Loftus and Palmer

Loftus and Palmer

1. Aim-they wanted to test the effects of LEADING QUESTIONS on a person's recall of an event

2. Method-Loftus and Palmer's study involved splitting participants into three groups (two experimental and a control group)

   • All participants watched a film of a traffic accident.
     • After watching the film they were asked a number of questions about the film all the same except for a question about the speed of the cars when the accident happened .
       • One experimental group were asked how fast the cars were going when they 'HIT' eachother. The other experimental group were asked how fast the cars were going when they 'SAMSHED' the other car. The control group were not asked a question about the speed of the car.
         • One week later all of the participants answered some more questions with one key question being wether thye had seen any broken glass in the clip (THERE WAS'NT ANY IN THE FILM)

3. Results- The results showed that those participants who were asked how fast the cars were going when they 'smashed' reported seeing the car as going faster than the group who were asked how fast they were going when they 'hit' the other car.

4. results-Loftus and palmer said that people's memory of an even can be influnced by the ques tions that they are asked about it. These questions can therefore distort thier longtern memory of the event.

   • The fact that the control group reported seeing broken glass which shows that leading questions can make you believe something happened, when in fact it didn't.