Translating (lack of) memories into reports: Conversion processes in responding to unanswerable questions.

Abstract

When queried about events in the past, a person may face questions that concern details that have been witnessed-answerable questions-and details that have not been witnessed-unanswerable questions. With regard to answerable questions, the person's willingness to answer these questions increases as a function of not only information available about the queried detail itself, but also as a function of contextual information. The present research assesses whether the willingness to report specific-and thus incorrect-answers when facing unanswerable questions also increases with the amount of available contextual information. In 3 experiments, we show that when recognition questions for critical details one had not encoded are preceded by reinstated contexts, participants are less willing to respond "don't know" to these questions, thus making more commission errors. These results show how greater access to contextual information, commonly associated with better memory for answerable questions, can also lead to more incorrect responses in the case of unanswerable questions. This documents how conversion processes-metacognitive processes of monitoring retrieval from memory and controlling the quality of output-play an important role in shaping the accuracy of memory reports.

How to answer an unanswerable question? Factors affecting correct “don't know” responding in memory tasks

“…For now, this case remains unsettled. In our previous study (Krogulska et al, 2020) we have shown that specific responses to unanswerable questions are reported with low confidence, a result that can be seen as undermining the false-memory explanation. It is worth noting, however, that a recent study on context effects in recognition by Doss, Picart, and Gallo (2018) does suggest that context reinstatement may lead to experiencing false recollections.…”

“…In laboratory experiments, questions become unanswerable whenever a participant is queried about details that were deliberately excluded from the study materials. Thus, the experimenter can ask, for example, about the title of a book that was displayed on a shelf, even though this title was occluded in the slides depicting the queried event (Krogulska, Skóra, Scoboria, Hanczakowski, & Zawadzka, 2020). What links all types of unanswerable questions is the response these questions should be met with.…”

“…The results of Krogulska et al (2020) demonstrated that far from facilitating correct DK responding to unanswerable questions, context reinstatement in fact reduced DK responding to these questions, at the same time making participants more willing to report specific responses—such as the title of the book—participants could not have seen. In other words, when faced with recognition questions participants opted for specific responses in lieu of choosing the DK option more often when the original encoding context was reinstated just before the question was presented.…”

“…If DK responses are reformulated as correct answers to unanswerable questions, then it becomes of utmost importance to understand how different factors related to memory questioning affect this type of responding. A recent study by Krogulska et al (2020) approached this issue by investigating the role of context reinstatement, a standard procedure used to enhance memory in both laboratory procedures (Macken, 2002; Smith & Manzano, 2010) and forensic interviews (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992; Memon & Higham, 1999). If context reinstatement universally enhances the quality of memory reports, then one could predict that it also should make participants more able to appropriately use DK responses.…”

“…Here we present the results of two experiments that used the general method introduced by Krogulska et al (2020) to investigate the influence of context reinstatement on DK and DR responding to both answerable and unanswerable questions. The overarching aim of the study was to assess whether context reinstatement creates an illusion of answerability.…”