Comparing methods of encountering post-event information: the power of co-witness suggestion

Abstract

The current study compared the effects of co-witness information on memory with more widely studied methods of encountering post-event information. Participants were shown a crime video and then exposed to both correct and incorrect post-event information about the video through one of four methods: (1) leading questions, (2) media report, (3) indirect co-witness information, or (4) cowitness discussion. There was also a control condition in which participants did not receive any postevent information. All participants were individually tested on their memories for the event 1 week later. Results suggest that co-witness information had a particularly strong influence on eyewitness memory, whether encountered through co-witness discussion or indirectly through a third party. That is, participants were more likely to report co-witness information than post-event information encountered through leading questions or a media report.

The Confident Co‐witness: The Effects of Misinformation on Memory After Collaborative Discussion

“…Consistent with the works of Gabbert et al (, 2006), Paterson and Kemp (), and Skagerberg and Wright (), we provided more evidence for misinformation effects as a result of CW discussion, demonstrating the power of how discussions with erroneous CWs can alter one's memory. While others have noted that perceptions of confidence may help explain memory conformity (Wright & Carlucci, ; Wright et al, ), we extended the works of Allan and Gabbert (), Ost et al (), and Goodwin et al () by directly manipulating CW confidence within the context of collaborative CW discussions.…”

Can a witness report hearsay evidence unintentionally? The effects of discussion on eyewitness memory

“…This confirms previous research suggesting that co-witness misinformation has an especially powerful influence on memory (Gabbert, Memon & Wright, 2004;Paterson & Kemp, 2006b) and is resilient to attempts to eradicate it. As Meade and Roediger concluded, "it is noteworthy that social contagion is a powerful enough phenomenon to persist even under these stringent testing conditions," (Meade & Roediger, 2002, p. 1007).…”

Combating Co‐witness contamination: Attempting to decrease the negative effects of discussion on eyewitness memory

“…Even in combination, these measures did not eliminate co‐witness memory conformity. This confirms previous research suggesting that co‐witness misinformation has an especially powerful influence on memory (Paterson & Kemp, 2006a; Gabbert, Memon, Allan, & Wright, 2004) and is resilient to attempts to eradicate it.…”