Effects of mental context reinstatement on accuracy and recollective experience

Abstract

Obtaining eyewitness accounts after an event can aid criminal investigations. Mental Reinstatement of Context (MRC) is used to improve memory. However, direct comparisons have identified little effects of MRC relative to free delivery with No‐MRC, and little is known about the effects of MRC on subjective memory characteristics and the role of individual differences in autobiographical memory. Here we exposed 234 participants to a naturalistic film and randomly assigned them to either MRC or No‐MRC before requesting written memory reports and memory characteristics ratings. They also answered an autobiographical memory test. MRC participants reported more unverifiable, but not more accurate, details in Free Recall, whereas they performed better in Cued Recall and delivered higher ratings of Reliving, Vividness, Re‐experience, and Emotions, suggesting a richer recall experience, while Belief/confidence and Scene ratings did not differ. Individual differences in autobiographical memory correlated with memory characteristics but not with accuracy performances.

Real-world implications of aphantasia: episodic recall of eyewitnesses with aphantasia is less complete but no less accurate than typical imagers

“…Therefore, an inability or reduced ability to visually generate contextual details may contribute to impoverished episodic memory via a reduction in contextual cueing. Current practice advocates witnesses be supported to generate contextual details to cue recall at retrieval using empirically validated external recall support techniques, namely Mental Reinstatement of Context [35][36][37] and Sketch Reinstatement of Context [38][39][40][41][42][43][44]. Questions naturally emerge, therefore, centred on both the utility and efficacy of these techniques for aphantasic individuals.…”