Syntax and the Recall of Instructions in a Realistic Situation

Airline passengers were presented with emergency landing instructions, either visually or auditorily, and subgroups received instructions of different syntactical forms. Regardless of their original form, instructions were mainly recalled in the active affirmative. Significantly fewer instructions were recalled when they were in the negative than when they were in the affirmative, but the use of the passive, rather than the active, voice did not reduce the amount recalled.