Transcript BIG 12 - Powerpoint #1

BIG 12 - Powerpoint #1
Loftus & Palmer 1974; Bartlett 1932
Loftus and Palmer (1974)
Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction
Aim:
• To investigate whether the use
of leading questions would
affect recall in a situation where
participants were asked to
estimate speed.
• This is a situation that could
happen when people appear in
court as eyewitnesses.
Loftus and Palmer (1974)
Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction
Procedure:
• The student
participants saw
videos of traffic
accidents and had to
answer questions
about the accident.
Loftus and Palmer (1974)
Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction
• In experiment 1, the
participants were asked to
estimate speed of the cars
based on a critical
question:
• “About how fast were the
cars going when they
smashed/hit/collided/
bumped/ or contacted?”
Loftus and Palmer (1974)
Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction
Results:
• The mean estimates of speed
were highest in the “smashed
condition” (40.8 mph).
• Lowest in the “contacted group”
(31.8 mph).
Loftus and Palmer (1974)
Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction
Results:
Were the results just lucky?
• The p-value
• Anything p<.05 or less is
significant. Which means there
is a 5% chance the study is BS.
• The results in Loftus were
significant at p<0.005 (.5%
chance of that result occurring
due to chance).
• The results indicate that
memory is not reliable and can
be manipulated by using
specific words.
Loftus and Palmer (1974)
Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction
• The critical word in question
consistently affected the
participants' answer to the
question.
• One explanation could be that
the use of different words
influenced the participants’
mental representation of the
accident….
• i.e., the verb smashed activates
a cognitive schema of a severe
accident and therefore speed
estimates increase.
Loftus and Palmer (1974)
Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction
• It is not the actual details
of the accident that are
remembered but rather
what is in line with a
cognitive schema of a
severe accident.
• Like reconstructive
memory.
• Or maybe they just suck at
estimating speed?
Loftus and Palmer (1974)
Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction
Evaluation:
• The experiment was conducted in a
laboratory setting so maybe an
ecological validity problem.
• Maybe too artificial.
• Use of just students as participants.
• But the controlled IV (words) and
DV (speed) made it possible to
establish cause/effect relationship.
Bartlett (1932) “The War of Ghosts”
Aim:
• To investigate whether
people’s memory for a
story is affected by
previous knowledge
(schemas) and the extent
to which memory is
reconstructive.
Bartlett (1932) “The War of Ghosts”
Procedure:
• Bartlett asked British
participants to listen to a
story.
• After a while he asked
them to reproduced
(repeat) the story.
• He asked them again and
again (over a period of
months and years) which
he called serial
reproduction.
Bartlett (1932) “The War of Ghosts”
• The story was an unfamiliar
Native American legend called
“The War of Ghosts”.
The War of Ghosts
One night two young men from Egulac went down to the river to hunt seals and while they
were there it became foggy and calm. Then they heard war-cries, and they thought:
"Maybe this is a war-party". They escaped to the shore, and hid behind a log. Now canoes
came up, and they heard the noise of paddles, and saw one canoe coming up to them.
There were five men in the canoe, and they said:
"What do you think? We wish to take you along. We are going up the river to make war on
the people."
One of the young men said,"I have no arrows."
"Arrows are in the canoe," they said.
"I will not go along. I might be killed. My relatives do not know where I have gone. But you,"
he said, turning to the other, "may go with them."
So one of the young men went, but the other returned home.
And the warriors went on up the river to a town on the other side of Kalama. The people
came down to the water and they began to fight, and many were killed. But presently the
young man heard one of the warriors say, "Quick, let us go home: that Indian has been
hit." Now he thought: "Oh, they are ghosts." He did not feel sick, but they said he had
been shot.
So the canoes went back to Egulac and the young man went ashore to his house and made a
fire. And he told everybody and said: "Behold I accompanied the ghosts, and we went to
fight. Many of our fellows were killed, and many of those who attacked us were killed.
They said I was hit, and I did not feel sick."
He told it all, and then he became quiet. When the sun rose he fell down. Something black
came out of his mouth. His face became contorted. The people jumped up and cried.
He was dead.
Bartlett (1932) “The War of Ghosts”
Results:
• The participants remembered
the main idea of the story (the
gist) but they changed unfamiliar
elements to make sense of the
story by using terms more
familiar to their own cultural
expectations.
Bartlett (1932) “The War of Ghosts”
• The story remained a coherent
whole although it was changed.
• It became noticeably shorter
after each reproduction.
• Bartlett concluded that
remembering is an active
process.
• Memories are not copies of
experience but rather
“reconstructions”.
Bartlett (1932) “The War of Ghosts”
Evaluation:
• The results of the study confirm
schema theory (and
reconstructive memory).
• But is was performed in a
laboratory and might lack
ecological validity.
Bartlett (1932) “The War of Ghosts”
• Participants did not receive
standardized instructions and
some of the memory distortions
may be due to simple guessing
(demand characteristics such as
the Hawthorne effect)
• Still, this study is one of the
most important in the study of
memory.