experiment 1

• aim (1)?

  how information provided after an event in the form of leading questions can affect peoples memories
• procedure (1)?

  45 students from Uni of Washington, shown 7 videos of car crashes 4-30 seconds long and were shown in random order. Participants were given a standardised questionnaire giving an account of the film they saw then asked several filler questions and a critical question:

  'how fast were the cars going when they ___ each other?'

  smashed, collided, bumped, hit, contacted
• results (1)?

  speeds estimated incorrectly, participants could be influenced by demand characteristics when estimating speed.

  • contacted mean speed: 31.8. smashed: 40.8 (9 mph difference)
• conclusion (1)?

  change of one word in a critical question can significantly alter the participants estimate of how fast the car was going, post event info can distort our memories so 2 things can be happening:

  • distortion of memory: memory is reconstructed
  • response bias: participants may not have been sure of the speed so adjusts answers to fit expectations of researcher