Centrality ratings, forensic relevance, and production frequency: Which one best identifies central and peripheral items?

Abstract

SummaryProduction frequency has often been used to identify central and peripheral information, under the assumption that high frequency implies that the item is central. However, no research to date has tested the relationship between centrality and frequency. Participants watched a video of a bank robbery and completed a free recall test, from which frequency for recalled items was computed. Two groups then watched the same video and rated centrality and forensic relevance for each item. Results showed that most, but not all, items with high frequency were rated as central and forensically relevant but that low frequency items were not diagnostic of either item centrality or forensic relevance. Forensic relevance was a better indicator of item centrality than frequency. We concluded that frequency measures should be avoided to determine centrality. Also, if centrality ratings cannot be collected, forensic relevance ratings may be more appropriate for this purpose.

Police trainees versus laypeople: Identification performance and confidence–accuracy relationship for facial and body lineups

“…Without eye tracking equipment, it is difficult to tell how eyewitnesses allocate attention while watching complex scenes. However, because memory tends to be better for details that are forensically relevant or related to actions performed (Ibabe & Sporer, 2004; Luna & Albuquerque, 2018; Migueles & García‐Bajos, 1999), it is likely that such details attract attention during encoding.…”

Self‐relevance enhances susceptibility to false memory

“…Central information was defined as any detail pertinent to central characters (i.e., the victim and the thief) in the plot (Christianson & Loftus, 1991), while other contextual details were coded as peripheral information. We asked a group of extra 30 participants (12 males and 18 females, M age = 23.77, SD = 2.20) to rate the peripheral–central ratings on a 1 (very peripheral) to 6 (very central) scale (Luna, & Albuquerque, 2018). Items that scored the top 5% percentile were coded as central and items that scored the lower 5% percentile were coded as peripheral items.…”

Memory distrust and suggestibility: A registered report

“…those more central like colours are more difficult to mislead than the time displayed by a street clock (Polczyk, 2007). On the other hand, the relationship between the frequency of recall of items and the assessment of their centrality and forensic relevance is not straightforward (Luna & Albuquerque, 2018). Similarly, people differ in, for example, visual imagery, which determines how information from an event is remembered (Sheldon et al, 2017).…”