Instructions: In 1974, Loftus and Palmer conducted a classic study demonstrating how the language used to ask a question can influence eyewitness memory. In the study, college students watched a film of an automobile accident and then were asked questions about what they saw. One group was asked, “About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” Another group was asked the same question except the verb was changed to “hit” instead of “smashed into.” The “smashed into” group reported significantly higher estimates of speed than the “hit” group. You, as a researcher wonder if Loftus and Palmer’s study is reliable, and repeats this study with a sample of FIU students and obtains the following data.
| Hit Group | Smashed Into Group | |
| 32 | 50 | |
| 26 | 44 | |
| 40 | 54 | |
| 23 | 45 | |
| 42 | 44 | |
| 20 | 40 | |
| 37 | 49 | |
| 25 | 34 | |
| 24 | 38 | |
| 22 | 30 | |
| 19 | 50 | |
| 24 | 46 | |
| 19 | 40 | |
| 22 | 35 | |
| 29 | 43 | |
| 24 | 41 | |
| 34 | 30 | |
| 33 | 39 | |
| 37 | 44 | |
| 20 | 35 |
Your job is to determine if smashed into group reports higher speed than hit group. As you work on this problem, make sure to provide information for each of the eight steps we cover in Chapter 11 (Salkind) as well as the APA write-up you would see in a results section.
- State the null and alternative hypotheses
- Tell me your level of risk
- Determine the best statistical test to use
- Compute the test statistic. (Note: You can use the table below to help you calculate your SD, which will be important later when you write up your means and SDs)!
| Hit | X – M | (X – M)2 | Smashed Into | X – M | (X – M)2 | |
| M = | ||||||
| n – 1 | ||||||
| (X – M)2 / n – 1 | ||||||
| SD (√ ) |
t =
