Participants in the Loftus and Palmer (1974) study were shown films of car accidents, asked to play the role of the eyewitness, and describe what happened. They were asked, "About how fast were the cars going when they (smashed, collided, bumped, hit, contacted) each other?"

Loftus and Palmer (1974) Methodology

To test the theory of the misinformation effect, Loftus and John Palmer (1974) asked 45 U.S. college students to estimate the speed of cars using different forms of questions.

Google

The misinformation effect is the phenomenon that causes an eyewitness's memory of an event to be very flexible.

Misinformation Effect

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

OpenStax Psychology (2nd ed.) Textbook

Loftus and Palmer (1974) Study

Loftus and Palmer demonstrated that a leading question can affect a person's memory of an event. Their experiment showed that the implied information based on the specific verb used to describe a car accident influenced participants' subsequent recall of the event.

Learn Before

Related

Learn After