Every group watched the same film of a car crash. Then each group was asked how fast the cars were going, with one word changed. The speed people remembered bent to fit that word. So did whether they "saw" broken glass. Pick a verb to run Loftus and Palmer's classic study of the misinformation effect. Then practice spotting leading questions.
The remembered crash
Average speed this group reported-
A week later: "Did you see broken glass?"-
The eyewitness filmthe same crash shown to every group
"About how fast were the cars going when they ____ each other?"
Choose the verb the questioner uses:
Why it works. Memory is reconstructive. It is rebuilt, not replayed. A leading question slips new information into a gap, and the brain files it as part of the original event. Elizabeth Loftus named this the misinformation effect (Loftus and Palmer, 1974). It is why eyewitnesses can be so sure and still be wrong.