Reconstructive Memory

Misleading question

Misleading question

A question that suggests information that is not entirely consistent with what actually happened.

Post-event information

Information about an event provided after the event has already occurred.

Reconstructive memory

A theory that suggests memory is an active process of recreating past events, rather than a passive retrieval of information from long-term memory.

Memory unreliability (distortion)

According to the theory of reconstructive memory, memories can be unreliable and distorted.

Confabulation and/or false memories

The theory of reconstructive memory suggests that people can create false memories or confabulate (fabricate) details that did not actually occur.

Sources of information for memory reconstruction

According to the theory, memory is reconstructed from two sources: 1) Information during the event, and 2) External post-event information.

Loftus and Palmer (1974) – Experiment 1 Aim

To investigate whether memory can be altered by misleading post-event information (in an eyewitness situation).

Loftus and Palmer (1974) – Experiment 1 Procedure

Participants (45 university student)(divided in 5 groups) watched a video of a traffic accident and were asked a critical question with varying emotional intensity verbs (e.g., "smashed," "collided," "bumped," "hit," "contacted") to describe the cars.

Loftus and Palmer (1974) – Experiment 1 Results

Participants' speed estimates were higher when the question used more emotional verbs "smashed" = 40.5 mph, “collided”=39.3mph, "bumped" = 31.8 mph, “hit”=34.0mph, “contacted”=31.8mph.

Loftus and Palmer (1974) - Experiment 1 Conclusion

The results supported the hypothesis that memory can be altered by misleading post-event information (in this case, the emotional intensity of the verb used in the question). There were two potential explanations: 1) The question affected the memory representation of the event, or 2) It introduced a response bias (higher emotion = higher estimates due to uncertainty).

Loftus and Palmer (1974) – Experiment 2 Aim

To rule out the possibility of response bias and confirm that the misleading question affected memory representations.

Loftus and Palmer (1974) – Experiment 2 Procedure

Participants (150 students, 3 groups) watched a video without broken glass, but some were asked a question with an emotional verb ("smashed"). After a week, they were asked if they saw broken glass.

Loftus and Palmer (1974) – Experiment 2 Results

Participants who were asked the "smashed" question were more likely to report seeing broken glass (32%) compared to those asked "hit" (14%) or no critical question (12%).

Loftus and Palmer (1974) - Experiment 2 Conclusion

The results of this experiment ruled out the response bias explanation from Experiment 1. Participants who received the more emotional "smashed" question were more likely to report seeing broken glass that did not actually exist in the video. This supported the conclusion that the misleading question altered the participants' memory representations of the event.