This semester's class experiment examines factors that may influence people's memory. Each of you (students in 231), collect the data, and write up an APA style paper based on the experiment and the results.

The experimental packet

You will be able to Download the class experiment packet Exp packet here.

The class experiment packet includes: Instructions for running the experiment Stimulus materials Debriefing Statement 2 copies of the consent form Data Summary sheet For some people, the picture doesn't download with the rest of the experiment package. If this happens to you, click this link and then print out the screen.

Your assignment is to download the class experiment packet, construct the materials, find two volunteers to participate in the experiment, test the volunteers, debrief the volunteers, compile the data (using the Data summary sheet), and return the data to class on Monday Oct. 10.   Pick one of the three word conditions and test two participants in that condition, one with the picture one without. To try to encourage getting similar numbers in all of the conditions, please follow the following assignment to condition (based on first letter of your last name): A - H run condition A I - R run condition B S - Z run condition C

Here are three required readings for the class paper. By this I mean that your review of the literature in your introduction section must contain brief reviews of these articles. Additionally you must find and include one other relevant research (empirical) paper.

• Loftus and Palmer (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior, 13, 585-589.
• Bell and Loftus (1989). Trivial persuasion in the courtroom: The power of (a few) minor details. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 56, 669-679.
• Shaw, Garcia, and McClure (1999). A lay perspective on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29, 52-71.
• The research paper that you find.

Overview of Eyewitness Articles

What follows is a brief review of these three articles. For your written paper, you should read all three of these articles and include some discussion/description of them in the introduction section of your paper. Additionally you should find one more related article, and include it in your introduction as well.

Remember that the description here should give you some orientation to the articles, BUT you need to read all of the articles to be able to write a good paper

(1) Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Purpose: determine what factors influence eyewitness testimony

EXP 1

Method: subjects viewed films of traffic accidents and then judged the speed of the cars at impact with 5 different verb descriptors used in the questioning
• What kind of data collection method is this? (naturalistic observation, archival, systematic observation, or survey/interview)
  systematic observation

• IV?
  Verb descriptor (smashed, collided, bumped, hit, contacted)

• DV?
  Speed judgment

  Results: verb descriptor affected the speed judgments

  Verb Mean Speed Estimate (mph)

  smashed	40.8
  collided	39.3
  bumped	38.1
  hit	34.0
  contacted	31.8

EXP 2

Method:

• subjects viewed film of car accident
• half questioned about speed with "smashed" or "hit"
• after a week were asked more questions, including "Did you see any broken glass?"

  Results:

• speed: smashed > hit
• yes responses: smashed > hit

  Conclusions:

• single word change in questioning of witnesses can change their response
• change in wording can also cause them to remember something that wasn't there (up to a week later)
• eyewitness reports can be influenced by wording of questions asked

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(2) Bell and Loftus (1989)

Purpose: how much are people (e.g., jurors) influenced by the detail provided by witnesses - trivial persuasion

EXP 1

Method:

• subjects read the transcript of a court case that included a defense witness and a prosecution witness
• subjects had to act as jurors and decide guilt of defendant and credibility of the eyewitnesses
• level of detail was manipulated for each witness (low/high)
• relevance of detail was also manipulated (related to crime/unrelated)

  Results:

• high detail for prosecution witness caused more "guilty" verdicts (high > low)
• importance of relevance of detail in this effect depended on level of detail for defense witness (if defense witness had low detail, unrelated detail for the prosecution was valued)
• high detail made the witness appear more credible (high > low)

EXP 2
Method: same as Exp1, but only detail for defense witness was manipulated (low/high) and verification was manipulated from the prosecution witness by a detail question

Results:

• fewer "guilty" verdicts with high detail for defense witness (high < low)
• larger difference (high < low) when prosecution witness was shown to have low detail

  Conclusion:

• juror decisions are influenced by the detail provided by the witnesses, even if the detail isn"t directly relevant to the crime

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(3) Shaw, Garcia, and McClure (1999)

Purpose: examine what people think affects the accuracy of eyewitness testimony

Method:

• two questionnaires were given to groups of subjects
• Q1 - imagine they are jurors and list things that they think would affect accuracy of eyewitnesses for 6 categories
• Q2 - similar to Q1, but no categories given

  Results:

• factors about the eyewitness, crime scene, and suspect were listed most often in Q1
• police procedures (i.e., questioning) was listed least often in Q1
• same results for Q2, but stronger - police procedures only accounted for 1% of responses

  Conclusions: people don't generally seem aware that questioning affects witness accuracy - juror decisions may not be affected by such factors

These articles will be the sources for your research paper - you will be required to discuss and cite them in the paper as part of the assignment Not limited to just these articles - you can find others to help support purpose of our study and our hypotheses - But you must at minimum cite these articles to write a good paper.

Pick condition A, B, or C. Run then test one participant with the picture and another without. Test the participants one at a time (total of 2 participants). The participants' participation is voluntary. Please follow all ethical guidelines in the treatment of your participants. If a participant wishes to discontinue the experiment at any time, you must allow them to do so. Make sure each participant signs the consent form. You may not run any subject until they sign the consent form. After they sign the form, read the instructions printed below out loud. The instructions are also printed on their sheet so they can follow along as you read them. Ask the participant if they have any questions and if they do, answer them before they begin. Give the participant the scenario (and the picture for 1 of your participants). Then allow the participants to read the scenario to themselves and proceed through the procedure at their own pace. Allow them as much time as they want to make their responses. After they make their responses, read the debriefing statement printed below out loud. Answer any questions the subjects may have and then collect their response sheet. Mark on the response sheet whether they did or did not view the picture. Fold the response sheet and staple it shut. Keep the consent forms and response sheets separate to protect the anonymity of the participants.

Give them a copy of the consent form and have them read and sign it BEFORE they participate.

We are interested in studying the manner in which people use information to make judgments about responsibility for accidents. You will be asked to read a brief eyewitness account of a car accident. When you have finished reading the account, you will be asked to give your personal opinion concerning the case. That is, we want you to determine how much "at fault" you think one of the drivers is. We'll also ask you about some of the details about the accident. After you make your sentence recommendation, please rate the defendant and the victim, using the 7-point scale provided. Take as much time as you want to read and contemplate the case before making your responses. Remember that we are interested in you personal opinion, so please give your own personal judgment and not how you feel others might react to the case or how you feel you should react to it. Your honest impressions will be appreciated.

2 (piture: present/absent) x 3 (verb type: bump, contact, smash)

	bump	contact	smash
with picture	A1	B1	C1
without picture	A2	B2	C2

"I was standing on the Northwest corner of the intersection. Car 1 was approaching the intersection from the North at about 30 mph. Car 2 was approaching the intersection for the East at about 30 mph. Neither car slowed as they approached the intersection. Car 1 (smashed/bumped/contacted) Car 2 as it was going through the intersection. I think Car 1 may have been running a red light."

Response Form Instructions Assume that you are a member of a jury hearing a case regarding the responsibility of the people involved in the accident. Please answer the questions below based on your impression of the eyewitness testimony you just read. (1) Please rate how much you think Car 1 is responsible ("at fault") for the accident based on the eyewitness account you just read. [circle one]

1              2              3              4              5              6              7
Not			       		 Equally			    		Completely 
at fault			       	at fault		         		at fault
				       	with car 2		                      

1              2              3              4              5              6              7
Not at			        	  Possibly	      			     Completely 	
all sure		              	    sure				       sure

1             2              3              4              5              6              7
There defineitely								   There definitely
Was not					            				    was  broken
Broken glass					             			      glass
		                      

1              2              3              4              5              6              7
Not at			        	  Possibly	      			     Completely 	
all sure		              	    sure				       sure

Thank your for your participation.

The experiment you have participated in was designed to examine factors involved in the decision-making processes of juries. In particular, we are interested in the ways in which eyewitness testimony and affects juror judgments of responsibility for an accident. We are not interested in the responses of any one participant. Instead, we are only interested in the average responses of all participants in the study. No identifying marks accompany your data; therefore, no one will ever be able to know what responses you made. If you wish to learn more about this study, please contact Dr. Cutting at jccutti@ilstu.edu or 438-2999. Thank you very much for participating.

The inferential statistics

The descriptive statistics

We analyzed the results for question1 (rating of car1's fault) & question 3 (presence of broken glass). Below are summaries of the results of these two questions.

There were 133 total participants. The break down by conditions was:

Bumped No 20, Yes 20; Contacted No 23, Yes 23; Smashed No 24, Yes 23

Here are the complete table of means for the two questions.

Question 3

The graph(s)

Question # 1 Effect of Word

Question # 1 Effect of Picture

Question # 1 Effect of Word x Picture Interaction

Question # 3 Effect of Word

Question # 3 Effect of Picture

Question # 3 Effect of Word x Picture Interaction

Purpose: This assignment introduces you to writing journal reports in psychology and is especially important for psychology majors who will be required to write reports in future courses (but it will also increase the ability of nonmajors to read research reports too).

The assignments:

Part 1 Project Proposal (5% of course grade, due: in lab Oct ??&??): includes an introduction w/ literature review, hypotheses/predictions, the methods section for the experiment, results, and the references. See the checklist below for specifics about what we're going to be looking for.

EVALUATION CRITERIA
Title page	__/2
Introduction Problem of interest Link between problem and past research Summarize the past research Describe the basic purpose of the current experiment Describe hypotheses (conceptual level IV and DV	__/2 __/2 __/15 __/4 __/4
Method Thoroughness of the description Participant description Design -IVs and DVs, operational definitions Materials - description of the stimuli Procedure - how the experiment was performed	__/2 __/2 __/5 __/2 __/4
Results Descriptive Statistics What inferential statistics were used, what alpha level Results of the statistical analyses	__/2 __/2 __/2
Discussion Were the hypotheses supported or rejected? What are the implications of the resluts? Discussion of possible alternative explanations Future directions
References Are all the appropriate references cited? Are all the references cited in the text? Are the citations in the appropriate APA format?	__/15
Tables and Figures Figure captions page Each figure on a separate page Figures are clear/neat Tables follow APA style guidelines Tables and figures cited in text	__/5
Writing Overall clarity Grammar Spelling APA format	__/10 __/5 __/5 __/10

Part 2 Final APA style manuscript (10% of course grade, due: in lab Dec. ?&?): - A complete write-up of the class research project using APA format. Includes the parts from the proposal (revised according to feedback from the earlier draft), plus results and discussion sections, including any necessary figures.

The paper must be typed (neatness, spelling, and grammar are important), must follow APA format, and must be brief and concise (at most 10-12 double-spaced pages, inclusive of header page and figures). Placement of headings, titles, paragraph indentations, content of sections, etc. must follow the pattern used in APA journals. The final authority on format is the APA Publication Manual (but most questions you may encounter can be answered by reference to several of the APA style web pages).

Introduction: It is necessary that you do some library research to write the Introduction. Any secondary source like an introductory psychology text will provide a minimal background. You must also cite at least four primary sources (the three assigned and a relevant one that you find on your own). The Psychological Abstracts are a good way to find recent primary sources. Be sure you state clear reasons for doing the experiment (i.e., hypothesis; see below) in your Introduction. Specifically, I want you to develop and provide background for the idea that inspired the experiment that the class designed (or research that is relevant to the experiment that we designed). Be sure that the references you cite fit with your hypotheses.

Methods: Your Method section is intended to communicate with people who know very little about what was done. Be certain, however, that you include enough information so the study could be replicated. Note also that you should use the second person, passive voice as well as past tense throughout your paper.

Results: The data you are to report in the Results section are described statistically in the Data Summary Table (see attached handouts). These data have been subjected to an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and the results of this inferential statistical analysis are reported in the following ANOVA Summary Table. Report F ratios and probability levels in the text of your paper using the following format , F(df) = #.##, p < .##,.

Do not include any of these tables in your paper, you should make your own where you feel that they are needed. For each of the main effects and interactions, report the data in the text of your paper, describe the effect, and give associated inferential statistics.

Discussion: In your Discussion section, discuss your results, do not simply repeat the results (avoid redundancy throughout the paper. There is no space for it!). Discuss your data in light of the hypotheses. Why might your results have been different from expectation or previous research? What is the significance for your hypotheses of the interactions? How might you explain the any unexpected effects. In the context provided by your Introduction, what do your results mean (what are the implications of these results)?

Reference: Your References section must include at least the three primary references you have cited in the text of your paper and no references can be listed here which are not cited in your paper. Consult the APA Manual or published reports for examples how to report citations.