The aim of the experiment was to see the role of leading questions in influencing the memories of eyewitnesses through the use of reconstructive memory.
The procedure is as follows. 45 American students participated in the experiment. They were divided into 5 groups of 9 students. Seven films of traffic accidents were shown and the length of the films ranged from 5 to 30 seconds. These films were taken from driver’s education films. The study was an independent samples design; each participant watched all 7 films of car accidents.
When the participants had watched a film they were asked to give an account of the accident they and seen and then they answered a questionnaire with different questions on the accident with one question being the critical question where they were asked to estimate the speed of the cars involved in the accident. The participants were asked to estimate the speed of the cars. They were asked the same question but the critical question included different words. One group of participants was asked, “About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?" The critical word "hit’" was replaced by ‘collided’, ‘bumped’ or ‘smashed’ or’ contacted’ in the other conditions. The researchers predicted that using the word ‘smashed’ would result in a higher estimation of speed than using the word ‘hit’. The independent variable was the intensity of the verb used in the critical question and the dependent variable was the estimation of speed.
The mean estimates of speed were highest in the ‘smashed’ condition (40.8 mph) and lowest in the ‘contacted’ group (31.8 mph). The results indicate that the critical word in the question consistently affected the participants’ answers to the question. These results may be this way because the way the question is formed results in a change in the participant’s mental representation of the accident, i.e. the verb "smashed" activates a cognitive schema of a severe accident that may change the participant’s memory of the accident.
In conclusion, this distortion of memory is based on reconstruction so that 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. This interpretation is in line with Bartlett’s suggestion of reconstructive memory due to schema processing. This study showcases that memory in fact can be unreliable and eye-witness testimonies are not always reliable since they can be distorted and reconstructed to fit our existing schemas.
The aim of the research was to investigate whether the use of leading questions would affect an eyewitness's estimation of speed.
45 students participated in the experiment. They were divided into five groups of nine students. Seven short films of traffic accidents were shown. These films were taken from driver’s education films.
When the participants had watched a film they were asked to give an account of the accident they had seen and then they answered a questionnaire with different questions about the accident. There was one critical question that asked the participant to estimate the speed of the cars involved in the accident.
The participants were asked the same question but the critical question included different verbs. Nine participants were asked, “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?" The critical word "hit’" was replaced by ‘collided’, ‘bumped,’ ‘smashed’ or’ contacted’ in the other conditions which each had nine participants answering the question.
The researchers predicted that using the word ‘smashed’ would result in higher estimations of speed than using the word ‘hit’. The independent variable was the different intensities of the verbs used in the critical question and the dependent variable was an estimation of speed.
The mean estimates of speed were highest in the ‘smashed’ condition (40.8 mph) and lowest in the ‘contacted’ group (31.8 mph). The results were significant at p ≤ 0.005.
Table 1. Speed estimates for the Verbs used in Experiment 1
| Verb | smashed | collided | bumped | hit | contacted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean speed estimate (mph) | 40.8 | 39.3 | 38.1 | 34.0 | 31.8 |
The findings were that the more intense the verb that was used, the higher the average estimate.
In a second variation of the study, 150 students were randomly allocated to one of three conditions. participants were asked only one of two questions: Either how fast the cars were going when they smashed or when they hit each other. A third group, the control group, was not asked anything. The participants were asked to come back a week later and without re-watching the video, they were asked one of the following questions: Did you see any broken glass? Yes or no?