A little elaboration goes a long way: The role of generation in eyewitness suggestibility

Lane, Sean M.; Zaragoza, Maria S.

doi:10.3758/bf03193599

Cited by 20 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…However, such manipulation is very common when testing the suggestibility effect in a lab setting (e.g. Gordon & Shapiro, 2012;Lane & Zaragoza, 2007;McCloskey & Zaragoza, 1985). Using slides allows better control for variables such as information load, exposure time and presentation sequence, compared with a movie, which may have more ecological validation but may also add possible confounds.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Counterintuitive Relationship between Conceptual and Perceptual Similarities and Eyewitness Suggestibility

Levy-Gigi

Vakil

2014

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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The tendency to confuse witnessed and suggested information can result in inaccurate eyewitness testimonies and convictions of innocent people. Studies that tested how similarities between witnessed and suggested information affect the tendency to confuse them reached inconsistent results. Here, we claim that there is a more complex and not necessarily linear relationship between similarity and memory distortions. Participants (164) viewed two subsequent stories, which varied in the conceptual and perceptual similarities between them. We found a significant interaction between conceptual and perceptual similarities. When we presented two conceptually different stories, perceptual similarity increased the suggestibility effect compared with perceptual dissimilarity. Conversely, when we presented two conceptually similar stories, perceptual similarity decreased suggestibility compared with perceptual dissimilarity. Accordingly, we suggest that similarity between two events may increase the suggestibility effect. However, counter-intuitively, once similarity reaches a certain threshold, the coherence level between the events reduces the tendency to confuse them.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Counterintuitive Relationship between Conceptual and Perceptual Similarities and Eyewitness Suggestibility

Levy-Gigi

Vakil

2014

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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“…They first answered yes/no questions about the slide show, which introduced MPI for half of the target details. Finally, all of the participants were tested for their verbatim memory of the target details at the subordinate level, as in many misinformation studies (e.g., Eakin et al, 2003;Lane & Zaragoza, 2007;Lindsay & Johnson, 1989;Loftus et al, 1978;McCloskey & Zaragoza, 1985). The participants were also asked to indicate, for each of their responses, whether they remembered it from the slide show or were merely guessing.…”

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Inoculating against eyewitness suggestibility via interpolated verbatim vs. gist testing

Pansky

Tenenboim

2010

Mem Cogn

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In real-life situations, eyewitnesses often have control over the level of generality in which they choose to report event information. In the present study, we adopted an early-intervention approach to investigate to what extent eyewitness memory may be inoculated against suggestibility, following two different levels of interpolated reporting: verbatim and gist. After viewing a target event, participants responded to interpolated questions that required reporting of target details at either the verbatim or the gist level. After 48 hr, both groups of participants were misled about half of the target details and were finally tested for verbatim memory of all the details. The findings were consistent with our predictions: Whereas verbatim testing was successful in completely inoculating against suggestibility, gist testing did not reduce it whatsoever. These findings are particularly interesting in light of the comparable testing effects found for these two modes of interpolated testing.

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“…This was coined the “misinformation effect,” and since its observation, researchers have continued to expand the scope of this work. In all of these studies, the misinformation effect has proven to be a robust phenomenon; it occurs in participants of all ages (from preschoolers to older adults), when presented in a variety of different ways (e.g., narratives, post-event questions, imagination, or even self-generation), for both simulated and real-world events and across several different types of memory tests (e.g., recall, recognition, and source-monitoring) (Ackil and Zaragoza, 1995, 1998; Ceci et al, 1987; Drivdahl et al, 2009; Lane and Zaragoza, 2007; Lindsay, 1990; Nourkova et al, 2004; Zaragoza et al, 2011). Additionally, it has been reported that not only can memories for individual items be altered through misinformation, but memories for entire events can be fabricated by participants, either in conjunction with a previously shown witnessed event (Chrobak and Zaragoza, 2008) or within their own life history (Lindsay et al, 2004; Wade et al, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blunted cortisol response to acute pre-learning stress prevents misinformation effect in a forced confabulation paradigm

Zoladz

Cadle

Dailey

et al. 2017

Hormones and Behavior

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Research examining the effects of stress on false memory formation has been equivocal, partly because of the complex nature of stress-memory interactions. A major factor influencing stress effects on learning is the timing of stress relative to encoding. Previous work has shown that brief stressors administered immediately before learning enhance long-term memory. Thus, we predicted that brief stress immediately before learning would decrease participants’ susceptibility to subsequent misinformation and reduce false memory formation. Eighty-four male and female participants submerged their hand in ice cold (stress) or warm (no stress) water for 3 min. Immediately afterwards, they viewed an 8-min excerpt from the Disney movie Looking for Miracles. The next day, participants were interviewed and asked several questions about the video, some of which forced them to confabulate responses. Three days and three weeks later, respectively, participants completed a recognition test in the lab and a free recall test via email. Our results revealed a robust misinformation effect, overall, as participants falsely recognized a significant amount of information that they had confabulated during the interview as having occurred in the original video. Stress, overall, did not significantly influence this misinformation effect. However, the misinformation effect was completely absent in stressed participants who exhibited a blunted cortisol response to the stress, for both recognition and recall tests. The complete absence of a misinformation effect in non-responders may lend insight into the interactive roles of autonomic arousal and corticosteroid levels in false memory development.

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A little elaboration goes a long way: The role of generation in eyewitness suggestibility

Cited by 20 publications

References 39 publications

The Counterintuitive Relationship between Conceptual and Perceptual Similarities and Eyewitness Suggestibility

The Counterintuitive Relationship between Conceptual and Perceptual Similarities and Eyewitness Suggestibility

Inoculating against eyewitness suggestibility via interpolated verbatim vs. gist testing

Blunted cortisol response to acute pre-learning stress prevents misinformation effect in a forced confabulation paradigm

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