remember?

1.       When asking people about a broken headlight, she asked two questions. One being “Did you see the broken headlight?” and the second “Did you see a broken headlight?” The question with the word the produced more positive responses, because it presupposed the presence of a broken headlight.

2.       Using words that “presuppose” things to trick people into saying the wrong answer. Since there is already so much pressure and stress on a person being interrogated by the police, they are already more likely to trip up. Also if you told them they did something enough times they might start to go crazy and believe they really did.

3.       Experiment 1: Subjects watched a video of a car accident, where car A ran through a stop sign.  Group one was asked about the speed when the car ran the stop sign, and group two was asked about the same cars speed turning right. They were both asked the same question at the end “Did you see a stop sign for car A? “ group one had 53% of people see it, probably due to the earlier mention of the stop sign. While group two only had 35% of people say they saw the stop sign with no previous mention.

Experiment 2:  A group of subjects watched a movie where 8 demonstrators interrupted. On that day two groups filled out the same questionnaire with one difference, one group mentioned 12 demonstrators, the other four. When they both came back the next week they were asked how many demonstrators there were, some recalled the correct numbers; although, the average for the group mentioning twelve was significantly higher than the group mentioning four.

Experiment 3: Participants were asked to watch a ten second clip of a white sports car. Following two groups were given the same questions, except one group had a question using the phrase passing the barn, while the other group used a question saying along the country road. A week later both groups were called back, and asked if they saw a white barn. 17.3% who had been asked about passing the barn said yes, compared to the 2.7% that said yes with no mention of the barn. This was testing false presuppositions.