Overview: Summarise the study, including why it was done and what was found (approx. 350 words)
In an experiment in 1969 by Marshall using air force personnel it was discovered that recalling details of an event, in this case, the speed of a vehicle, were difficult for people to recall. In some cases, participants recalled speeds of up to 50 mph where the actual speed was 12 mph (Flanagan, 2013). Loftus and Palmer further studied Marshall’s discovery, Loftus and Palmers two-tailed hypotheses was to show ‘an example of the interaction between language and memory’ (Loftus & Palmer, 1974).
The first experiment involved a sample of forty-five students viewing footage of road traffic accidents, participants were then asked a series of questions regarding what they had seen in the films. The independent variable of the experiment was the wording of the questions posed to the participants. The dependant variable was the speeds at which the participant thought the vehicle was travelling in the …show more content…
However, as the experiment was conducted in a laboratory environment Loftus and Palmer could retain a high control over the conditions. The sample used by Loftus and Palmer were an opportunity sample of students, this could raise a few issues as to whether the sample would be representative to the general population such as the issue of age, students are usually young and therefore could be less experienced in driving so could be less confident of their capability to estimate the speed of the vehicle and therefore easily manipulated, however, the experiment is easily replicated so more studies can easily be conducted to further test the hypothesis (Lintern, Williams, & Hill,
In an experiment in 1969 by Marshall using air force personnel it was discovered that recalling details of an event, in this case, the speed of a vehicle, were difficult for people to recall. In some cases, participants recalled speeds of up to 50 mph where the actual speed was 12 mph (Flanagan, 2013). Loftus and Palmer further studied Marshall’s discovery, Loftus and Palmers two-tailed hypotheses was to show ‘an example of the interaction between language and memory’ (Loftus & Palmer, 1974).
The first experiment involved a sample of forty-five students viewing footage of road traffic accidents, participants were then asked a series of questions regarding what they had seen in the films. The independent variable of the experiment was the wording of the questions posed to the participants. The dependant variable was the speeds at which the participant thought the vehicle was travelling in the …show more content…
However, as the experiment was conducted in a laboratory environment Loftus and Palmer could retain a high control over the conditions. The sample used by Loftus and Palmer were an opportunity sample of students, this could raise a few issues as to whether the sample would be representative to the general population such as the issue of age, students are usually young and therefore could be less experienced in driving so could be less confident of their capability to estimate the speed of the vehicle and therefore easily manipulated, however, the experiment is easily replicated so more studies can easily be conducted to further test the hypothesis (Lintern, Williams, & Hill,