WebWord

Elizabeth F. Loftus and many other researchers have explained false memories, which are memories for events that didn’t happen. False memories are also classified as distortions of factual events.

There’s some really cool research that roughly goes like this. Different groups of people are shown the exact same picture of an automobile accident. After they are shown the picture they are asked a question. For the sake of simplicity, imagine there are three groups. Each person in each group is asked to estimate the speed of a vehicle in the accident. These are their respective questions:

Group 1: How fast was the car going when it bumped the other car?
Group 2: How fast was the car going when it hit the other car?
Group 3: How fast was the car going when it smashed the other car?

Although everyone saw the exact same picture, there were statistically significant differences between the groups. Specifically, Group 1 estimated a lower mean speed than Group 2, and Group 2 estimated a lower mean speed than Group 3.

What does this mean? The language we use really matters. It shapes outcomes. Words change our perceptions. What we hear and what we say can bend reality. This is not trivial.

In the experiement described above the language changed, nothing else. The context was exactly the same until just a single word changed everything. One word changed the world.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 12th, 2006 at 4:14 pm and is filed under Usability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.