When recollection is difficult, people may use schematic processing to enhance memory. Two experiments showed that a delay between witnessing and recalling a visual sequence increases schematic processing, resulting in stereotypic memory errors. Participants watched a slide show of a man and a woman performing stereotype-consistent and stereotype-inconsistent actions, followed by an immediate or delayed memory test. Over a two-day delay, stereotype-inconsistent actions were increasingly misremembered as having been performed by the stereotype-consistent actor (Experiment 1). All the source errors increased, regardless of stereotype consistency, when the wrong actor was suggested. When we merely suggested that 'someone' performed an action (Experiment 2), only stereotype-consistent source errors were increased. Although visual scenes are typically well remembered, these results suggest that when memory fades, reliance on schemata increases, leading to increased stereotypic memory errors.In a classic study, Allport and Postman (1945) conducted a version of the 'telephone game', wherein participants were shown a picture of a White man on a bus, holding a switchblade and talking with a Black man. The first participant studied the picture and then described it to another person, beginning a chain of other participants who described the picture to each other in succession. After the description of the picture had been passed down the chain, the final participants often reported that the Black man was holding the switchblade. At least one falsely stated that he 'brandished it in a threatening manner'. This finding suggested that people use stereotypes when interpreting and later recollecting information. More recently, Plant and Peruche (2005) reported that, in a computer simulation, police officers were more likely to mistakenly shoot an unarmed Black suspect than an unarmed White suspect. This suggests that, when people make quick decisions, stereotypic knowledge is readily accessed and may guide action. In an effort to understand how this type of judgement error occurs, recent research has focused on identifying the cognitive mechanisms that lead to both racial and gender stereotyping, and how such stereotyping may impact recollection (Devine

By most theories of lexical access, idiosyncratic aspects of speech (such as voice details) are considered noise and are filtered in perception. However,episodic theories suggest that perceptual details are stored in memory and mediate later perception. Bythis view,perception and memory are intimately linked. The present investigation tested this hypothesis by creating symmetric illusions, using words and voices. In two experiments, listeners gave reduced noise estimates to previously heard words, but only when the original voices were preserved. Conversely, in two recognition memory experiments, listeners gave increased old responses to words (or voices) presented in relatively soft background noise. The data suggest that memory can be mistaken for perceptual fluency, and perceptual fluency can be mistaken for memory. The data also underscore the role of detailed episodes in lexical access.

The present studies tested whether African American face type (stereotypical or nonstereotypical) facilitated stereotype-consistent categorization, and whether that categorization influenced memory accuracy and errors. Previous studies have shown that stereotypically Black features are associated with crime and violence (e. here, we extended this finding to investigate whether there is a bias toward remembering and recategorizing stereotypical faces as criminals. Using category labels, consistent (or inconsistent) with race-based expectations, we tested whether face recognition and recategorization were driven by the similarity between a target's facial features and a stereotyped category (i.e., stereotypical Black faces associated with crime/violence). The results revealed that stereotypical faces were associated more often with a stereotype-consistent label (Study 1), were remembered and correctly recategorized as criminals (Studies 2-4), and were miscategorized as criminals when memory failed. These effects occurred regardless of race or gender. Together, these findings suggest that face types have strong category associations that can promote stereotype-motivated recognition errors. Implications for eyewitness accuracy are discussed.

Abstract-

Previous research on police officer shoot decisions has focussed on the influence of situational factors that lead to the shooting error. Focussing instead on the 'shooter', the present study examined whether working memory capacity and threat-related increases in negative emotionality influenced participant shoot decisions in a simulated shooting task. Following a working memory test, 24 police officers viewed a police-relevant threatening video while physiological indices of arousal and negative affect were obtained and then completed a computerized shoot-don't shoot task. Results indicated that lower working memory capacity was associated with a greater likelihood of shooting unarmed targets and a failure to shoot armed targets. Moreover, an interaction effect indicated that these associations were only significant for officers who experienced heightened negative emotionality in response to the video. Results suggest that when negatively aroused via threat, limited working memory capacity increases the risk of shooting error.