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.

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.

Loftus and Palmer Experiment

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

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According to Loftus, an eyewitness's memory of an event is very flexible due to the misinformation effect.

Eyewitness Memory Flexibility

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

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