Flashcards
Loftus & Palmer (1974) - Eyewitness Testimony
Cards in this deck (12)
- 1Loftus & Palmer (1974) - Eyewitness TestimonyMemory is reconstructive. It investigates the accuracy of eyewitness testimony and the factors affecting it.
- 2Aims & Research QuestionsTo investigate the effect of questioning on witness memory of a car accident.
Investigate effect of leading question on eyewitness memory.
Investigate whether leading questions distort memory of an event. - 3Research Method2 Lab experiments
Independent Design
IV: verb used in critical question
DV: mean estimate speed of car - 4SampleExperiment 1: 45 students from USA randomly allocated to 5 groups of 9.
Experiment 2: 150 students randomly allocated to 3 groups of 50. - 5ProcedureExperiment 1: students watched video of car accident. After pp's asked to write what they had seen, then given a questionnaire which included a critical question. 'How fast were the cars going when they ****** into each other?'
- 6Procedure (2)Pp's divided into 5 groups and each received different variation of the same question, containing the verb 'contacted, hit, bumped, collided, smashed'.
- 7Procedure (3)Experiment 2: 150 pp's shown film of car accident and given a questionnaire.
Group 1 asked question containing word 'hit'.
Group 2 asked question containing word 'smashed'.
Group 3 (control group) not asked question. - 8Procedure (4)Week later, pp's returned and asked further questions, including critical question 'Did you see any broken glass?'
(no broken glass in film) - 9ResultsExperiment 1: The leading question did affect pp's perception of speed.
Pp's who heard word 'smashed' gave a higher estimate than those who heard word 'contacted' or 'hit'. - 10Results (2)Experiment 2: Pp's who thought car was traveling faster, more likely to produce false memory of seeing broken glass than others. Suggests their memory was changed by the way they were questioned.
- 11ConclusionLoftus and Palmer concluded that the semantics of the question became integrated with memory of event.
- 12EvaluationHigh control
Quantitative data collected
Low EV- doesn't represent real life settings
Replicable as its controlled and standardised.
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- Description
- ALEVEL PSYCHOLOGY Flashcards on Loftus & Palmer (1974) - Eyewitness Testimony, created by Dhara Bechra on 30/04/2017.
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- Dhara Bechra · Apr 2017
- Updated
- Apr 30, 2017
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