11 Repeated events, stress and memory

Question 1

What is memory in a legal context?

Answer 1

Witness/victim memory for crimes is important in a legal context as information provided in a statement can be influential in legal proceedings. This usually depends on how good someone’s memory is on what they have witnessed
- Focused on single events

Question 2

What is a repeated event?

Answer 2

A repeated event is the same type of event that is experienced on multiple occasions. Each event shares a common underlying theme and structure

Question 3

What are the repeated event situations?

Answer 3

There are many different situations where people will find themselves repeatedly victimised

• Domestic violence
• Child sexual abuse
• Stalking/harassment
• Bullying

Question 4

What is important about repeated events and memory evidence?

Answer 4

Complainants need to be able particularize one instance of abuse by recalling specific information about the time, place and content of the abuse

Question 5

Historically what has memory for repeated events focused on during the 1980s?

Answer 5

Focused on child populations.

Primarily to understand the children’s memory for repeated abuse (e.g., child sexual assault)

Question 6

Why has memory for repeated events in adult victims/witnesses have received less research attention

Answer 6

This might be because adults were considered to be are unlikely to remain in situations where they would be repeatedly victimised.

Research quite hard to conduct so could be due to feasibility

Question 7

How can you research memory for repeated events?

Answer 7

The most common methodology is:

Compare memory for a single event to memory for an instance of a repeated event

Question 8

What do all the methodology in researching repeated events are trying to assess?

Answer 8

what can people remember about this target event? and what effect does previous experience have on a similar target event

Question 9

How do we measure memory?

Answer 9

Primarily interest in memory accuracy for a target event (i.e., whether reported details match what actually happened)

Question 10

In what different ways is memory accuracy operationalized?

Answer 10

Correct details: experienced details from the event

Internal intrusion errors: experienced details from non-target events

External intrusion errors: non-experienced details (i.e., made up details)

Question 11

What are correct details?

Answer 11

Experienced details from the event

When details match what happened in the target event

Question 12

What are internal intrusion errors?

Answer 12

Experienced details from non-target events

Occurred in one of the other events but no the target event

Question 13

What are external intrusions errors?

Answer 13

Non-experienced details (ie.., made up details)

Reported things that didn’t happen and they are made up stuff also known as confabulation or commission errors

Question 14

What are the key findings for correct details?

Answer 14

Repeated event group tends to report fewer correct details about a target event compared to the single event group
- Indicating that repeated event group are less accurate in their memory than the single event group

Question 15

What are the key findings for internal intrusions incorrect details?

Answer 15

Repeated event group tends to report more internal intrusions errors about a target event compared to the single event group
-Suggesting that the repeated event group is less accurate in their memory than the single event group

Question 16

What are the key findings for external intrusions incorrect errors?

Answer 16

Repeated event group tends to report fewer external intrusions errors about a target event compared to the single event group

• Is that single event group reports more confabulations than the repeated event group
• One reason for this is that when you’re trying to remember an event your memory tends to have some gaps in it and people try to fill in those details and not realize they are doing it

Question 17

What do the findings for memory for the single and repeated events and what are the theories that account for the differences?

Answer 17

The findings indicate that memory for repeated events might be organized differently than memory for a single event

(1) Fuzzy Trace Theory
(2) Source Monitoring Framework

Question 18

What is the Fuzzy Trace Theory?

Answer 18

Tries to account for cognitive processes

Two types of memory traces are encoded for each type of event:

• Verbatim traces: encodes the exact surface details of an event (more specific)
• Gist traces: encodes the overall meaning and general structure of the event (more generalized)

Each time the same type of event is repeated

• A verbatim trace is encoded during each new event
• The same gist trace is activated and strengthened

Question 19

What does the Fuzzy Trace Theory predict?

Answer 19

This theory predicts that when someone has experienced a repeated event they might be more likely to access the ‘gist’ of an event rather than specific details which accounts for why repeated event participants report fewer accurate details (i.e., fewer correct details, more internal errors) than single event participants

Question 20

What is the Source Monitoring Framework theory?

Answer 20

When we encode a memory typically what we encode or what our memory traces contained in the content of the event but we don’t tend to really encode the time or source of the event

Memory encoding: people encode memory traces based on the content of the event rather than when it occurred (i.e., the source/origin of the event)

Memory retrieval: when people retrieve a memory trace, they need to make a decision about when the details of an event occurred ->this is when source monitoring errors can occur

Question 21

What are source monitoring errors in the SMF theory?

Answer 21

Associating an experienced detail with the incorrect occurrence. This is akin to an “internal intrusion error”
-Therefore, people that experience repeated events might be good at remembering what (the content) happened across the instances but struggle to determine when it occurred (during which event)

Question 22

What are the limitations of repeated events research?

Answer 22

• Many of these types of events are stressful in nature
• But most previous research has not considered the effect of ‘stress’ as a factor in the studies
• They tend to use innocuous events (i.e., interactive play sessions)
  e. g. domestic violence, child sexual abuse, stalking/harassment and bullying

Question 23

How is a memory for repeated events typically studied?

Answer 23

By comparing memory for a single event to memory for an instance of a repeated event

Question 24

How is memory evaluated in terms of accuracy?

Answer 24

Looking at both how many correct and incorrect details are reported about an instance

Question 25

What do previous studies on repeated events indicate?

Answer 25

They indicate that recalling information about one instance of a repeated event can be difficult compared to a single event. Repeated event participants tend to report fewer correct details, more internal intrusions and fewer external intrusions than a single event participants

Question 26

This pattern of results from studies on repeated events is because:

Answer 26

1. People tend to encode less specific memories for instances of repeated events (fuzzy trace theory)
2. People struggle to link experienced details with the correct occurrence (source monitoring errors)

Question 27

What is the question that guides stress and memory research?

Answer 27

Is memory better for stressful events compared to neutral events?

Question 28

According to Brown and Kulik, people tend to have ‘Flashbulb memories’. What are they?

Answer 28

People report having exceptionally clear, vivid and detailed recollections of unexpected and traumatic events they have experienced (e.g., 9/11 terrorist attacks, J.F.K assassination)

Question 29

It is difficult to determine memory accuracy for what type of memories?

Answer 29

Autobiographical memories (personal memories from your life e.g., birthday party, wedding, funeral) no objective account of that event

Question 30

What have researchers found when comparing memory for closely matched stressful and neutral stimuli?

Answer 30

More correct details are recalled for the more stressful stimuli than the neutral stimuli
-These findings suggest that emotional arousal (i.e., stress) during encoding appears to enhance long-term memory

Question 31

What are the three studies that have examined memory for repeated stressful events?

Answer 31

Adult study: Theunissen et al., (2017)
Child study: Price and Connolly (2007)
Adult study: Dilevski, Paterson & van Golde (2019)

Question 32

What is Theunissen et al., (2017) study?

Answer 32

1 group exposed to one traumatic car accident film, other groups exposed to three traumatic car accident films

Key findings:

• Repeated event group reported fewer correct details than single event group
• Repeated event group reported more external intrusion errors than single event group
• Overall, Memory for the repeated stressful event are less accurate than a single stressful event

Question 33

What are the limitations of Theunissen et al., (2017) study?

Answer 33

• No stress-free control group
• How often does someone witness multiple car accidents?
• Calculation of errors? might include both internal and external intrusion errors-> conflated or combined the errors
• Not ecologically valid

Question 34

What is Price and Connolly (2007) study?

Answer 34

Child sample: 4-5 year old children: children were recruited that were just starting swimming lessons and assessed their responses to the water and were split into 2 groups: anxious children and non-anxious children

Memory measures: correct details and internal intrusion errors

Key findings

• Repeated event group reported fewer correct details than single event group
• Repeated event group reported more internal intrusion errors than single event group

Question 35

What are the limitations of Price and Connolly (2007) study?

Answer 35

• Anxiety was not measured using a validated measure. Therefore, the anxiety groups may not truly represent ‘anxious’ and ‘non-anxious’ children
• Children weren’t randomly assigned to anxious and non-anxious groups. This could introduce confounding effects

Question 36

What is the Dilevski, Paterson & van Golde (2019) study?

Answer 36

Between-Subjects: 2 (event frequency: single, repeated) x 2 (event stress: stressful, non-stressful). After experiencing all the scenarios, participants compared a memory report about a target scenario

Memory measures were: correct details, internal and external intrusion errors

Key findings:
-There is no difference between the single and repeated non-stressful groups. The repeated event group is reporting fewer correct details than the single event group (correct details)

• Regardless of event stress, repeated event participants made more internal intrusion errors than single event participants. No influence of stress (internal intrusions)
• There was no difference between single and repeated stressful events. Fewer external intrusion errors were reported for repeated non-stressful events than a single non-stressful event (External intrusion)

Question 37

Does stress impact memory for single and repeated events differently?

Answer 37

• Correct: There appears to be evidence that shows stress does impact single and repeated events differently
• External intrusions: problematic study as it could be conflated in Theunissen et al., studies. No effect of stress
• Internal intrusions: stress does not have an impact on a number of internal intrusion errors

T: sig sig n/m
P: ns n/m ns
D: sig ns ns

Question 38

What do the findings suggest for stress and repeated event memory?

Answer 38

The findings suggest that experiencing repeated stressful events might make someone report fewer correct details when compared to experiencing a single stressful event.

They also show that there is no difference in the number of incorrect details reported (internal intrusion and external intrusion errors) when experiencing either a repeated or single stressful event.

Question 39

Regardless of event stress, what is the research findings for repeated event participants?

Answer 39

Regardless of event stress, repeated event participants are still more likely to make internal intrusion errors than single event participants

Question 40

What can memory research teach us about a complainant’s ability to particularize an instance of abuse?

Answer 40

Compared to a single event victim, a repeated event victim:

• Might report fewer correct details
• Remember what happened across instances, but have difficulty identifying when they occurred
• is less likely to make up random details

Question 41

What can we recommend for better recall of memories in legal situations?

Answer 41

• Can investigate interviewers (i.e., police) use better-interviewing techniques? Techniques that can elicit more information about on incident
• Maybe we need to change our expectations about how victims should be reporting about their experience(s) of abuse?
  - > Charging abuse as discrete acts vs abuse as continuous (a pattern of behaviour)