Memory at the Sharp End: The Costs of Remembering With Others in Forensic Contexts

Protecting against misinformation: Evaluating the effectiveness of three techniques to reduce memory conformity

The memory conformity effect occurs when people witness a given incident (e.g. a crime) then talk to each other about it, and the statement of one person affects the memory account of the other person with respect to this incident. The aim of this article is to improve the quality of witness testimony by verifying the effectiveness of three methods that aim to reduce memory conformity effect: (1) an extended warning against misinformation; (2) a method based on information about memory functioning and its fallibility and (3) a method consisting in motivating participants to resist influence and demonstrating their individual vulnerability to it. In the presented experiment, the innovative MORI technique was used to study the memory conformity effect. This technique allows a pair of participants to sit beside each other, look at the same screen and see a different version of the same criminal event. In the next stages, the subjects are asked to answer a series of questions about different details, thereby introducing mutual misinformation; then, the participants perform an individual memory test. In the experimental conditions, this test was preceded by one of the three tested methods in each group, with the aim of determining their effectiveness in reducing memory conformity. It turns out that the implementation of an extended warning against misinformation eliminated the memory conformity effect, while the application of two other methods led to a reduction (but not complete elimination) of the studied phenomenon.

Listeners' effects on autobiographical memory for recent events

The current study tested the effects of attentive versus distracted listening on both speakers and listeners in recall of an autobiographical memory. Participants included 128 pairs of friends who spoke with each other over a video call about recent negative experience that one of them had. Participants were randomly assigned to be speakers or listeners, and listeners were randomly assigned to an attentive and a distracted condition. Memory narratives were coded for factual and interpretive content. Participants returned approximately 4 weeks later, when both speaker and listener separately reported their memories of the prior conversation. Attentive listening was linked both to greater recall by the speaker at time 1 and greater listener recall at time 2, but not to speaker's recall at time 2. Results show the effects of listener contributions to recall in the moment but raise questions as to whether they persist beyond the conversation in many scenarios.

The effects of alcohol and co-witness information on memory reports: a field study

RATIONALE

Witnesses who discuss a crime together may report details that they did not see themselves but heard about from their co-witness. Co-witness information may have beneficial and harmful effects on memory accuracy depending on whether the information was correct or incorrect.

OBJECTIVES

Given the prevalence of intoxicated witnesses, it is imperative to understand how alcohol influences this effect.

METHODS

The present study asked pubgoers (n = 67) at varying levels of intoxication to recall a mock crime video after having also watched a video witness statement containing both correct and false information.

RESULTS

Increased intoxication was associated with decreased confidence, completeness and accuracy, but no increased tendency to report false information. Exposure to incorrect post-event information (PEI) can lead to the incorporation of incorrect information, whereas exposure to correct PEI increased accuracy, regardless of individuals' alcohol intoxication status.

CONCLUSIONS

Thus, whilst discussion and intoxication can negatively impact eyewitness memory, discussion may also have benefits for both sober and intoxicated witnesses.

Evaluating witness testimony: Juror knowledge, false memory, and the utility of evidence-based directions

Eyewitness evidence is often important in criminal cases, but false or misleading eyewitness evidence is known to be a leading cause of wrongful convictions. One explanation for mistakes that jurors are making when evaluating eyewitness evidence is their lack of accurate knowledge relating to false memory. This article examines lay beliefs relating to memory and ways in which they diverge from expert consensus. It identifies ways in which current directions provided to jurors in this area are likely to be deficient in influencing juror knowledge and in helping them apply that knowledge in a case context, and develops criteria that can be used to assess the likely effectiveness of directions. A new evidence-based training direction is designed based on these criteria, and tested in a mock jury study (N = 411). Results suggest that the proposed direction is more effective than a basic direction in influencing juror knowledge and facilitating the application of that knowledge to case facts.

Feedback and Direction Sources Influence Navigation Decision Making on Experienced Routes

When navigating in a new environment, it is typical for people to resort to external guidance such as Global Positioning System (GPS), or people. However, in the real world, even though navigators have learned the route, they may still prefer to travel with external guidance. We explored how the availability of feedback and the source of external guidance affect navigation decision-making on experienced routes in the presence of external guidance. In three experiments, participants navigated a simulated route three times and then verbally confirmed that they had learned it. They then traveled the same route again, accompanied with no, correct, or incorrect direction guidance, which latter two were provided by a GPS (Experiment 1), a stranger (Experiment 2), or a friend (Experiment 3). Half of the participants received immediate feedback on their navigation decisions, while the other half without feedback did not know if they had selected the correct directions. Generally, without feedback, participants relied on external guidance, regardless of the direction sources. Results also showed that participants trusted the GPS the most, but performed best with their friends as a direction source. With feedback, participants did not show differences in performance between the correct and incorrect guidance conditions, indicating that feedback plays a critical role in evaluating the reliability of external guidance. Our findings suggest that incorrect guidance without any feedback might disturb navigation decision-making, which was further moderated by the perceived credibility of direction sources. We discuss these results within the context of navigation decision-making theory and consider implications for wayfinding behaviors as a social activity.

Editors' Introduction: Remembering With Others: Conversational Dynamics and Mnemonic Outcomes

Remembering the past through conversations with others is a uniquely human endeavor. Conversational remembering consists of specific dynamics and can lead to mnemonic outcomes. While conversational dynamics refer to the interactive processes (e.g., the roles speakers and listeners may undertake during the conversation) shaping collaborative remembering, conversational outcomes are about the mnemonic and functional consequences (e.g., forging social bonds) of those processes. Thus, the aim of the present article is to introduce the reader to key concepts and paradigms that have been rigorously developed to empirically investigate the dynamics and outcomes of conversational remembering in cognitive research. The collected review and empirical articles gathered in this topic provide the state-of-the-art in the field.

An Evolutionary Approach to the Study of Collaborative Remembering?

Hope and Gabbert (2008) and Jay and colleagues (in press) show us that collaborative remembering, in certain contexts, may result in incomplete and less accurate memories. Here, I will discuss the evolutionary origins of this behavior, linking it to phenomena such as social contagion, conformity, and social learning, which are highly adaptive and widespread across non-human taxa.

Storytelling as Adaptive Collective Sensemaking

Storytelling represents a key element in the creation and propagation of culture. Three main accounts of the adaptive function of storytelling include (a) manipulating the behavior of the audience to enhance the fitness of the narrator, (b) transmitting survival‐relevant information while avoiding the costs involved in the first‐hand acquisition of that information, and (c) maintaining social bonds or group‐level cooperation. We assess the substantial evidence collected in experimental and ethnographic studies for each account. These accounts do not always appeal to the specific features of storytelling above and beyond language use in general. We propose that the specific adaptive value of storytelling lies in making sense of non‐routine, uncertain, or novel situations, thereby enabling the collaborative development of previously acquired skills and knowledge, but also promoting social cohesion by strengthening intragroup identity and clarifying intergroup relations.

Bietti, Tilston and Bangerter take an evolutionary approach towards memory transmission and storytelling, arguing that storytelling plays a central role in the creation and transmission of cultural information. They suggest that storytelling is a vehicle to transmit survival‐related information that helps to avoid the costs involved in the first‐hand acquisition of that information and contributes to the maintenance of social bonds and group‐level cooperation. Furthermore, Bietti et al. argue that, going beyond storytelling’s individualist role of manipulating the audience to enhance fitness of the narrator, that these adaptive functions of storytelling may well be assigned to other forms of language use besides narration (e.g., instructional discourse and argumentation). Based on this evidence, Bietti and colleagues claim that the specific adaptive function of storytelling lies in making sense of non‐routine, uncertain, or novel situations, thereby enabling collective sensemaking.