Loftus and palmer

• Loftus and palmer background

  Memory- Piagets schema and how schema are effected by culture, eyewitness testimony
• Loftus and palmer aims

  Experiment 1- to see if speed estimates given by participants by watching a car crash video would be influenced by the wording of the question asked including the verbs: smashed, collided, bumped, hit and contacted

  Experiment 2- To see if leading questions just changed responses given to questions or whether participants memory had actually been altered as a result of leading questions
• Loftus and palmer sample

  Opportunity sample

  E1- 45 participants, 9 groups

  E2- 150 participants, 50 in each condition
• Loftus and palmer experiment

  Labortory experiment
• loftus and palmer variables

  E1- IV: verbs- smashed, collided, hit, contacted, bumped.

  DV: estimated speeds

  E2-IV: verbs- hit, smashed, control (not asked)

  DV: Answer, yes or no to broken glass question
• Loftus and palmer apparatus


  7 film segments from the police department or council 5-30secs

  7 questionaries, one for each film with questions about the incident

  • 10 other questions in a questionnaire along with the did you see any broken glass
• Loftus and palmer procedure

  E1- all participants shown the 7 clips and then given a questionaire- to prevent order effects groups were presented with a different ordering o films, and each group received one critical question.

  E2- all participants were shown the film clip and then given a questionnaire and they returned the next week to be asked the critical question did you see and glass.
• Loftus and palmer results

  E1- mean speed estimate ranged from 31.8 to 40.8 mph from the verb contacted to smashed

  E2- majority of participants overall said no to the glass question but 16 said yes in the smashed condition but 7 said yes in the hit condition
• Loftus and palmer conclusions

  E1:

  1 - where a participant is ensure of the correct answer the wording of the question influences the answer they give

  2- the form of the question causes a change in the participants memory- representation of the incident.

  E2: that two kinds go into ones memory complex occurrence occurs. The first is information from the event and the next is from afterwards and eventually we cannot separate them and they become on memory.