An Experiment to Determine Whether People Are Influenced by Leading Questions

One of the reasons that eyewitness evidence is so unreliable is because human memory is very open to suggestion. In fact, just asking about something can alter our memory. (1) For example, in the 80-90’s, many psychotherapists were

In the last half century several theories have emerged with regard to the best model for human memory. In each of these models there was a specific way to help people recall words and

The study of creation of false memories has been a topic of interest since the 1930s when Bartlett (1932) conducted the first experiment on the topic. Though the results of this experiment were never replicated, they contributed greatly to research by distinguishing between reproductive and reconstructive memory (Bartlett 1932 as cited in Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Reproductive memory refers to accurate production of material from memory and is assumed to be associated with remembering simplified materials (e.g., lists). Reconstructive memory emphasizes the active process of filling in missing elements while remembering and is associated with materials rich in meaning (e.g., stories).

Eyewitness testimonies are based on a person’s ability to recall what took place accurately. Memory research has proven that a person’s memory is not a recording but it is reconstructive. Loftus and Palmer’s study set out to prove that the memory could be reconstructed through the use of language.

Messages become shorter when passed from one person to the next. Memories can be modified to fit one’s personal social experiences (i.e., conventionalization). Memory is unreliable, sensory stimuli are not stored as is but are actively transformed by the brain for storage depending on individual factors such as personal relevance and expectations. The most essential information is better remembered, but what is considered “most essential” may depend on an individual’s experiences. This suggests memory does not function as a video recording, but is a highly complex process that is influenced by an individual’s levels of attention, motivation, expectations, experiences, emotional state, etc. It also suggests that memory is an active process that involves constructing narratives out of events rather than passively recording

The Car Crash Study was done in 1974 by Loftus and Palmer that was aimed to test their theory that the language used in an eyewitness testimonies can alter the eyewitness’s memory of the event. They got 45 American students and showed them 7 films of traffic accidents, ranging from 5 to 30 seconds, in a random order. Afterwards the subjects were asked to describe what happened as if they were at the accident. They were then asked more specific questions such as, “About how fast were the cars going when they (smashed/ collided/ bumped/ hit/ contacted) each other?’. This was to see if the if the verb used in the question would affect the answers given by the subjects which it did. In the next part of the experiment they showed 150 students a one-minute film that showed a car driving through the country side followed by four seconds of a multiple traffic accident. Afterwards they split the students into three groups and asked them different questions. The first group was asked “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”, the second group was asked “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?”, and the third group was kept as a control group and wasn’t asked anything. One week later they were asked, without seeing the film, ten questions about the film. One question asked “Did you see any broken glass? Yes or No?” which there was none. The results showed that more participants who were asked “How fast were the cars going when they smashed?” said

The current study was created to retest reproducibility of Slamecka and Graf results about participants remembering words better when they generated the words than when they read the words in a sample of undergraduate students at Texas A&M University (Slamecka and Graf, 1978). Nineteen undergraduate students at Texas A&M University participated in an experiment where one group was given a set of words and were told to memorize the words. The other group was given one word and the first letter of the second word and was told to generate the second word. It was hypothesized that the group with the participants who generated the second word would remember those sets of words better than the other group. Results showed that the group who generated the second word significantly memorized the words better, the p value being < .05. More in depth explanations involving more variables are discussed such as the five rules, or the within subjects, and their effect on the generation effect as well as future directions.

False memories created by non-presented akin words demonstrating the vulnerability of memory to being interfered.

The study, Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction undertaken by Loftus & Palmer in 1974 consisted of two experiments, these experiments were completed in order to test their hypothesis that ‘the way in which a question about an eyewitness testimony was asked can change the recollection of events perceived by the witness’. The study served to aid the argument that memory can be altered and distorted when they subject is presented with new information that is given prior to the event. In order to test their hypothesis, Loftus & Palmer conducted two laboratory experiments; both experiments took the design of an independent measures. The first experiment consisted of a group of 45 students who were shown footage of car accidents, following each film questionnaires were answered. The critical question from this questionnaire was in regards to the speed at which the car was travelling. In this question the verb used to describe the actions changed, meaning this was the independent variable. The results of this question varied depending on the verb used. With the highest mean speed being for the word ‘smashed’ and the lowest for the verb ‘contacted’. The dependent variable in this experiment was the estimated mean speed.

Another piece of evidence from the author is, “The psychologists Daniel J. Simons and Christopher Chabris have conducted two large-scale surveys showing that roughly half of respondents thought that memory works like a video recorder. And although many people do recognize that their memories are fallible, there is much less understanding of precisely how and why they fail us.” (Fernyhough 1). This shows that many people think that “memory works like a video recorder” meaning that they

A false memory is simply a memory that did not occur. An actual experience can become distorted as best illustrated by the Cog Lab experiment on false memories accessed through Argosy University. The experiment is outlined as follows: a participant is given a list of words that are highly relative in nature at a rate of about one word every 2 seconds. At the finish of the given list, the participant is then shown a list of words in which he or she is to recall the words from the original list. A special distractor is inserted to the list, and this word, although highly relative in nature, was not in the original list. For example, the

The experiment in which our Psychology 100 class participated was designed to illustrate the concept of memory, particularly at the point when a crime is committed. Split into two random groups, we all watched a video of a robbery with only one difference in each video-the weapon. Then, we were asked a series of questions about the video that we had to answer completely by memory. During this experiment, the memories we formed were created mostly with sensory memory, resulting more specifically in an iconic store, meaning the information we received was almost entirely visual. Because the video could only be viewed once and because information retained in the short-term memory remains for less than twenty seconds,

It is difficult for the witness to recall the details of the time, speed, and distance for a car accident, therefore in 1974 a group of experimenters from University of Washington conducted two related experiments based on this issue (Loftus & Plamer, 1974). First, they questioned whether the changing verb in a question about speed would effect people’s estimation adding on to the first question they asked does the leading question produces a demand characteristic or the question actually causes a person’s memory to change (Loftus & Plamer, 1974). Build on to the questions, they came up with two hypotheses, first the form of a question will effect people’s response to a complex event, and when two pieces of information are integrated, the subject

Loftus and Palmer’s study on the interaction between language and memory was based on the hypothesis that the phrasing/leading questions used to question an eyewitness can alter the event memory. The study specifically looks at how people recall the speed, vehicles were travelling at when involved in road traffic accidents. The paper spoke in brief about other evidence to support their Hypothesis, this was relevant and valuable when assessing the results of the study. There were two experiments within the study. Experiment 1 comprised of Forty-Five students, they were shown short films of road traffic incidents and after each film asked a series of

Prior to the early 1970s the prominent idea of how memories were formed and retrieved revolved around the idea of processing memory into specific stores (Francis & Neath, 2014). These memory stores were identified as sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. In contrast to this idea, two researchers named Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart proposed an idea linking the type of encoding to retrieval (Goldstein, 2015). This idea is known as the levels of processing theory. According to this theory, memory depends on the depth of processing that a given item is received by an individual (Goldstein, 2015). Craik and Lockhart stressed four points in supporting their theory. First, they argued that memory was the result of a series of analyses, each level of the series forming a deeper level of processing than the preceding level (Francis & Neath, 2014). The shallow levels of processing were believed to hold less importance and are defined as giving little attention to meaning of an item. Examples of which include focusing on how a word sounds or memorizing a phone number by repeating it over and over again (Francis & Neath, 2014) (Goldstein, 2015). The deeper levels processing involve paying close attention to the meaning of an item and relating that meaning to something else, an example of which would be focusing on the meaning of a word rather than just how the word sounds (Francis & Neath, 2014) (Goldstein, 2015). The second point Craik and Lockhart