The Rumor Chain

A QANTAS International 747 that was going to Los Angeles took off from Bangkok International Airport. A passenger near the rear of the aircraft announced that he was hijacking for the People’s Revolutionary Army.
The hijacker then held a 357 Magnum gun to the head of Jack Straw, a flight attendant, and forced him to open the cockpit floor. There the hijacker held the gun at the head of the pilot, Jane Smith, and forced her to change course to Cuba. While the pilot radioed Bangkok to report the situation she suddenly threw the microphone at the hijacker who fell backwards though the open cockpit door and onto the floor.
The angry passengers forced the gun off him and tied him up. The place returned to Bangkok and in a few minutes the hijacker was arrested.

Today’s second experiment is called “The Rumor Chain”. Firstly, Mr. Anthony asked for three volunteers, and asked two of them to go out of the room. Then, he started reading a story of hijacking a plane. The volunteer that was not asked to leave the room had to listen to the story and retell it to the other two volunteers. Each time the story is retold, some information has been lost. However, the first and the last part of the story tend to be very well remembered, as well as the other elements of the story which sounds distinctive such as the Magnum 357.

From the experiment, we can see the following:

Leveling: simplifying material ...We can see that as the story is being told more and more, it gets shorter and shorter. This happens because the person tend to forget the non-important details of the story.

Sharpening: highlight or overemphasizing some material which the person think is important

Assimilation: changing details to better fit the subjects own background or knowledge (schemas)
Eg. Gender of pilot and flight attendant