loftus and palmer Flashcards
how many videos were staged vs not staged?
7 videos from Seattle police
4 staged
3 not staged
ranged from 5 - 30 seconds
how many ptts?
45 university students from washington university
what was the critical question?
how fast was the car going when they ____ each other?
what were the 5 words that were changed with each condition?
hit, collided, bumped, contacted, smashed
results?
participants that had harsher words made higher estimates of speed. smashed being the largest estimated speed of 40.8 MPH contacted being the least at 31.8 MPH
what does this show?
that EWT is affected by the use of leading questions in interviewing. the questions that are asked can distort our memories of the event.
G
R
A
V
E
G - generalisability low due to 45 students may not generalise to adult pop
R - reliability high due to the standardised procedures (watch videos, answer questions)
A - high application it can help police to do better interviews. also shows how EWT is unreliable and cannot only be used to prosecute someone
V - validity low due to low mundane realism and artificial tasks
E - moderately high ethics, ptts gave informed consent but they were made to watch car crashes which could be triggering or stressful.
Procedure for experiment 2 L+P
150 uni students in 1 of 3 conditions, all watched a film of car crash that was less than a min long and crash lasted for 4 seconds. Questionnaire was then given out, asking same critical Q as first experiment, but one condition had the verb hit , another had smashed and the last had no question about speed. 1 week later the ppts were asked if they saw any broken glass.
Results for experiment two L+P
Condition 1 (smashed) - 16 saw broken glass 34 didnt
Condition 2 (hit) - 7 saw broken glass 43 didnt
Control (no Q) - 6 saw broken glass 44 didnt
Conclusion to experiment 2 L+P
Memory of events is affected by leading questions rather than just response bias. The wording of the question affected the mem of event. People who heard harsher verb, smashed, were more than twice as likely to recall seeing broken glass.
