Recall for Answers to "Conducive" Questions

It was found that recall was systematically biased by question format, the results indicating a significant effect of question format at time of recall test, and also suggesting an independent effect as a fiinction ofquestion format atTime of original presentation of the information.

Abstract

The phrasing of a question may reveal presumptions as to its answer. In the case of negative Yes-No questions a grammatical analysis suggests that neg + some questions are biased to a " Yes " reply, while neg + any questions are biased to a " No" reply. There are data indicating that, indeed, listeners predominantly believe that the questioner expects a positive answer in the first case, and a negative answer in the second case. The present study was carried out to discover whether such" conducive " presumptions in questions may systematically bias recall of their answers, and to determine the locus or loci of such an effect. It was found that recall was systematically biased by question format, the results indicating a significant effect of question format at time of recall test, and also suggesting an independent effect as a fiinction of question format at time of original presentation of the information. Some comments are made on the implications of these findings.