Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Misleading information:
Loftus et al. (1978)
- AIM
- To investigate whether PPs would be
able to accurately recall an even if
asked misleading questions
- PROCEDURE
- Two groups of PPs were shown a set of slides showing a car accident
- Group 1: Saw a red car
stopping by a 'Yield' sign
- Half were asked about a 'Yield' sign (consistent) whereas the
other half were asked about a 'Stop' sign (misleading)
- Group 2: Saw a red car
stopping by a 'Stop' sign
- Half were asked about a 'Stop' sign (consistent) and the
other half were asked about a 'Yield' sign (misleading)
- PPs were given 15 pairs of slides of the
event in random order
- Had to pick from each pair the slide that was consistent
with what they had seen earlier
- One pair consisted of a slide with a 'Yield' sign
and the other slide with a 'Stop' sign
- FINDINGS
- 75% of PPs who got the consistent question
picked the correct slide
- Only 41% of the PPs who got the misleading
question picked the correct slide
- When the recognition slide test was delayed for a week, the
accuracy of the group of PPs who got the misleading
question fell to 20%
- CONCLUSION
- Misleading question deleted correct information from
memory and replaced it with false information
- Misleading questions mean that original memory is no longer stored
- Effect of misleading questions become
more prominent over time
- EVALUATION
- Supporting study: Loftus & Loftus (1980) - found
that accuracy in the group who were given
misleading information did not increase even when
they were offered money to pick the correct slide
- Not everyone who was given misleading
information was inaccurate in the recognition
slide task
- The use of static slides does not reflect
real-life situations and therefore we cannot
base EWT on the conclusions
- Source misattribution
- Misleading questions may cause a problem with source monitoring,
meaning that when individuals are presented with two different/conflicting
information they will mix up where each information came from
- BEKERIAN and BOWERS (1983)
- Original memory trace is still
available and has not been
deleted and replaced by false
memory
- Replicated Loftus' study with the 'Stop' and 'Yield' sign
- However, during the recognition slide test,
PPs were presented with the slides in
chronological order
- Found that there was not a
significant difference between the
recall accuracy of the misled PPs
and the consistent PPs
- Presenting the slides in a chronological
sequence provided cues for the PPs to
reactivate the original memory despite the
misleading information
- Other researchers have
failed to replicate the results