Appraising Loftus and Palmer (1974) Post-Event Information versus Concurrent Commentary in the Context of Sport

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to examine framing effects in sport. In Experiment 1, a conceptual replication [Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13(5), 585–589], participants watched a hockey collision, with the hit described later in a written format as a “contact”, “bump”, or “smash”. This manipulation resulted in no differences in participants’ report of how fast the players were skating, their intentions, and the outcome of the hit. In Experiment 2, participants watched the same video clip with ongoing commentary. Those who heard the announcer describing the event as “contact” estimated a higher skating speed than participants who were exposed to the “smash” commentary. Participants who were exposed to the “bump” commentary rated the repercussions of the collision as less severe than did those exposed to the other commentaries. These findings show that the perception of magnitude hierarchy may be domain specific and suggest future avenues for exploring framing effects when one is exposed to visual stimuli.