Findings and Conclusions

• What did the results from experiment 1 show?

  The group given the word ‘smashed‘ estimated a higher speed than the other groups (40.8mph). The group given the word ‘contacted’ estimated a mean speed of 31.8mph and therefore lower.
• What did the results from experiment 2 part 1 show?

  Participants gave higher speed estimations in the ’smashed’ condition, just like in experiment 1.
• What did the results in experiment 2 part 2 show?

  Participants in the ‘smashed’ condition were more than 2x likely to report seeing broken glass than those in the control or ‘hit’ condition.
• What are some statistics?

  In the ‘smashed‘ group, 16 said they saw glass and in the ‘hit‘ group, 7 said they saw glass.
• What does this conclude?

  That the form of a question (even a single word) can affect a witness’s answer to that question.
• What are the 2 suggested explanations?

  Response bias factors andThe memory representation is altered.
• What are response bias factors?

  The reason why the speed estimates differ is because the critical verb influences or biases a person’s response.
• What does THE MEMORY REPRESENTATION being

  ALTERED mean?

  The critical word changes a person’s memory which affects their perception. This is evident as some words lead to the perception of the crashes being changed to being more serious.