

Rather than "smashed", other verbs used included "bumped", "collided", "hit", or "contacted". The survey asked the question, "About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?" The question always asked the same thing, except the verb used to describe the collision varied. Afterwards, participants filled out a survey. In the first test, 45 participants were randomly assigned to watch different videos of a car accident, in which separate videos had shown collisions at 20 mph (32 km/h), 30 mph (48 km/h) and 40 mph (64 km/h). The experiment involved two separate studies.

In 1974, Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer conducted a study to investigate the effects of language on the development of false memory. Janet contributed to false memory through his ideas on dissociation and memory retrieval through hypnosis. Pierre Janet was a French neurologist also credited with great contributions into memory research. Some claim that his studies have been quite influential in contemporary memory research, including the research into the field of false memory. įreud was fascinated with memory and all the ways it could be understood, used, and manipulated. The false memory phenomenon was initially investigated by psychological pioneers Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud. 4 Natural factors for the formation of false memories.2.1 Presuppositions and the misinformation effect.
