Repeated recall of repeated events: Accuracy and consistency.

Abstract

In both casual conversations and interview settings, people may be required to provide details of instances that were similar to other experiences. When this happens repeatedly, consistency across reports is often taken as a proxy for credibility. However, processes of schema formation and interference due to similarity make recall and accurate source attribution of details to specific instances challenging. We investigated the accuracy and consistency of recall in these contexts in a re-analysis of five studies. Confusions of details were widespread (1) across instances-participants frequently attributed the origin of details to incorrect instances, but also (2) across repeated retrieval attempts-participants frequently changed parts of their reports. There was, however, a clear pattern of primacy and recency effects: Recall of the first and final instances was more accurate and consistent than recall of the middle instances. We discuss potential mechanisms underlying these effects as well as their practical implications.

Primacy (and recency) effects in delayed recognition of items from instances of repeated events

“…In addition, if items from the boundary instances of repeated events are encoded with more unique source attributes, they should be recognized faster compared to items from the middle instances. In line with findings indicating that the primacy effect is typically stronger than the recency effect (Rubínová et al, 2022), we formulated Hypothesis 2 only for the primacy effect (i.e., faster hits for items from Instance 1 than 2). Our primary hypotheses and power calculations were based on the reaction time measure, but we also measured memory judgments for items recognized as old (i.e., remember/know/not sure), decision confidence, accuracy, discriminability (i.e., the ability to differentiate old and new items), and strength of the confidence-accuracy calibration, which could provide further support for the primacy (and recency) effects.…”

“…Dilevski et al, 2022 1 ). Importantly, these long-term primacy and recency effects seem to be stable across stimuli (from categorized wordlists through stories to interactive events) and delays (from 10 minutes to almost two months) with primacy effects typically stronger than recency effects (Rubínová et al, 2022).…”

“…We used four sets of stimuli in the presentation phase. Each set contained four videos (1.25-1.55 minutes) including narrative stories adapted from Rubínová et al, 2022. Set 1 comprised four variations of a birthday party preparation; Set 2 followed a creature building a machine; Set 3 depicted a group of people planting spying devices at various locations; and Set 4 described four days at a farm.…”

“…We also excluded data from participants who reported that they had issues viewing any of the stimuli videos. For reaction time values, in line with our preregistered plan, we excluded outliers that were defined as values exceeding 2 SDs from the group means for each instance in each condition (Berger & Kiefer, 2021;Morís Fernández & 2 Our estimates of means were based on typical patterns found in correct recall (e.g., Rubínová et al, 2022), and within ranges of reaction times from recognition studies (Ratcliff & Murdock, 1976). The specified pattern of means across Instances 1-4 was 0.73, 0.68, 0.68, 0.71 for the event condition, and 0.93, 0.88, 0.88, 0.91 for the instances condition, with a common SD = 0.27.…”

Future perspectives on the role of vantage point in memories.

“…Given that repeated events are frequent in everyday life and that such events may also be common in legal settings (e.g., domestic abuse), greater research is needed to target these more abstract types of autobiographical memories. One promising direction for testing these questions is through study designs in which memory for multiple instances of repeated events are examined (Dilevski et al, 2021; Rubínová et al, 2022). Characterizing how the regularities of such experiences contribute to the extraction of a more abstract memory representation and how this potentially impacts the viewpoint people adopt would be of great interest for future research.…”