Loftus & Palmer (1974)

• Overview: To investigate the reliability of memory through seeing how information provided after an event influenced a witness’s memory of the event. The researchers changed the verb in a question when asked witnesses to recall an event.
• Participants: 45 undergraduate students from the University of Washington for exp 1, 100 for exp 2
• Experiment One (45 ppl)

  • Experiments were shown 7 clips of traffic accidents. They then had to fill in a questionnaire based on what they witnessed about the accident. The questionnaire had filler questions and one critical question, which was where they changed the verb (how fast were the cars going when they smashed/bumped/contacted each other?)
• Experiment Two (150 ppl)

  • Divided into 3 groups, they watched a one minute film of a multiple car accident then answered some questions about it. **Critical question: “**how fast were the cars going when they hit or smashed each other” or control where they weren’t asked abt the car speed
• Results: When the critical question had the word smashed or collided, estimates for speed were significantly higher than other words like contacted or bumped. So greater intensity of word, higher speed estimate.
• Conclusion: Information provided after an event, in this case leading questions, can lead to distortions in memory. Reconstructive memory (two types of info, obtained from witnessing vs information supplied after) can lead to distortions