Cognitive Psychology Final Review: Eyewitness + False memory

issues with eyewitness identification

heavily relied upon, only correct about 40% of the time (Valentine et al., 2003)

central/peripheral tradeoff

central (emotional) aspects of a memory are enhanced at the expense of non-emotional aspects

weapons focus (Loftus et al., 1987)

images with a gun present lead to poorer participant memory of other aspects of the scene

cause of weapon focus (Posner, 1980 → Pickel 1999, also Pickel, 2009, and Fawcett et al., 2016)

traditionally believed to be presence of threat (Posner, 1980)

but weapon focus effects did not change with varying levels of threat represented (Pickel, 1999)

rather, effect is mediated by how much it violates participant expectations (ie if the gun-holder is a woman, Pickel, 2009, or if the gun appears in an unexpected context, Fawcett et al., 2016)

high perceptual load on eyewitness identification (Murphy & Greene, 2016)

Murphy & Greene, 2016: high perceptual load (crowded office) hurts eyewitness identification

stress/emotional state on eyewitness identification (Deffenbacher et al., 2004; Peters, 1988)

stressful situations impair eyewitness identification (Deffenbacher et al., 2004)

Peters, 1988: more identifications in people who were stressed out by a shot than not

cross-race effect (Behrnman & Davy, 2001)

eyewitnesses more accurately identify people of their same race, example of in-group/out-group effect, increases chances of people being identified based on race alone (Behrman & Davy, 2001)

→ UK makes lineups of all of the same race

why can’t eyewitnesses be shown a photo of the suspect before a lineup? (Deffenbacher et al., 2006)

source confusion: The witness recognizesthe suspect from the photo and confuses it for the memory (Deffenbacher et al., 2006)

simultaneous vs sequential lineups

simultaneous: views everyone in the lineup at the same time, assumes perpetrator is present, more correct identifications

sequential (Lindsay & Wells, 1985): sees lineup one at a time a needs to make a yes or no decision - makes eyewitnesses more conservative, more correct rejections

meta analysis : Steblay et al., 2001

do judges and jurors understand the nature of eyewitness testimony? Benton et al., 2006

Benton et al., 2006: judges no (41%), jurors even less (13%)

Ebbinghaus forgetting curve (1985); decay theory

memories exponentially decay with the passage of time, drops off sharply after 20 minutes and stabilizes after 2 days

issues with decay theory

• time encoding effects are not clear (Lewandowsky & Oberauer, 2009)

• salience may inhibit decay (Buhusi & Meck, 2006)

interference

new information contaminates the old memory trace

retroactive interference (Wohldmann et al., 2008)

new information interferes with the recall of previously learned information - adding new/similar memory traces makes it harder to recall older ones

→ leading questions influence

leading questions experiment (Loftus & Palmer, 1974; Loftus & Zanni, 1975)

1974: showed participants car crash and they changed how fast they thought the car was going based on how extreme adjective the experimenter used

1975: did you see the broken headlight vs did you see a broken headlight

leading questions and load theory

high perceptual load hurts eyewitness accuracy

high load vs low load office theft (based on clutter) did you see a stapler on the desk vs did you see the stapler on the desk

→ more were correct under low load

people still let leading questions effect them even when they know they are being misled (Eakin et al., 2003)

more errors in misinformation condition than control even though all participants were told there might be errors

proactive interference

previously learned info interferes with new information (ex: language learning, learning items in similar contexts like lists)

→ Lindsay et al., 2004: recalling details from a museum burglary were less accurate when participants had previously viewed a thematically similar video

reconsolidation effect on memory

memories become flexible when they are reactivated and can be changed when they move back into long term memory

→ Hupbach et al., 2007: subtle reminder of old info reactivates the memory and allows it to be changed by new information (retroactive interference)

flashbulb memories + how are they tested

memories with emotional charge are often remembered in great detail, high perceptual vigilance in high emotion moments (Todd et al., 2012)

→ test the consistency of memory rather than accuracy since autobiographical accuracy is very hard to gauge

Hirst et al., 2011 study on flashbulb memory consistency (9/11)

asked participants to describe where they were during 9/11 and followed up for 10 years

→ memory consistency reduced sharply in the first year and then stabilized over the decade (they doubted their take on the events themselves but were confident about how they experienced it even though neither were consistent)

reduced accuracy flashbulb memory studies

• the emotional reactions are remembered better than the events themselves (Hirst, 2010)

• emotional participants remember emotional events with more confidence but less accuracy (Schmidt, 2004)

Bartlett, 1932: The War of the Ghosts

serial reproduction of a folk story from a different culture will get more coherent within the cultural context of the person reproducing it

→ memory is reconstructed in line with schemas

Bartlett, 1932: schemas

mental structures that help people categorize the world and anticipate future events

Bransford & Johnston, 1972: doing laundry story

participants recalled more from a story when it fit within the mental schema of something they were familiar with (aided story comprehension)

Allport & Postman, 1947: schemas and race

subjects remember the black man holding a razor even though the white man was

→ people will misremember stories to fit them within their own stereotypes

reconstructing events that DONT fit within the schema

info that does not fit within schemas are less easily remembered

→ counterintuitive: unexpected info or unusual stimuli is harder to remember

→ people mistakenly remember books (that were not there) in a grad student’s office (Brewer & Treyens, 1981)

ideological congruency (Frenda et al., 2013; Greene et al., 2022)

people are more likely to believe in false stories or think they remember them more often if they fit their political beliefs

(Frenda et al., 2013): more likely to believe a political scandal about the candidate people don’t like

Greene et al., 2022: people more likely to believe headline that supports their views on vaccinations

mass examples of reconstructed memories

Satanism at McMartin elementary school, people believing they were sexually abused because therapists convinced they had suppressed it

Loftus & Pickrell (1995): people will make up elaborate stories about being lost in a shopping mall just by being told it happened, then replicated in 2023 by Murphy et al.