In their experiment, Loftus and Palmer asked their participants to watch a video of a car collision and answer a few questions about what they had seen. The questions had a varied vocabulary, describing the cars as having "smashed" and "bumped" into each other among other things (Loftus and Palmer, 1974). The results of the study suggested that the difference in the phrasing of the questions greatly affected the participants recollection of the video. The more violent vocabulary such as "smashed" and "hit" yielded higher speed estimates and reports of having seen shattered glass when in fact the video did not feature any shattered glass (Loftus and Palmer, 1974). This study is a textbook example of the suggestible nature of memory and shows exactly how simple it would be for a witness testimony to be influenced by selective phrasing by the lawyers in a court, and is therefore often unreliable as proof of guilt or
In their experiment, Loftus and Palmer asked their participants to watch a video of a car collision and answer a few questions about what they had seen. The questions had a varied vocabulary, describing the cars as having "smashed" and "bumped" into each other among other things (Loftus and Palmer, 1974). The results of the study suggested that the difference in the phrasing of the questions greatly affected the participants recollection of the video. The more violent vocabulary such as "smashed" and "hit" yielded higher speed estimates and reports of having seen shattered glass when in fact the video did not feature any shattered glass (Loftus and Palmer, 1974). This study is a textbook example of the suggestible nature of memory and shows exactly how simple it would be for a witness testimony to be influenced by selective phrasing by the lawyers in a court, and is therefore often unreliable as proof of guilt or