Loftus And Palmer 1974 Summary

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The study created by Loftus and Palmer (1974) presented an attempt to understand how the remembrance of complex events within our presence can cause a reconstruction within memory. Loftus and Palmer’s study consisted of two different experimental methods revolving around traffic accidents. The first study was to understand how the changing of a word in a sentence could affect the answer to speed. In experiment one, forty-five students were split into seven groups. In each group, there was a film shown from five to thirty seconds implementing a traffic incident. After watching the film, subjects were exposed to the examination of questions regarding what they had just seen. The primary question asked for nine of the subjects regulated around …show more content…

If presented a complex word, then one may believe that the accident was a lot more worse than it actually was. In experiment two, Loftus and Palmer were focused on the phrasing of the question and how it could create a false memory about that accident. One hundred and fifty students participated. The subjects were required to remember the accident and to describe it their own words. Fifty were asked the speed of the car when it was smashed, another fifty were asked the speed of the car when it was hit, and the other fifty were asked no question regarding speed. A week later, subjects were required to answer a question about broken glass in relation to after the accident. The data collected showed that implementing the verb “smashed” into the question “about how fast were the cars going when they had ‘smashed’ each other” provided a higher probability for subjects to believe they had seen broken glass within the film in regards to other verb tenses. For example, “smashed” in an accident usually means broken glass; which provides the reasoning as to why participants believed broken glass was present. This finding provided that if students are questioned within a more complexed verb, then the answer provided will enact a more severe