Loftus and Palmer

Context
Past Research has shown that memory can be very inaccurate e.g. estimating the speed at which a car is travelling at. Such inaccuracy may be influenced by leading questions. For example, Marshall (1969) found that when Air Force personnel who knew in advance they would be asked to estimate the speed of a vehicle, observed a car travelling at 12 mph, their estimates ranged from 10 to 50 mph. This suggests it's easy to influence the answers people give to such numerical situations. one way to influence answers is by phrasing a question in a way that it leads to give a particular answer.

The war of the ghosts: http://www.thinkib.net/files/psychology/files/Bartlett%20War%20of%20Ghosts.pdf

Experiment 1

aim
To investigate the accuracy of memory and, in particular, the effect of leading questions on what people remember.

participants
45 students (divided into 5 groups)

procedure
laboratory experiment using independent measures design.
1. shown film clips of car accidents
2. asked q's about the film clips including a critical question: how fast was the car going when they hit each other?
participants were in one of 5 different conditions:
group 1: asked 'how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?'
group 2: asked 'how fast were the cars going when they contacted each other?'
group 3: asked 'how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?'
group 4: asked 'how fast were the cars going when they bumped each other?'
group 5: asked 'how fast were the cars going when they collided into each other?

results
the mean speed estimates differed for each group
. the verb 'smashed' gave the highest estimate
. the verb 'contacted' gave the lowest estimate

conclusions
suggests mean estimates of speed are affected by leading questions

Experiment 2 

aim
does the critical word e.g. smashed or hit change a persons subsequent memory of the event they witnessed.

participants
150 students (divided into 3 groups)

procedure
1. shown a film of a car accident
2. asked q's about the film clips
group 1 asked 'how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?'
group 2 asked 'how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?'
group 3 were not asked about the speed of the cars. This is a control group
3. participants were asked to return to the laboratory a week later. They were asked some more q's about the film clips they saw a week earlier. one of the q's was 'did you see any broken glass?' (there was no broken glass in any of the film clips).

results
participants in the 'smashed' condition (who tended to think the car was travelling faster) were more likely to say there was more glass.

conclusion
this suggests the original leading questions had actually affected what they remembered (as opposed to biasing their recall).

.....

You also need to evaluate the study by Loftus and Palmer

The research method was a lab experiment for this study and therefore you need to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this research method in the context of this study.

The experiment used an independent measures design so you need to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the experimental design in the context of the study.

The sample were American students in this study... explain what makes this group of participants unique.

Also, what ethical issues should have concerned the researchers in this study and how might they have dealt with these.

The reliability of the study

The ecological validity of the study e.g. real-life eye witnesses may be feeling scared or anxious how might this affect their memory? In the study the participants were only watching video clips of a car crash not the real thing therefore is the study still ecologically valid?
....To what extent can you generalise the findings from this study to real life?

snapshot or longitudinal? 
exp 1 was snapshot. Exp 2 is a (very short) longitudinal study because it takes place over the period of one week. consider the strengths and weaknesses of each design in the context of this study.

The data collected in this study was quantitative. explain why it's quantitative and be able to explain strengths and weaknesses in the context of this study.

How might the findings from the 2 experiments be used in real life? how valuable was this study?