Elizabeth Loftus 1974

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Elizabeth Loftus (1974)

• Reconstructive Memory

Mohammad Shoiab
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• Experiment 1 Reconstructive Memory
• AimTo see how reconstructive memory would
  affect their answer when questioned.
• Procedure
• 50 ppts shown clips of car accidents
• Then asked questions
• Critical question was About how fast were the
  cars going when they HIT each other?
• Hit replaced with either smashed, collided,
  bumped or contacted.

Results
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Experiment Two - Response Bias

• Aim
• Whether or not experiment one, could be explained
  by response bias.
• Procedure
• 150 ppts all shown car accident
• Split into groups of 50
• 1st group asked How fast were the cars going
  when they hit each other?
• 2nd group asked How fast were the cars going
  when they smashed into each other?
• 3rd group was the control group

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• Findings
• One week later they were asked a critical
  question, Did you see any broken glass?
• The 2nd group who were asked How fast were the
  cars going when they smashed into each other?.
  On average gave higher speed estimates and that
  they recall seeing broken glass.

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• Conclusions
• Due to questioning technique, causes memory to be
  easily distorted leading to inaccurate recall
• The distorted details to an event is also called
  confabulation.
• Limitations
• Ecological validity Used an independent
  measures design which maybe due to the individual
  differences. Made-up accident videos borrowed
  from police, so it wasnt very convincing.
• Deception Argues it was necessary to validate
  findings and minimise demand characteristic.
• Emotional reactions ppts may have found it very
  distressing, altering there recall of the event

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• Strengths
• Control conditions 3rd group were not asked
  about accident but asked about whether they saw
  broken glass or not, for reliability of results.

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Other Experiments

• 25 incentive see if it improved recall of the
  event, but results didnt affect the E.W.T.
• Resisting misleading information ppts shown man
  stealing red wallet from a woman's bag. 98
  recall it being red when questioned.
• Colour was brown when read another account.
  Large majority still said it was red.
• Shows that the misleading information cant be too
  obvious