The effects of co-witness discussion on confidence and precision in eyewitness memory reports

False remembering in real life: James Ost's contributions to memory psychology

This special issue honours James Ost's (1973-2019) contributions to our understanding of false and distorted remembering. In our editorial, we introduce some of James' distinctive research themes including the experiences of people who retract "recovered" memories, social (e.g., co-witness and interviewer influence) and personality influences on false remembering, the nature of false remembering itself (e.g., different types of false memories; false memories vs. false beliefs), public understanding of (false) memory, and a historical link to the work of Frederic Bartlett. We illustrate these themes through a number of key publications. The unifying thread behind James' work is his core interest in false/distorted remembering in real-life (typically high-stake) situations, in line with his engagement with the British False Memory Society and his role as an expert witness in court trials. The articles included in this special issue elaborate on the research themes to which James devoted his career and his curiosity.

Does experiencing inattentional blindness for crime influence eyewitness recall?

Witnesses may not notice crimes occurring when their attention is elsewhere, which may affect their memory. In this study, 174 participants completed an attention-demanding task while viewing a video containing an assault. Whether participants noticed the assault or experienced inattentional blindness for it was assessed. Then, participants were exposed to post-event information (containing misinformation) before completing a cued-recall task under one of three recall instructions (free, forced, or no instruction). Most participants experienced inattentional blindness for the assault (65.5%), which had a negative effect on recall, regardless of recall instruction. Specifically, participants who experienced inattentional blindness were less confident, complete, and accurate, and were more likely to report misinformation, than participants who noticed the crime. Witnesses who experienced inattentional blindness reported that they relied purely on post-event information to answer some questions. The findings suggest that caution should be taken when interviewing witnesses who have not paid attention to a crime.

How deception and believability feedback affect recall

While research suggests that telling lies can distort memory for the truth, the effects of receiving feedback about the believability about one's lies are not known. We hypothesised that participants who exaggerated the number of stolen items (vs. told the truth) in a mock insurance claim and then received feedback that their statement was believable (vs. not believable) would incorporate this lie into memory. In a two-phase between-subjects design, participants saw images of an office pre- and post-theft and were randomly assigned to report the number of stolen items accurately (truth-tellers) or exaggerate (liars). They were then randomly assigned to receive feedback that their statement was believable or not. Approximately two weeks later, participants' recall of the theft was measured. Liars and truth-tellers recalled a similar number of stolen items, but liars had less accurate recall for exactly which items were stolen. Liars (vs. truth-tellers) also made more omission errors. The majority of participants who fabricated additional stolen items (65.7%) incorporated one or more of these (false) items into their memory. Results suggest that source monitoring errors may lead fabricated details to be incorporated into memory. Although no effects of believability feedback were observed, recommendations for future researchers are discussed.

A Susceptible Period of Photic Day-Night Rhythm Loss in Common Marmoset Social Behavior Development

The prevalence of neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorders such as pervasive developmental disorders is rapidly increasing worldwide. Although these developmental disorders are known to be influenced by an individual’s genetic background, the potential biological responses to early life’s environmental exposure to both physical and psychological factors must also be considered. Many studies have acknowledged the influence of shorter time for rest at night and the simultaneous occurrence of various kinds of complications involving developmental disorders. In a prior study, we examined how a common marmoset’s (Callithrix jacchus) psychosocial development was affected when it was reared under constant daylight from birth and then reared individually by humans nursing them under constant light (LL) during their juvenile development stages. The behaviors of these marmosets were compared with those of normal day-night cycle (LD) marmosets using a multivariate analysis based on principal component analysis (PCA). That study found that LL marmosets relatively elicited egg-like calls (Ecall) and side-to-side shakes of the upper body with rapid head rotation through adulthood frequently. Based on the PCA, these behaviors were interpreted as “alert” or “hyperactive” states. However, we did not clarify susceptible periods of the photic rhythm loss experience and the psychological development output. In this study we summarize the following studies in our model animal colonies involving 30 animals (11 female, 19 males) to further explore critical age states of inquiry about each social behavior profiling. We compared social behaviors of three age stages, juvenile, adolescent and young adult equivalent to one another in four LL experience conditions, LL (postnatal day (P) 0 to around 150), Middle (P60–149, 90 days), Late (P150–239, 90 days), and LD (no experience). In the most representative 1st and 2nd principal component scores, the shifting to higher frequency of alert behaviors developed at the adult stage in LL, Middle, then Late in turn. The no LL experience group, LD, generally featured higher frequency of local preference of high position compared to LL experience present groups, in adulthood. This limited model primate study might inspire different developmental age sensitive mechanisms of neuronal network to control socio-emotional functions by utilizing the multivariate visualization method, BOUQUET. This study could potentially contribute to nurturing educational designs for social developmental disorders.

Social contagion of memory and the role of self-initiated relative judgments

Two experiments examined the role of spontaneous relative judgments within the social contagion of memory paradigm (Roediger, Meade, & Bergman, 2001). Participants viewed household scenes (for short or long durations) in collaboration with a confederate (with low, average, or superior memory ability) who falsely recalled incorrect items as having occurred in the scenes. Of interest was whether or not participants would spontaneously evaluate the state of their own memory relative to the state of the confederate's memory when remembering suggested information. Participant responses on a metacognitive questionnaire demonstrated that participants were aware of their own memory ability relative to the memory ability of their partner. Interestingly, this information influenced participants' remember responses on the recall test only when they felt their own memory was relatively poor. Participants make self-initiated, relative judgments of memory when working with others on a memory test, and these judgments are driven by metacognitive differences in remember responses. The results highlight the importance of metacognition in understanding relative judgments in social memory.