The Power of Persuasion

Matt just fininshed up with the Science Fair. His project was pretty cool. He would show a poster to a volunteer for 30 seconds. Then the volunteer had 3 minutes to write down anything they could remember from the poster. Next, Matt reviewed their answers (to be sure he understood what they had written). During the review, Matt was so say something like, "Oh, you missed the girl on the bike." or something like that. (There really was not girl on a bike) The next day the volunteer had three minutes again to write down what they could remember. Matt told the volunteer that we were testing long-term and short-term memory. Really he was testing the value of an eye-witness at a crime scene. Would the volunteer add the nonexistent "girl on the bike" the next day when the suggestion was made to them. Matt tested 10 volunteers (5 boys and 5 girls). None of the girls added the nonexistent person, but four of the guys did. I thought it was interesting.