1. Framing Effects in Sport Commentary: Can One Word Make the Difference? Jason Kowalczyk¹, Mark Sheptock¹, Kacey Kim¹, Nadav Goldschmied¹, & Yair Galily² BACKGROUND  A single word manipulation uttered by the announcer only twice had an influence on viewer perception of speed assessment.  The stimulus material used in the present study (3 min. and 2 sec.) was significantly longer in duration than the videos used in Loftus and Palmer (1974) (5-30 sec.) and involved many scenes unrelated to the collision in order to increase the ecological validity of the study.  Nevertheless, we found framing effects thus emphasizing the important role that sport commentators play in shaping perception of events described.  The results of the present study also support the notion that the description used for framing may be domain-specific.  The rank order of magnitude of the verbs did not match the results of Loftus and Palmer’s research (1974).  The word “contact” may be interpreted as ‘weak’ in regards to a car crash (which was the context in Loftus and Palmer’s study), but ‘strong’ in regards to sports. The participants may associate the word “contact” with the phrase ‘contact sports’, which is used in reference to rough sports such as football, boxing, and ice hockey (in contrast to non-contact sports).  While we failed to detect post-event information effects in speed estimates in Study 1, the investigation was not a true reflection of how sports are often experienced by spectators. In Study 2 we included an announcer broadcasting the game as events unfolded.  Past research (e.g., Sullivan, 1991) has shown that announcer commentary in sport can alter participants’ perceptions of aggression.  We investigated if even mild alterations in the language used by the announcer would yield modifications in speed estimates by our participants.. METHODS 2 RESULTS 2 REFERENCES Bracko, M. R., Fellingham, G. W., Hall, L. T., Fisher, A. G., & Cryer, W. (1998). Performance skating characteristics of professional ice hockey forwards. Research in Sports Medicine: An International Journal, 8(3), 251-263. 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, 585-589. Read, J. D., Barnsley, R. H., Ankers, K., & Whishaw, I. Q. (1978). Variations in severity of verbs and eyewitnesses testimony: an alternative interpretation. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 46(3), 795-800.  A total of 112 undergraduate students (34 male, 78 female, M age = 18.7 years) from the University of San Diego were recruited for this experiment.  The video shown to the participants was the same highlight reel from study 1, but now with the announcer’s commentary.  The original commentary from the NHL official website was used as the basis for the modified script read by a recruited announcer.  The only difference between the three conditions was the words the commentator used to describe the hockey collision. This altered word was heard twice during the time the participants observed the collision.  The commentary during the collision was: “Kronwall contacted/bumped/smashed Jaimie McGinn at center ice. Let’s watch that again, as this game is heading to overtime. Oh, yeah, definitely contacts/bumps/smashes McGinn there out of nowhere.”  Immediately after watching the video clip, participants were given the same questionnaire as in study 1 but this time the collision event was described consistently in all the items as a “physical encounter” (the only difference was thus in the commentary manipulation).  A total of 7 participants were excluded from the analysis as they were unable to correctly identify where on the ice rink the hockey collision occurred. Thus, the final sample consisted of data from 105 participants. ;-)  Loftus and Palmer (1974) famously studied the framing effects (post-event information) of subtle word choices on perception and memory in regards to car crashes.  Participants viewed several car crashes and were later asked, “About how fast were the cars going when they ______ into each other?”  Described as one of the following: contacted, bumped, or smashed.  The results showed that speed of the accident as estimated by participants increased with increasing perceived intensity of the verb: Contacted = 31.8mi/hr, Bumped = 38.1mi/hr, Smashed = 40.5mi/hr.  Since Loftus and Palmer’s experiment, many other researchers have attempted to replicate their findings using the car collision paradigm but largely failed (e.g., Read, Barnsely, Ankers, & Whishow, 1978).  However, minor alterations of how an event is characterized and later recalled can also apply to sports. Figure 3. Perceived speed estimates based on commentary used to describe the physical encounter between the players. Error bars represent +1/-1 standard deviations. Figure 2. Perceived speed estimates based on the word used to describe the physical encounter between the players. Error bars represent +1/-1 standard deviations. STUDY 1 STUDY 2 RESULTS 1 GENERAL DISCUSSION METHODS 1  A total of 92 undergraduate students (18 male, 72 female, 2 missing, M age = 18.7 years) from the University of San Diego were recruited for the experiment.  All participants watched on mute a hockey highlight reel (3 min. and 2 sec. long) of a game between the Detroit Red Wings and the Colorado Avalanche. The final scene in the video shows Detroit’s Niklas Kronwall colliding with Colorado’s Jamie McGinn in the 3 rd period of regulation time (See Figure 1). Including instant replays, participants were exposed to this collision a total of three times at the end of the highlight reel.  Immediately after observing the video clip, participants were given a questionnaire in which they were instructed to focus on the physical encounter between the two players. The only difference between the three conditions was the word used repeatedly to describe the hockey collision either as a ‘contact’, ‘bump’ or ‘smash’.  A total of 8 participants were excluded from the analysis as they were unable to correctly identify where on the ice rink the hockey collision occurred. Thus, the final sample consisted of data from 84 participants.  A one-way between-subjects ANOVA revealed no significant effect of hockey collision description on the estimated speed of the player who initiated the collision, F (2, 77) =.30, p =.74. See Figure 2.  The current investigation utilized the game of hockey in which players skate fast on the ice in a continuous and smooth motion (Bracko, Fellingham, Hall, Fisher & Cryer, 1998) much like cars are driven on the road. The players also often collide spectacularly with opponents in relatively high speeds.  A one-way between-subjects ANOVA revealed a significant effect of commentary condition on the estimated speed of the player who initiated the collision, F (2, 97) = 3.52, p =.033. The effect size (η² =.07) was medium. See Figure 3.  An LSD post-hoc test indicated that the initiating player’s speed was estimated to be significantly higher in the ‘contact’ commentary when compared to the ‘smash’ commentary (p =.01), but no different than the ‘bump’ commentary (p =.33). The ‘bump’ and ‘smash’ commentaries were no different from each other as well (p =.14). Figure 1. Shot of Detroit’s Niklas Kronwall colliding with Colorado’s Jamie McGinn. ¹University of San Diego, ²Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya