Experiment 1
Participants: 45 students (5 groups of 9)
Procedure:
- Shown 7 films of traffic accidents
- Given a questionnaire after each film, questioning the incident
- Critical question: how fast were the cars going?
Experiment 1 investigated the effect of different verbs for the critical question of how fast were the cars going at the point of crash. It investigated the impact wording has on eyewitness testimonies.
Verbs: smashed, collided, bumped, hit, contacted - different connotations of the severity of crash
Experiment 2
Participants: 150 students (3 groups of 50)
Procedure:
- Shown a short film of a multi-vehicle traffic accident
- Questioned about the accident:
- Group 1: “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”
- Group 2: “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?”
- Group 3 (control): asked nothing about the speed