You were in . Social psychologists predict that the accuracy of participants’ memories would be influenced by the information provided to participants after watching the video. Your results and the predicted results are shown in Table 1.
Table 1| Question | Condition A | Predicted Results |
|---|---|---|
| How many men robbed the jewelry store? | ||
| How many of the men were wearing black hats? | ||
| How many black men appeared in the video? | ||
| How many had facial hair? | ||
| How many had guns? |
These results illustrate a similar effect reported by Loftus and Palmer (1974). In their classic study, Loftus and Palmer showed that, after watching a video of a car crash, participants’ memories of the crash were influenced by information they received after they witnessed the event. For example, participants who were asked “how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other” rated the speed the cars were going as much faster compared to participants who were asked “how fast were the cars going when they hit each other.” Furthermore, a week later participants asked the question with the word smashed were more likely to say there was broken glass at the scene (when in fact there was not) than those asked the question with the word “hit.” (see Table 2.) Even though all participants witnessed the same event, these results show how our memories are sometimes influenced by information provided after we have witnessed the actual event.
Table 2| Verb used to describe the accident | Mean speed estimates |
|---|---|
| Smashed | 40.8 |
| Hit | 34 |