eyewitness testimony- leading questions loftus and palmer studys

study1

method of research

• involved 45 participants who were shown 7 clips of traffic accidents
• asked to write an account of each accident and answer  some questions
• wereasked aquestion about speed, the wording in the question was changed 5 times. the question was"about how fast were the cars going when they........each other?" the missing word was either "contacted, bumped, collided, hit or smashed". they were asked the question straight away

findings

• found that the wording of the question changes the estimation of the speed given by the participants
• the word "smashed" caused participants to rate speed at 40.8mph
• the word "contacted caused participants to rate speed at 31.8pmh
• this shows that leading questions can alter the…