(2018), in which memory accuracy was found to be related to indicators of retrieval effort in witnesses’ responses. We do this by replicating and extending the research of Lindholm et al. The present study attempts to provide insight into potential differences between honestly reported correct and incorrect verbal eyewitness testimonies. Despite its importance to the judicial process, relatively little research has examined the extent to which erroneous eyewitness memories may differ from those that are accurate. While differentiating between sincere correct and incorrect memories may be critical to reaching valid judicial decisions, research has demonstrated that people have great difficulty in judging the accuracy of others’ memories ( Lindholm, 2005, 2008a, b). Perhaps less obvious, and another major source of eyewitness error, is when a witness gives an honest report but remembers things incorrectly. Erroneous eyewitness reports are sometimes due to a witness’ deliberate lies about the target event (see DePaulo et al., 2003 Sporer and Schwandt, 2006 Vrij et al., 2017).
Although playing a central role in criminal investigations and decision-making, eyewitness evidence has often been found to be unreliable, and constitutes a major contributing factor behind wrongful convictions ( Garrett, 2011 Innocence project, 2018). In sum, the results support previous findings of a relationship between memory accuracy and objectively verifiable cues to retrieval effort.Įyewitness memories are often critical sources of information for investigating what happened during a criminal offense ( Wells et al., 2006). Furthermore, participants were more confident in correct than incorrect responses, and the effort cues partially mediated this confidence-accuracy relation. While correct responses were produced faster than incorrect responses, delays in responses proved a better predictor of accuracy than response latency. Results showed that incorrect memories included more “effort cues” than correct memories. We then analyzed retrieval effort cues in witness responses.
Participants watched a film sequence with a staged crime and were interviewed about its content. We aimed to replicate and extend these findings, adding retrieval latency as a predictor of memory accuracy.
Recent research, however, suggests that incorrect memories are more effortful to retrieve than correct memories, and confidence in a memory is based on retrieval effort. Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, SwedenĮvaluating eyewitness testimonies has proven a difficult task.Gustafsson *, Torun Lindholm and Fredrik U.
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