Aim: To see whether leading questions
affect an eyewitness testimony
of an event
Experiment one: 45 particpants were asked to
watch seven clips of seven car accidents. They were
then given a questionire that asked them to
estimate how fast the cars were going. The verb
was changed for different groups, for example 'hit'
'smashed', 'bumped' and 'cntacted'
Results: The more forceful the verb the higher the
spped estimate. Smashed led to the highest speed
estimate at (40.8 mph)
Conclusion: Loftus and palmer concluded that
the meaning of the word used in the leading
question had become intergrated with the
memory of the event and so had changed the
memory cresting as false memory. we can also
conclude that what happens after we have
witnessed an event can alter our memory of
the event
Strengths: The order for presenting the film was
randomlised, meaning that it stopped boredom
and tiredness, the data collected was quantative
and so is useful for making comparisons,
paticpants were not decieved
Weaknesses: The students are not representative of the general population, it
is a lab experiment so lacks eclogical validity , only small details were asked,
the quantative data do not provide us with any information about why the
particpants gave the answers they did, the experiment was not typical of real
life situations
Experiment two: 150 students were used this time, particpants where shown a
one-minute film which cointain a four-second multiple car accident. the particpants
were asked a set of question including how fast the cars where going. there were
three groups, group one was asked how fast the cars were going when they smashed
into each other, the second group was asked how fast the cars were going when they
hit each other. Finally there was a control group that was asked no questions at all. a
week later the partipants were asked to return and were asked if they had seen any
broken glass
Results: The people who were in the smashed group were more
likely to say there was broken glass. this suggests that there memory
of what they had seen was changed by the way they had been
questioned
Baron Cohen
Aim: To provide support for the cognitive explanation of autism,
specifically that autistic adults lack advanced theory of mind
Method: 3 groups were used in the experiment, 16 adults with high functioning autism and
aspergers syndrome, 50 normal adults and 10 adults with tourettes. They were given 3 tasks to
do, the eyes task, the strange stories task and the control tasks. In the eyes task the particpants
were given 25 photos of peoples eyes and they had to guess what emotion the person was
showing from the word pairs. in the strange stories task the tourettes and the autism
participants were given stories and had to say why the person in the story said what they had
said, this was done to validate the eyes task. All participants did the control tasks which was
basic emotion recognition and the gender recognition of eyes task
Results: The normal and the tourettes group performed nearly identically on the
eyes task, where ask the autism/AS group were significantly impaired.On the strange
stories task no participant with tourettes made mistakes but the participants with
autism/AS were significantly impaired.On the control tasks the autism/ AS group
performed normally.
Conclusions: people with autism
lack a theory of mind becasue they
cannot tell what a person is feeling
and cannot put themselves into
sombody ele's shoes
Strengths: The data collected was quantative
which means it was easy to compare between the
results, Also it was a quasi experiment as the
independent variable was whether the person had
autism or not, there is no in-between,.
Weaknesses: In the eyes tasks only pictures were used and not real people and so it
lack ecological validity, not only thjat but the picture where black and white and not
coloured and that may of affected the results, the sample size is small and so it is
hard to generalise, although the sample size may have been small because there are
not a lot of people with autism and tourettes
Savage- Rumbaugh
Aim: To conduct a case study on the first non-human to
acquire symbols without specific training, to compare this
chimpanzee with another species of chimpanzee, the
common chimp.
Method: The case study was a longitudinal study and involved a pygmy chimp called Kanzi, his mother was taught how to use symbols
and kanzi had observed her but was never taught how to use the symbols.At 2 and half years he was separated from his mother and
was observed spontanousely using symbols. As chimps have no vocal chords when indoors kanzi would use a battery powered keyboard
with lexigrams that would brighten up when touched, then a speech synthesiser would 'speak' the word.When outdoors he would use a
laminated copy of the lexigrams. Kanzi's outdoor environment was 55 acres of forest where 17 different food types were stored at 17
different locations so he mmust travel to get the food he prefers. a record of Kanz'is symbol use was recorderd for 17 months. 2 record
where kept, an automatic computerised one from his keyboard use and notes from observers when he was outside. His symbol use was
recorded as correct, incorrect, spontaneous,imitation, structured or unstructed
Results: By the end of the 17 months he was able to locate where all the food types were located. he could
use a photo on the ground to select a food and then guide another person to his chosen location. he also
learned symbols on the keyboard to indicate where he wanted to go.
Mulika: she was Kanzi's little sister who was eperated by her mother due to an eye infection.Her data was used to back up
kanzi's and she had observed kanzi use the lexigrams not her mother. she used symbols at 12 months old, earlier then kanzi who
started to use them at 30 months. She used single words for many thing. milk was used ad a request to be pickede up. she would
also request for attention and then gesture what she wanted. After 2 months she used lexigrams correctly. After inital use she
progressed at a slower pace then kanzi. her spontaneous utterance were lower than kanzi's and she did not like going into the
forest without kanzi and so wasn't tested on location.
Strengths: The research method was longitudinal, which
means it allowed detailed data to be collected and allows
kanzi's development to be studied over time. The study had
high ecological validity as the study took place in the 55
acres of forest kanzi lived in, this means that they could
roam freely. The data collected was both quantative and
qualitative, the qualitative data gave detailed explantations
of kanzi's behaviour and the quantative data allowed the
researchers to analyze the data collected and compare
kanzi's data to his sister's, the data collected was gathered
uner controls ( in the form of tests) and so are less likely to
be open to bias. There was inter-rate reliability as a group
of researchers observed kanzi
Weaknesses: The longitudinal procedure made the study very time consuming. Even
though the experiment took place where Kanzi lived it could lack ecological validity as
the chimps were not brought up in there natural environment. This study could be
classed as unethical as they were brought up in a human environment and then
subjected to tests to test their language skills, also they were enclosed only to the
forest..The sample was very small ans so it is hard to generalise from the study.