This study was a replication of Loftus and Palmer (1974). The aim was to test if participants viewing a video clip of a car crash would make different estimates of the speed of one of the cars according to the question asked: it was expected that the question using ‘smashed’ as the verb would elicit higher estimates than the question using ‘bumped’. Speed estimates were in fact similar for the two groups. Reasons for the failure to replicate the results of the original are discussed. The independent variable was the verb used in the critical question to describe the collision; one condition would be ‘smashed’ and the other would be ‘bumped’. The dependent variable of the experiment was the speed that the participants estimate the vehicle
