Alcohol and remembering a hypothetical sexual assault: Can people who were under the influence of alcohol during the event provide accurate testimony?

Abstract

We examined the influence of alcohol on remembering an interactive hypothetical sexual assault scenario in the laboratory using a balanced placebo design. Female participants completed a memory test 24 hours and 4 months later. Participants reported less information (i.e., responded 'don't know' more often to questions) if they were under the influence of alcohol during scenario encoding. The accuracy of the information intoxicated participants reported did not differ compared to sober participants, however, suggesting intoxicated participants were effectively monitoring the accuracy of their memory at test.Additionally, peripheral details were remembered less accurately than central details, regardless of intoxication level; and memory accuracy for peripheral details decreased by a larger amount compared to central details across the retention interval. Finally, participants were more accurate if they were told they were drinking alcohol rather than a placebo. We discuss theoretical implications for alcohol myopia and memory regulation, together with applied implications for interviewing intoxicated witnesses.Keywords: Alcohol myopia, sexual assault, memory monitoring and control, hypervigilance, intoxication Alcohol and remembering a hypothetical sexual assault: Can victims who were under the influence of alcohol during the offense provide accurate testimony?Serious violent offenses often involve intoxicated witnesses and victims (Evans, Schreiber Compo, & Russano, 2009;Palmer, Flowe, Takarangi, & Humphries, 2013). In sexual assault and rape cases 1 , especially, victims and perpetrators are likely to be under the ALCOHOL AND REMEMBERING SEXUAL ASSAULT 4 influence of alcohol (Brecklin & Ullman, 2002;Mohler-Kuo, Dowdall, Koss & Wechsler, 2004;Testa, 2002). Importantly, intoxicated sexual assault victims are less likely than their sober counterparts to report the offense to the police (e.g., Clay-Warner & Burt, 2005; WolitzkyTaylor et al., 2011). However, even among simple rape cases-involving acquaintances, no collateral injury, or no weapon use-that are reported and referred for prosecution, charges are less likely to be issued if the victim was drinking (Beichner & Spohn, 2012).Alcohol intoxication raises questions about the accuracy of testimony in the minds of criminal investigators (Cole & Logan, 2010). Similar concerns can also influence trial outcomes: Jurors (e.g., Evans & Schreiber Compo, 2010) and eyewitness experts (Kassin, Tubb, Hosch, & Memon, 2001) agree that intoxicated witnesses suffer memory impairment.But, can intoxicated people provide accurate information in legal settings? In the present study, we focused on alcohol and memory impairment in the sexual assault context. Our aims were twofold: we tested whether being under the influence of alcohol, or believing that one has consumed alcohol, would (1) differentially affect the quantity of information women reported about a simulated sexual assault, and (2) interact with other factors to influence the accuracy of women's memory for the sexu...

The Effects of Alcohol Intoxication on Accuracy and the Confidence–Accuracy Relationship in Photographic Simultaneous Line‐ups

“…In this case, any negative impact that alcohol may have had on participants' ability to attend and encode may have been offset by increased attention to and rehearsal of the rape perpetrator. We have found support for this idea in our previous work, which showed that sober and intoxicated women were better able to remember information about the perpetrator compared with more peripheral aspects of a sexual assault scenario (e.g., bystanders; Flowe, Takarangi, Humphries, & Wright, 2016). As others have noted, however, it is difficult to determine which aspects of a scene are considered to be central and peripheral, and the amount of attention paid to central and peripheral items might depend on the complexity of the particular stimulus materials employed (e.g., Harvey et al, 2013).…”

“…Finally, we tested participants online. Previous line‐up research finds a similar pattern of results with respect to discrimination accuracy for participants who are tested online versus in the laboratory (e.g., Flowe, Takarangi et al, 2016; Gronlund et al, 2009; Mickes et al, 2012). It is entirely conceivable, however, that decision bias (i.e., the willingness to identify someone as a suspect from a line‐up, which is a separate issue from discrimination accuracy) might differ depending on testing context.…”

Improved memory for information learnt before alcohol use in social drinkers tested in a naturalistic setting

“…It may be that the task was not sensitive enough to pick up the alcohol-induced impairment on session one, although there was a tendency towards this difference. Alcohol has been suggested to have relatively confined effects on memory at the dose participants were tested at in the current study, which affects memory for peripheral rather than central material 21, 22 , and with memory for pictures less impaired by alcohol than memory for words.…”

Interviewing intoxicated witnesses: Memory performance in theory and practice

“…The same pattern has been found for sober participants in a study using a witness context (Pansky & Nemets, ). Studies of intoxicated witnesses’ immediate and delayed free recall have also found a decreased quantity but maintained accuracy of the reported information and used quantity‐accuracy trade‐off as a theoretical framework for these findings (Hildebrand Karlén et al ., ; see also Flowe et al ., for a discussion).…”