Journal Of Verbal Learning And Verbal Behavior

Journal Of Verbal Learning And Verbal Behavior

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Journal Of Verbal Learning And Verbal Behavior

JOURNAL OF VERBAL LEARNING AND VERBAL BEHAVIOR 13, 585-589 (1974)

Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction:

An Example of the Interaction Between Language and Memory’

ELIZABETH F. LOFTUS AND JOHN C. PALMER

University of Washington

Two experiments are reported in which subjects viewed films of automobile accidents

and then answered questions about events occurring in the films. The question, “About

how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” elicited higher estimates

of speed than questions which used the verbs collided, bumped, contucted, or hit in place of

smashed. On a retest one week later, those subjects who received the verb smashed were

more likely to say “yes” to the question, “Did you see any broken glass?”, even though

broken glass was not present in the film. These results are consistent with the view that the

questions asked subsequent to an event can cause a reconstruction in one’s memory of that

event.

How accurately do we remember the

details of a complex event, like a traffic

accident, that has happened in our presence?

More specifically, how well do we do when

asked to estimate some numerical quantity

such as how long the accident took, how fast

the cars were traveling, or how much time

elapsed between the sounding of a horn and

the moment of collision?

It is well documented that most people are

markedly inaccurate in reporting such numerical details as time, speed, and distance (Bird,

1927; Whipple, 1909). For example, most

people have difficulty estimating the duration

of an event, with some research indicating that

the tendency is to overestimate the duration of

events which are complex (Block, 1974;

Marshall, 1969; Ornstein, 1969). The judgment of speed is especially difficult, and

practically every automobile accident results

in huge variations from one witness to another

This research was supported by the Urban Mass

Transportation Administration, Department of Trans1 portation, Grant No. WA-11-0004. Thanks go to

as to how fast a vehicle was actually traveling

(Gardner, 1933). In one test administered to

Air Force personnel who knew in advance

that they would be questioned about the speed

of a moving automobile, estimates ranged

from 10 to 50 mph. The car they watched was

actually going only 12 mph (Marshall, 1969,

1. 23).

Given the inaccuracies in estimates of

speed, it seems likely that there are variables

which are potentially powerful in terms of

influencing these estimates. The present

research was conducted to investigate one

such variable, namely, the phrasing of the

question used to elicit the speed judgment.

Some questions are clearly more suggestive

than others. This fact of life has resulted in

the legal concept of a leading question and in

legal rules indicating when leading questions

are allowed (Supreme Court Reporter, 1973).

A leading question is simply one that, either

by its form or content, suggests to the witness

what answer is desired or leads him to the

desired answer.

Geoffrey Loftus, Edward E. Smith, and Stephen

Woods for many important and helpful comments,

Reprint requests should be sent to Elizabeth F. Loftus.

Department of Psychology, University of Washington,

Seattle, Washington 981 95.

Copyright 0 1974 by Academic Press, Inc.

In the present study, subjects were shown

answered questions about the accident. The

films of traffic accidents and then they

subjects were interrogated about the speed of

585 All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

Printed in Great Britain

586 LOFTUS AND PALMER

the vehicles in one of several ways. For

example, some subjects were asked, “About

how fast were the cars going when they hit

each other?” while others were asked, “About

how fast were the cars going when they

smashed into each other?” As Fillmore (1971)

and Bransford and McCarrell (in press) have

noted, hit and si.r.lasl?ed may involve specification of differential rates of movement.

Furthermore, the two verbs may also involve

differential specification of the likely consequences of the events to which they are

referring. The impact of the accident is

apparently gentler for hit than for .n~ia.dtctI.

EXPERIMENT 1

Metliod

Forty-five students participated in groups of

various sizes. Seven films were shown, each

depicting a traffic accident. These films were

segments from longer driver’s education

film borrowed from the Evergreen Safety

Council and the Seattle Police Department.

The length of the film segments ranged from

5 to 30 sec. Following each film, the subjects

received a questionnaire asking then1 first to,

“give an account of the accident you have just

seen,“ and then to answer a series of specific

questions about the accident. The critical

question was the one that interrogated the

subject about the speed of the vehicles involved

in the collision. Nine subjects were asked,

“About how fast were the cars going when they

hit each other?” Equal numbers of the

remaining subjects were interrogated with

the verbs smashed, collided, buiiiped, and

contacted in place of hit. The entire experiment

lasted about an hour and a half. A different

ordering of the films was presented to each

group of subjects.

R esiilt s

Table 1 presents the mean speed estimates

for the various verbs. Following the procedures outlined by Clark (1973), an analysis

of variance was performed with verbs as a

fixed effect, and subjects and films as random

TABLE 1 II1SPEED ESTIMATES FOR THE VERBS

USED IN EXPERIMENT 1

1 Verb Mean speed estimate

Sin as hed 40.5

Collided 39.3

Bumpcd 38.1

Hit 34.0

Contacted 31.8

efTects, yielding a significant quasi F ratio,

Some information about the accuracy of

subjects’ estimates can be obtained from our

data. Four of the seven films were staged

crashes; the original purpose of these films

was to illustrate what can happen to human

beings when cars collide at various speeds.

One collision took place at 20 mph, one at 30,

and two at 40. The mean estimates of speed

for these four films were: 37.7, 36.2, 39.7, and

36.1 mph, respectively. In agreement with

previous work, people are not very good at

judging how fast a vehicle was actually

traveling.

!“(5,55) = 4.65, p < .005.

Discussioii

The results of this experiment indicate that

the form of a question (in this case, changes in

a single word) can markedly and systematically

affect a witness’s answer to that question.

The actual speed of the vehicles controlled

little variance in subject reporting, while the

phrasing of the question controlled considerable variance.

Two interpretations of this finding are

possible. First, it is possible that the differential speed estimates result merely from

response-bias factors. A subject is uncertain

whether to say 30 mph or 40 mph, for example,

and the verb siiiaslied biases his response

towards the higher estimate. A second inter- Ps

pretation is that the question form causes a

change in the subject’s memory representation of the accident. The verb siiiashed may

change a subject’s memory such that he

LANGUAGE AND MEMORY CHANGES 587

“sees” the accident as being more severe than

it actually was. If this is the case, we might

expect subjects to “remember” other details

that did not actually occur, but are commensurate with an accident occurring at

higher speeds. The second experiment was

designed to provide additional insights into

the origin of the differential speed estimates.

with hit the estimate was 8.00 mph. These

means are significantly different, t (98) = 2.00,

p < -05.

TABLE 2

DISTRIBUTION OF “YES” AND “NO” RESPONSES TO THE QUESTION, “DID YOU SEE

ANY BROKEN GLASS?’

EXPERIMENT I1

Method

One hundred and fifty students participated

in this experiment, in groups of various sizes.

A film depicting a multiple car accident was

shown, followed by a questionnaire. The film

lasted less than 1 min; the accident in the film

lasted 4 sec. At the end of the film, the subjects

received a questionnaire asking them first to

describe the accident in their own words, and

then to answer a series of questions about the

accident. The critical question was the one

that interrogated the subject about the speed

of the vehicles. Fifty subjects were asked,

“About how fast were the cars going when

they smashed into each other?” Fifty subjects

were asked, “About how fast were the cars

going when they hit each other?” Fifty

subjects were not interrogated about vehicular

speed.

One week later, the subjects returned and

without viewing the film again they answered

a series of questions about the accident, The

critical question here was, “Did you see any

broken glass?” which the subjects answered

by checking “yes” or “no.” This question was

embedded in a list totalling 10 questions, and

it appeared in a random position in the list.

There was no broken glass in the accident,

but, since broken glass is commensurate with

accidents occurring at high speed, we expected

that the subjects who had been asked the

smashed question might more often say “yes”

k to this critical question.

Results

The mean estimate of speed for subjects

interrogated with smaslted was 10.46 mph;

Verb condition

Response Smashed Hit Control

~-

Yes 16 7 6

No 34 43 44

Table 2 presents the distribution of ‘.yes”

and “no” responses for the smashed, Itit, and

control subjects. An independence chi-square

test on these responses was significant beyond

the .025 level, ~~(2) = 7.76. The important

result in Table 2 is that the probability of

saying “yes,” P(Y), to the question about

broken glass is .32 when the verb sn?a.died is

used, and .14 with hit. Thus smashed leads

both to more “yes” responses and to higher

speed estimates. It appears to be the case that

the effect of the verb is mediated at least in

part by the speed estimate. The question now

arises : Is sniushed doing anything else besides

increasing the estimate of speed? To answer

this, the function relating P(Y) to speed

estimate was calculated separately for stiiashed

and hit. If the speed estimate is the only way

in which effect of verb is mediated, then for a

given speed estimate, P(Y) should be independent of verb. Table 3 shows that this is

TABLE 3

PROBABILITY OF SAYING “YES” TO, “DID YOU SEE

ANY BROK~N GLASS?’ CONDIT~ONALIZED ON SPEED

ESTIMATES

Speed estimate (mph)

Verb —

condition 1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20

Smashed .09 .27 .41 .62

Hit .06 .09 .25 .50

588 LOFTUS AP

not the case. P(Y) is lower for hit than for

smashed; the difference between the two verbs

ranges from .03 for estimates of 1-5 mph to

.I8 for estimates of 6-10 mph. The average

difference between the two curves is about .12.

Whereas the unconditional difference of . I8

between the smashed and hit conditions is

attenuated, it is by no means eliminated when

estimate of speed is controlled for. It thus

appears that the verb smashed has other effects

besides that of simply increasing the estimate

of speed. One possibility will be discussed in

the next section.

DISCUSSION

To reiterate, we have first of all provided an

additional demonstration of something that

has been known for some time, namely, that

the way a question is asked can enormously

influence the answer that is given. In this

instance, the question, “About how fast were

the cars going when they smashed into each

other?” led to higher estimates of speed than

the same question asked with the verb

smashed replaced by hit. Furthermore, this

seemingly small change had consequences for

how questions are answered a week after the

original event occurred.

As a framework for discussing these results,

we would like to propose that two kinds of

information go into one’s memory for some

complex occurrence. The first is information

gleaned during the perception of the original

event; the second is external information

supplied after the fact. Over time, information

from these two sources may be integrated in

such a way that we are unable to tell from

which source some specific detail is recalled.

All we have is one “memory.”

Discussing the present experiments in these

terms, we propose that the subject first forms

some representation of the accident he has

witnessed. The experimenter then, while

asking, “About how fast were the cars going

when they smashed into each other?” supplies

a piece of external information, namely, that

the cars did indeed smash into each other.

4D PALMER

When these two pieces of information are

integrated, the subject has a memory of an

accident that was more severe than in fact it

was. Since broken glass is commensurate

with a severe accident, the subject is more

likely to think that broken glass was present.

There is some connection between the

present work and earlier work on the influence

of verbal labels on memory for visually

presented form stimuli. A classic study in

psychology showed that when subjects are

asked to reproduce a visually presented form,

their drawings tend to err in the direction of a

more familiar object suggested by a verbal

label initially associated with the to-beremembered form (Carmichael, Hogan, &

Walter, 1932). More recently, Daniel (1972)

showed that recognition memory, as well as

reproductive memory, was similarly affected

by verbal labels, and he concluded that the

verbal label causes a shift in the memory

strength of forms which are better representatives of the label.

When the experimenter asks the subject,

“About how fast were the cars going when

they smashed into each other?”, he is effectively labeling the accident a smash. Extrapolating the conclusions of Daniel to this

situation, it is natural to conclude that the

label, smash, causes a shift in the memory

representation of the accident in the direction

of being more similar to a representation suggested by the verbal label.

REFERENCES

BIRD, C. The influence of the press upon the accuracy

of report. Journal of Abnormal and Social PsyBLOCK, R. A. Memory and the experience of duration

in retrospect. Memory & Cogtiition, 1974, 2,

BRANSFORD, J. D., & MCCARRELL, N. S. A sketch of a

cognitive approach to comprehension : Some

thoughts about understanding what it means to

comprehend. In D. Palerrno & W. Weimer (Eds.),

Cognition arid the synibolic processes. Washington,

D.C.: V. H. Winston & Co., in press.

chology, 1927,22, 123-1 29.

I 53-1 60.

3

CAHMICHAI I-, L., HO(iAN, I I. l’., & WAI I I I(, A. A.

experimental study of the etl’ect ol’ language 011

the reproduction of visually perceived form.

Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1932, 15,

CLARK, H. H. The language-as-fixed-effect fallacy: A

critique of language statistics in psychological

research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal

Behavior, 1973,12,335-359.

DANIEL, T. C. Nature of the effect of verbal labels on

recognition memory for form. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1972,96, 152-1 57.

FILLMORE, C. J. Types of lexical information. In

1. D. Steinberg and L. A. Jakobovits (Eds.),

Semantics: An interdisciplinary reader in philo73-86.

3

sopl~y, tiil~iii.~/ic~v, tiircl p.v.i,c.liolcJ,~J.i.. C’iitiil~i.iclgc :

Cambritlgc University Press, 1971.

GARDNER, D. S. The perception and memory of

witnesses. Cornell Law Quarterly, 1933, 8,

391 -409.

MARSHALL, J. Law and psychology in conflict. New

York: Anchor Books, 1969.

ORNSTEIN, R. E. On the experience of time. Harmondsworth. Middlesex. England: Penguin, 1969.

WHIPPLE, G. M. The observer as reporter: A survey of

the psychology of testimony. Psychological

Bulletin, 1909, 6, 153-170.

Supreme Court Reporter, 1973, 3: Rules of Evidence

for United State Courts and Magistrates.

(Received April 17, 1974)

RUBRIC
Excellent Quality 95-100%	Introduction 45-41 points The background and significance of the problem and a clear statement of the research purpose is provided. The search history is mentioned.		Literature Support 91-84  points The background and significance of the problem and a clear statement of the research purpose is provided. The search history is mentioned.			Methodology 58-53 points Content is well-organized with headings for each slide and bulleted lists to group related material as needed. Use of font, color, graphics, effects, etc. to enhance readability and presentation content is excellent. Length requirements of 10 slides/pages or less is met.
Average Score 50-85%	40-38 points More depth/detail for the background and significance is needed, or the research detail is not clear. No search history information is provided.		83-76  points Review of relevant theoretical literature is evident, but there is little integration of studies into concepts related to problem. Review is partially focused and organized. Supporting and opposing research are included. Summary of information presented is included. Conclusion may not contain a biblical integration.			52-49  points Content is somewhat organized, but no structure is apparent. The use of font, color, graphics, effects, etc. is occasionally detracting to the presentation content. Length requirements may not be met.
Poor Quality 0-45%	37-1 points The background and/or significance are missing. No search history information is provided.		75-1 points Review of relevant theoretical literature is evident, but there is no integration of studies into concepts related to problem. Review is partially focused and organized. Supporting and opposing research are not included in the summary of information presented. Conclusion does not contain a biblical integration.			48-1 points There is no clear or logical organizational structure. No logical sequence is apparent. The use of font, color, graphics, effects etc. is often detracting to the presentation content. Length requirements may not be met
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