Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction¶
Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction Between Language and Memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13(5), 585-589.
Cited by¶
8 citations across 8 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Elicitation Channel Contribution
- Legal deposition: the question protocol shapes recorded testimony; deposition preparation is literally channel-design awareness.
This sourceDemonstrates that the form of a question (the verb used) systematically shapes recorded testimony about a witnessed event — the channel writing its own signature into legally-consequential records, the basis for deposition-question / channel-design awareness.
- Legal deposition: the question protocol shapes recorded testimony; deposition preparation is literally channel-design awareness.
Domain-specific¶
- Fieldnote Backfill
- The cognitive basis travels with it from memory research: Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve, Bartlett's reconstructive memory, and the Loftus misinformation/imagination-inflation work
This sourceThe classic misinformation experiment, in which the verb used in a post-event question raised speed estimates and later false reports of broken glass (the misinformation strand only, not imagination inflation).
Supported in partVerified against the source
- The cognitive basis travels with it from memory research: Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve, Bartlett's reconstructive memory, and the Loftus misinformation/imagination-inflation work
- Interviewer Leading
- Wording bias: Elizabeth Loftus's experiments showed that asking "how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other" versus "when they hit each other" produced different speed estimates and different rates of falsely remembered broken glass
This sourceThe original experiment showing that substituting 'smashed' for 'hit' in the question raised speed estimates and, a week later, false reports of broken glass. Experiment 1 reports the mean speed estimates by verb, the 40.8 mph / 34.0 mph figures the article quotes. Experiment 2 reports the one-week-delayed broken-glass question, with the 'smashed' group assenting at roughly twice the 'hit' group's rate.
- Wording bias: Elizabeth Loftus's experiments showed that asking "how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other" versus "when they hit each other" produced different speed estimates and different rates of falsely remembered broken glass
- Misinformation Effect
- In the paradigm established by Loftus and Palmer (1974), participants who watched a film of a vehicle collision and were subsequently asked "how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?" later recalled higher speeds and were more likely to report seeing broken glass — which was absent from the film — than participants asked the same question with the word "hit."
This sourceThe founding verb-manipulation experiment in which "smashed" raised speed estimates and broken-glass reports. The reported mean speed estimates by verb condition in the original film study. The one-week follow-up in which the "smashed" group reported non-existent broken glass at roughly twice the rate.
- In the paradigm established by Loftus and Palmer (1974), participants who watched a film of a vehicle collision and were subsequently asked "how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?" later recalled higher speeds and were more likely to report seeing broken glass — which was absent from the film — than participants asked the same question with the word "hit."
Mechanisms¶
- Cognitive Interview
- Retrospective recall is reconstructive — the expert can, in perfect good faith, supply a cleaner rationale than they actually held at the time, and a suggestive interviewer can seed detail that the practitioner then "remembers."
This sourceShows that suggestive post-event wording can reconstruct memory and elicit recall of details that were never present.
- Retrospective recall is reconstructive — the expert can, in perfect good faith, supply a cleaner rationale than they actually held at the time, and a suggestive interviewer can seed detail that the practitioner then "remembers."
- Context Reconstruction Interview
- Its failure mode is that memory is reconstructive, and interviews can build the tidy story they were meant to discover — leading questions and post-event framing can reshape what a witness reports, the misinformation effect
This sourceExperimentally shows that post-event question wording can reconstruct memory and alter witness reports.
- Its failure mode is that memory is reconstructive, and interviews can build the tidy story they were meant to discover — leading questions and post-event framing can reshape what a witness reports, the misinformation effect
- Guided Narrative Reframing
- Its failure mode is the darkest in this whole archetype: because a story is maximally malleable while it is being retold, a suggested detail introduced during that window can be absorbed as genuine memory — the misinformation effect, where post-event information rewrites the recollection of the event itself.
This sourceShows that suggested post-event wording can be incorporated into later recollection of the witnessed event.
- Its failure mode is the darkest in this whole archetype: because a story is maximally malleable while it is being retold, a suggested detail introduced during that window can be absorbed as genuine memory — the misinformation effect, where post-event information rewrites the recollection of the event itself.
- Witness / Source Comparison
- Its central failure mode is the fragility of memory itself: confident testimony can be sincerely, elaborately wrong, because post-event information reshapes recollection — the misinformation effect documented in eyewitness research.
This sourceDemonstrates that post-event question wording can alter eyewitness estimates and later recollection.
- Its central failure mode is the fragility of memory itself: confident testimony can be sincerely, elaborately wrong, because post-event information reshapes recollection — the misinformation effect documented in eyewitness research.
Verification¶
Does it exist? Confirmed. This work's DOI resolves to a registered record, which fixes its identity. That is all it fixes.
Does it back the claim? Read against the text for 1 of 8 citations: 1 supported in part. Each verdict is shown under its citation below, with what in the work backs the sentence.
Support is checked per citation rather than per work — the same source can be cited soundly in one article and wrongly in another. Per-citation recording began recently, so a citation with no recorded check is a gap in the record rather than evidence it went unchecked.
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Links previously used in the corpus¶
Before the registry existed this work was also linked 1 other way.
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