No abstract

In the legal system, inconsistencies in eyewitness accounts are often used to discredit witnesses’ credibility. This is at odds with research findings showing that witnesses frequently report reminiscent details (details previously unrecalled) at an accuracy rate that is nearly as high as for consistently recalled information. The present study sought to put the validity of beliefs about recall consistency to a test by directly comparing them with actual memory performance in two recall attempts. All participants watched a film of a staged theft. Subsequently, the memory group (N = 84) provided one statement immediately after the film (either with the Self-Administered Interview or free recall) and one after a one-week delay. The estimation group (N = 81) consisting of experienced police detectives estimated the recall performance of the memory group. The results showed that actual recall performance was consistently underestimated. Also, a sharp decline of memory performance between recall attempts was assumed by the estimation group whereas actual accuracy remained stable. While reminiscent details were almost as accurate as consistent details, they were estimated to be much less accurate than consistent information and as inaccurate as direct contradictions. The police detectives expressed a great concern that reminiscence was the result of suggestive external influences. In conclusion, it seems that experienced police detectives hold many implicit beliefs about recall consistency that do not correspond with actual recall performance. Recommendations for police trainings are provided. These aim at fostering a differentiated view on eyewitness performance and the inclusion of more comprehensive classes on human memory structure.

Contradictory empirical findings and theoretical accounts exist that are in favor of either a written or a spoken superiority effect. In this article, we present two experiments that put the recall modality effect in the context of eyewitness reports to another test. More specifically, we investigated the role of cognitive and social factors in the effect. In both experiments, participants watched a videotaped staged crime and then gave spoken or written accounts of the event and the people involved. In Experiment 1, 135 participants were assigned to written, spoken-videotaped, spoken-distracted, or spoken-voice recorded conditions to test for the impact of cognitive demand and social factors in the form of interviewer presence. Experiment 2 (N = 124) tested the idea that instruction comprehensiveness differentially impacts recall performance in written versus spoken accounts. While there was no evidence for a spoken superiority effect, we found some support for a written superiority effect for description quantity, but not accuracy. Furthermore, any differences found in description quantity as a function of recall modality could be traced back to participants' free reports. Following up with cued open-ended questions compensated for this effect, although at the expense of description accuracy. This suggests that current police practice of arbitrarily obtaining written or spoken accounts is mostly unproblematic.

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We thank Henry Otgaar for his valuable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.