Loftus & Palmer

Loftus & Palmer

1. Aim

   • To test the reliability of eye witness testimony
   • To investigate leading questions on EWT

2. Sample

   • 45 Students
   • from the University of Washington
   • assumed to be Psychology students - Loftus's
   • 5 groups of 9
   • Strenght
     • used people that were readily avalible
       • easily obtainable
         • quicker
   • Weakness
     • they used students
       • similar age
         • not representative
       • psychology students
         • not representative of other students/ classes
         • personality bias
           • only certain people go to uni to do psychology
             • ware of leading questions
               • likely to figure out what they were looking for
                 • response bias
                   • higher chance of DC
         • age bias - younger people
       • 1974 - more affluent people
         • maybe majority white

3. Variables

   • IV
     • manipulate
       • Changing the verb
     • conditions
       • Contacted
         • Hit
           • Bumped
             • Smashed
               • Collide
   • DV
     • measures
       • the estimated speed given by the participants

4. Controls

   • the other 9 questions
     • the researchers asked 9 other questions even when they were only interested in the answer to one question because if only one question was being asked then the participants would know the critical question then DC would be put into place as they would want to try and help the experiments
       • as it would show what you were interested in
   • same 7 video clips
   • asked the questions straight after the video clips
   • given a questionnaire - 10 same questions - except fro critical question
   • wording of the critical question
     • "How fast were the cars going when they **** into each other"
   • location
   • gave an account of what they saw
   • the purpose of the controls was to see if the EWT we accurate
     • high controls =
       • makes the study more replicable
         • high reliability
       • information gathered - show cause and effect
         • we can show that it is only the IV effecting the DV

5. STUDY 1

6. Results

   • Condition (Verb)
     • SMASHED
       • Collided
         • BUMPED
           • Hit
             • CONTACTED
               • Slowest
               • 31.8mph
             • 34.0mph
           • 38.1mph
         • 39.3mph
       • Fastest
       • 40.8mph
   • Mean Estimate
   • conclusions drawn
     • 'Smashed' produced the fastest speed estimates and 'Contacted' the slowest
       • thus telling us memory has been changed
       • 'Smashed' - more damage, think it must have been travelling faster