically analysed.

Question 13

Experiment: Two producers?

Loftus and palmer

Answer 13

1. 150 participants were shown a film of a multiple car crash. The actual accident lasted
   less than 4 seconds
2. 50 participants were asked, “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each
   other?”
3. 50 participants were asked “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”
4. The final 50 participants were a ‘control’ group and were not exposed to any question.

One week later the participants returned and answered various questions about the accident

The critical question that all participants were asked was “Did you see any broken glass?” (Yes or No)
There was no broken glass.

Question 14

Findings: Experiment 1?

Loftus and palmer

Answer 14

a) Speed estimates (mph) for the verbs used in the critical question = Smashed 40.5 - Collided 39.3 - Bumped 38.1 - Hit 34.0 - Contacted 31.8
(smashed ->collided-> bumped -> hit -> connected)
Smashed produced the fastest speed estimates and contacted the slowest.

(b) For the four staged films where speeds have accurately measured

The film of a crash at 20 mph was estimated to be 37.7 mph. -
The film of a crash at 30 mph was estimated to be 36.2 mph. -
The films of crashes at 40 mph were estimated to be 39.7 mph and 36.1 mph.

Question 15

Findings: Experiment 2?

Loftus and palmer

Answer 15

Smashed group:
Yes to broken glass: 16 (32%)
No to broken glass: 34

Hitt group:
Yes to broken glass: 7 (14%)
No to broken glass: 43

Control group:
Yes to broken glass: 6 (12%)
No to broken glass: 44
—————————————-

More participants in the ‘smashed’ condition than either the
‘hit’ or control groups reported seeing broken glass.

However, the majority of participants in each group
correctly recalled that they had not seen any broken glass.
(Evaluation: So quite a weak effect within the condition but an overall effect nonetheless)

Question 16

Conclusions?

Loftus and palmer

Answer 16

The researchers concluded that the memories of the car accident could have been influenced by the verb used to describe the intensity of the crash (post-event information).

They also suggested that participants might have integrated the original memory of the accident with the idea of the cars smashing (glass) and then reconstructed a memory as expected in car crashes.

The researchers admitted that some of the participants could have given estimates of the speed they thought the researcher wanted. For example, using the verb ‘smashed’ suggests a higher speed regardless of what they had witnessed on the screen.

Question 17

Advantages?, Loftus and palmer

Answer 17

+ Demonstrated power of misleading information.
+ Lab experiment so replicable.
+ This and other research has led to courtroom changes. (leading questions are overruled)

Question 18

Disadvantages? Loftus and palmer

Answer 18

• Artificial situation (not real events)
• Participant Bias (who can you generalise to?)- meaning low ecological validity
• No legal/ moral consequences for inaccurate answers and ignores other factors which may influence recall (drive or not drive, age, culture)
• Potential for demand characteristics (biased methodology to achieve desired responses) aka. Response bias (the verbs were too strong to resist the impact on the response)