Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Loftus and Palmer (1974)

1. Background information

   • Those who had been shown violent imagery before the trial were more likely to remember less because the new information influenced their thoughts from the actual evidence.
     • For example, the participants forgot to mention that there was a large number 17 on the boys shirt. All together, there were 16 things that the participant could've remembered. However, the participants that watched the violent version would only remember 14 of the items.
   • Loftus suggested that there are 2 types of information that can affect our memory of an event:
     • 1. information gained at the time of the event
     • 2. information gained after the event (subsequent information)
   • This is the type of deceiving question they asked, they also asked a normal question to compare:
     • Did you see the broken headlight? This implies that there was a broken headlight for definite therefore the participant would've been more likely to agree with them.
     • Did you see a broken headlight? This suggests that there may not have been a broken headlight therefore participants feel more obliged to say what they actually saw.

2. AIM

   • To study the effects of language on memory.
     • They believed that if they asked the participants 'misleading' questions, that the participants would play along with the information and believe it to be true.

3. Method

   • Two experiments were carried out (independent measures) to see whether leading questions can affect a person's memory. The first experiment was hinting at the participants not being very good at telling the speed of a car and the second was about smashed glass. This was all carried out in a lab.
     • Participants
       • 45 participants took part in this experiment. There would be 5 conditions with 9 participants for each condition (this was for the first study)
       • For the second group, there were 150 participants which were split into 3 groups (50 each)
     • Procedure
       • All the participants were shown 7 clips of the accident. They were all given a questionnaire to fill out after the clip had been watched, first of all. They were all asked to give an account of what had just happened. Secondly, they answered a set of questions (the researcher was interested in the speed of the car when the accident happened) This whole experiment took an hour and a half. This was the hit group
       • The IV was manipulated by changing the wording of the critical question.
         • About how fast were the cars going when they (X) each other? The predetermined words would be:
           • Contacted
           • Hit
           • Bumped
           • Collided
           • Smashed
           • The use of these different verbs could affect the participants answer dramatically. This was the IV
           • The DV was the mean estimate of the car because this is quantitative data.
             • This data is also qualitative because the participants were told to recite a story on what they had watched in the clip (this was put into place to see if the participants were paying attention)
       • The second group was tested on the word smashed. This was a two part procedure because they watched a film then filled out a questionnaire. They then returned a week later to compete questionnaire 2 *this is because they were interested in the critical question*
   • Results
     • 1st study on the mean estimate of speeds due to the verb that was used:
       • Smashed= 40.8mph
       • Collided=39.3mph
       • Bumped=38.1mph
       • Hit=34.0mph
       • Contacted=31.8mph
     • Inferential analysis shows that there was a p< 0.005 level. This shows that the verbs do affect how fast the car goes.
     • This is the results from the second group of participants who put their answers on whether they thought that the window had smashed or not.
       • Yes
         • Smashed condition= 16
         • Hit condition= 7
         • Control= 6
       • No
         • Smashed condition= 34
         • Hit condition= 43
         • Control= 44

4. Key terms

   • Critical question- A structured question that is open ended for the sake of the predetermined data (the DV)

5. I would say that this experiment is very useful because you can replicate it. However, this experiment isn't very high in ecological validity.

6. Problems

   • Biases
     • Ethnocentrism
       • I believe this experiment to be ethnocentric because it is only looking at how students would react to this and no other culture. Therefore this means it is not entirely representative of everybody.
     • Age bias= students
   • Ethical issues= mild deception. Other than that, they kept to the guidelines.