A three-year-old and a five-year-old watch as a toy is hidden in a box while another child is out of the room. When asked where the absent child will look for the toy on returning, the three-year-old points to where it really is, while the five-year-old points to where the absent child last saw it.

Loftus and Palmer investigated whether the wording of a question could change what people remember about an event. In one experiment, 45 participants watched film clips of car accidents and then answered questions about what they had seen. The critical question asked how fast the cars were going when they 'hit' each other; for different groups the verb was replaced with 'smashed', 'collided', 'bumped', or 'contacted'. Mean speed estimates were highest for the group given 'smashed' and lowest for 'contacted', although all groups had watched the same clips. In a second experiment, participants who had heard 'smashed' were more likely a week later to report having seen broken glass, although there was none in the film. The researchers concluded that information supplied after an event, through the wording of a question, can be integrated into memory, supporting a reconstructive view of memory.

References: Loftus, E. F. and Palmer, J. C., 1974. 'Reconstruction of automobile destruction.' Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13(5), pp. 585 to 589. source adapted.

People who lived through a sudden, shocking public event often report vivid, detailed memories of the moment they heard the news, including where they were and who they were with, and feel very confident these memories are accurate.