Increases in eyewitness confidence resulting from postevent questioning.

Abstract

This study examined whether postevent questioning can lead to increases in witness confidence without a corresponding impact on witness accuracy. After viewing slides of a simulated crime scene, participants in 3 experiments answered forced-choice questions about target items in the slides. Subsequently, participants were exposed to postevent questioning about some of their forced-choice responses. Postevent questioning led to significantly higher later confidence ratings for incorrect responses in all 3 experiments, as well as for correct responses in Experiment 1, but had no impact on the overall accuracy of later forced-choice responses. A retrieval-fluency hypothesis is offered as an explanation for the increases in confidence. These results suggest that police questioning of witnesses may lead to inflated witness confidence judgments in later courtroom testimony.

Testing promotes eyewitness accuracy with a warning: Implications for retrieval enhanced suggestibility

“…Research has consistently demonstrated that the ease with which information comes to mind serves as an indicator for confidence (Kelley & Lindsay, 1993;Nelson & Narens, 1990;Shaw, 1996). Consistent with the retrieval fluency hypothesis, the unwarned subjects in the repeated testing condition were extremely confident in their responses on both misleading and consistent trials in both experiments.…”

“…Specifically, Shaw (1996) demonstrated that repeated testing paired with reflection on those initial responses led to higher confidence ratings on a later, final test, and suggested that the question-reflection pairing increased retrieval fluency of those answers. Additionally, presentation of a narrative with information consistent or inconsistent with an originally witnessed event resulted in higher confidence on a final test than when a general narrative was presented (Bonham & González-Vallejo, 2009).…”

The dark side of testing memory: Repeated retrieval can enhance eyewitness suggestibility.

“…If this is the case, then manipulations that increase the confidence of the original event details should increase their susceptibility to later misinformation, and repeated testing is one such manipulation. Indeed, testing has been demonstrated to increase the confidence associated with a retrieved memory (Shaw, 1996;Thomas et al, 2010), and repeated testing can further inflate the confidence associated with these memories (Shaw & McClure, 1996). When new information regarding these memories is presented, participants might experience a feeling of surprise (for similar arguments, see Fazio & Marsh, 2009); if participants fail to question the accuracy of this new information, then they might "hypercorrect" their original responses.…”

On the "general acceptance" of eyewitness testimony research: A new survey of the experts.

“…After the initial survey, for example, new studies were conducted on such topics as child witnesses (Ceci & Brack, 1995;Poole & Lamb, 1998), repressed and/or false memories of trauma (Loftus, 1993;Pezdek & Banks, 1996;Read & Lindsay, 1997), the effects of alcohol (Yuille & Tollestrup, 1990), the processes by which eyewitnesses make identifications (Dunning & Stern, 1994;Sporer, 1993), sequential versus simultaneous presentations of photographic arrays and lineups (R. C. L. Lindsay, Lea, & Fulford, 1991;Wells, 1993), the malleability of confidence and other retrospective reports of the eyewitnessing experience (Luus & Wells, 1994;Shaw, 1996;Wells & Bradfield, 1998, 1999, factors that moderate the correlation of accuracy and confidence (Kassin, Rigby, & Castillo, 1991;D. S. Lindsay, Read, & Sharma, 1999;Robinson & Johnson, 1999;Sporer, Penrod, Read, & Cutler, 1995), and the commonsense assumptions about eyewitnesses held by laypersons and members of the legal profession (Devenport, Penrod, & Cutler, 1997;Kassin & Barndollar, 1992;Stinson, Devenport, Cutler, & Kravitz, 1996.…”