Loftus et al

• how many times was this study conducted and what BENEFIT does this have?

  twice with similar results, WHICH INCREASES ITS RELIABILITY
• What happened in the study?

  • Presenting pp 'witnesses' with a series of slides depicting an event in a fast-food restaurant
  • in one version the customer was pointing a gun at the cashier, and in another, the same customer was holding a cheque out to the cashier
  • THE EYES OF PPS were tracked with an eye tracker device during this time
• what were the results?

  in the control ''cheque'' condition, 38.9% able to identify the person, whereas only 11.1% identified the correct person in the experimental ''gun'' condition
• what did results show?

  subjects made more eye fixations on the weapon than on the cheque, and fixations on the weapon were of a longer duration than fixations on the cheque
• what do the results PROVIDE?

  Early empirical support for weapon focus
• give a STRENGHT OF THIS STUDY?

  Laboratory experiments are high in controls and therefore highly valid

  • eg it was HIGHLY STANDARDISED- EG EACH SLIDE WAS SHOWN FOR EXACTLY 1.5 SECONDS
• GIVE A WEAKNESS of this study?

  DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS because the students were either paid $3.50 or given extra credit for participating

  • they may have felt the need to act in a way which the experimenter would want
• give a second weakenss of this study?

  ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY - despite having concluded that the weapon focus phenomenon would be heightened in real life, no attempt was made to make the experiment true to life, therefore we can't say that the experiment is ecologically valid