Loftus and Palmer's findings have important implications for eyewitness testimony because they show that:

• A. The wording of questions can bias recall.
• B. Eyewitness memories are entirely unreliable.
• C. People cannot recall events under pressure.
• D. Memory for events is unaffected by questioning.

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is that how a question is asked can shape what a witness believes they remember. Loftus and Palmer showed that memory is not a perfect recorder of events but is reconstructive and open to influence from the words used after the event. In their studies, participants watched a film of a car crash and were asked to estimate speed using different verbs in the question—for example, “smashed,” “collided,” or “hit.” Those who heard the more extreme verb tended to give higher speed estimates. More strikingly, later tests revealed that the verb used could affect whether people claimed to see broken glass, a detail that was not actually present in all cases. This demonstrates a misinformation effect: post-event information, especially leading questions, can bias recall and lead to distorted memories.

The practical takeaway is that eyewitness testimony can be distorted by the language of questions, so investigators should use neutral, non-leading questions to avoid implanting or shaping memories. It’s not that memories are always unreliable or that questioning has no effect; rather, memory is susceptible to suggestion, which can alter recall in subtle but important ways.