Task 1 Flashcards
Hjelmsäter Roos af, E., Öhman, L., & Granhag, P.A. (2016). The sinking of M/V Estonia: An archival study of the survivors’ witness reports.
AIM
METHOD
RESULTS
LIMITATIONS
- examine applicability of findings of eyewitness studies on real life traumatic events
- retrospectively analysed the memory reports of the surviving passengers from real life ship sinking of the M/V Estonia (989 persons sank/ only 137 persons survived) = traumatic event with high stress and high involvement
- they report were given during police interview about what had happened and were not done by the researchers themselves
- statement were read several times to analyse themes and were compared to the other finding from the investigation
- 12 themes were identified
- half of those themes were included in over 50% of the reports
- some themes included in many reports (list and emergency announcement = salient or important), some themes less reported (duration, engine sound)
- the crew remembered reports included more themes then the passenger reports (for example: all of them remembered that the ship sank stern first, while only 2/3 of passengers reported that)
- -> fragmented but mostly accurate reports
- -> taken all together more complete report
- -> salient and important for surviving stimuli more reported
- -> visual stimuli more reported
- no experimental setting –> no control over confounding etc.
- no control group
- interview not conducted by researcher in structured manner (don’t know how conducted)
- retrospectively reconstructed the events (don’t know what really happened –> limited inference about the accuracy)
Experiment vs. Real Life Memory
Hjelmsäter et al.
- there is a difference of experimental studies on eyewitnesses and real life event eyewitnesses
- -> witness involvement (more involved = more accurate report)
- -> stress levels (stress has supposedly negative effect on memory)
- -> memory (real life usually more accurate, experiment more vulnerable to false memory)
- auditory memory less good then visual
- temporal observation (usually reported retrospectively) –> short time over- longer time underestimated
Peterson, C. (2015). A decade later: Adolescents’ memory for medical emergencies.
AIM
METHOD
RESULTS
(LIMITATIONS)
- explore adolescent’s recall of a salient emotional event a decade after it occurred, focusing on whether discussion through formal interviews influences that recall
- decade earlier participants (39) were recruited at a hospital
- they (3-5 year-olds) and their parents were interviewed about an injury and the following treatment that brought them into the hospital
- half of the participants had a reinstatement interview after 5 years
- the participants were interviewed variously often before the present interview (2-5 times)
- during the present interview the interviewer wanted to asses the accuracy, completeness (reliability)
injury
- accuracy had deteriorated somewhat, recall of completeness, components and unique details were still very high (85%)
- accuracy still quite high (70%)
- more detailed reports then initially
hospital
- poor recall (31% complete)
–> maybe less comprehensible for children
- number of pre-interviews and presence of the reinstatement interview did not have a significant impact –> still believed that reminiscing with family helped consolidation
Krix, A.C., Sauerland, M., Lorei, C., & Rispens, I. (2015). Consistency across repeated eyewitness interviews: Contrasting police detectives’ beliefs with actual eyewitness performance.
AIM
METHOD
RESULTS
LIMITATIONS
- compare the accuracy of eyewitnesses with the belief about the accuracy that police officers hold
- 2x2 design
- 84 students in the memory group
- 93 detectives in the estimation group
memory group - were shown a film of a robbery
- first interview 30 minutes later (SAI + free recall)
- second interview one week later
estimation group - police participants got also to view the clip
- got a questionnaire where they were supposed to estimate the accuracies for the different time points as well as for consistent, forgotten, reminiscent and contradictory information and overall
- -> siehe table
- overall much better actual memory accuracy than estimated
- over 80% except for the contradicting facts (40%)
- the estimation was for the most part even below that, except for the first interview and the consistent info (45%, 55%)
- -> reminiscence is common
- -> accuracy is overall high, only contradicting is a sign of low accuracy
- -> police officers greatly underestimate eyewitness abilities
- -> should be incorporated in the training (don’t generalize mistrust)
- estimation group provided estimates for the first and second recall attempt during a single session
- before providing estimates, estimation group watched the crime scene = unrealistic (needed to have a control state here)
Smeets, T., Candel, I., & Merckelbach, H. (2004). Accuracy, completeness, and consistency of emotional memories.
AIM
METHOD
RESULTS
LIMITATIONS
- to examine the completeness, accuracy and consistency of emotional memory (because judges and layers tend to think it is quite poor)
- 44 Maastricht students
- they watched a rather emotional film clip
- then they had to rate the film clip (checking if emotional)
- once after 3 minutes once after 3 weeks they had to give a written account about what happened in the clip (free-recall)
- accuracy on both account was high (85%)
- there were a some inconsistencies
- the completeness was poorer in the free recall (55%, 51%)
- replicated the results in a study with a questionnaire with a few memory aids instead of free recall –> accuracy went up a bit, inconsistency rate stayed roughly the same, completeness went up (71%, 66%)
- -> In line with previous research, found that accounts of emotional events can be highly accurate but tend to be incomplete
- -> inconsistencies can NOT be seen as valid predictors of testimonial inaccuracy
- biggest: watching a emotional 2 minute movie clip is not the same as being in a real life emotional situation (much less involvement)
Yuille, J.C., & Cutshall, J.L. (1986). A case study of eyewitness memory of a crime.
AIM
METHOD
RESULTS
LIMITATIONS
- examine the accuracy of eyewitnesses of a real-life crime
- case study
- 13 witnesses of a shooting (one person dead, one wounded) agreed after the police interviewing to take part in the study
- interview by researcher done 5 months after the shooting
- witnesses were very accurate (comparable to other studies - around 80% –> differed for certain categories (people, objects) = possible weapon effect)
- there was little change in amount or accuracy of recall over 5 months
- some aspects of colour memory, and age, height, and weight estimations were found to be subject to error
- eyewitnesses resisted leading questions, and their stress level at the time of the event appeared to have no negative effects on subsequent memory
- no measure of stress at the time (just retrospective self-reporting)
- only 13 participants
- case study (none of the experimental control)
- researcher only conducted the second interview
Factors which could influence memory performance: Consolidation Reinstatement Salience Repetition Timing of the interview
= processing that takes place when sensory input is transformed into more durable memory representation
= provision of cues/reminders of an event at a later point in time
–> can be helpful (Duh!)
= particularly noticeable or important events
(usually better remembered)
–> unclear which effects repeated interviews have on memory performance
- Early interviews: most beneficial for later accurate recall –> children that were interviewed within the first week after an event were found to show more accurate recall after 1 year
- Late initial interviews: reactivation: late interviews are more effective at maintaining LTM than early initial interview –> reencoding and retrieval of memory is more effortful
Ackerman, R., & Goldsmith, M. (2008). Control over grain size in memory reporting-with and without satisficing knowledge.
Experiment 1A
(Experiment 1B)
AIM
METHOD
RESULT
LIMITATION
- examine whether people would rather sacrifice precision/informativeness or confidence in a knowledge question
- 24 pp had to answer a questionnaire with either moderate knowledge items or low knowledge items
- all of the items where questions which could be answered with numbers (How old was Jesus when he died? -> I made that up cause I did not find the examples in the article)
—> MK items induce satisfied knowledge = satisfy correctness and informativeness criteria
—> LK items induce unsatisfied knowledge = not satisfy both criteria at the same time –> violation of confidence criterion (prediction) - they were both a free grain and a fixed grain phase
(- in the free grain phase pp could have answered as coarse as they wanted: Jesus was between 0-100 J.) - also, they indicated their confidence for each item
- participants gave not coarse answers for the LK items in the free grain phase
- they were (therefore) sign. less accurate
- they were in both phases less confident about the LK items
- replicated findings in experiment 1B (difference = no confidence rating for free grain phase, so that low confidence could not function as a caveat)
- -> people sacrifice confidence and therefore accuracy for informativeness if both cannot be satisfied
- it is subjective what is medium and low knowledge
Ackerman, R., & Goldsmith, M. (2008). Control over grain size in memory reporting-with and without satisficing knowledge.
Experiment 2
Experiment 3
AIM
METHOD
RESULT
LIMITATION
- replicate the findings from experiment 1, but with learned vs. not learned items
- same as experiment 1
- difference: used only low knowledge items but of half of them the answers were first shown to the participants (initial learning phase)
- outcome pattern responded to 1st experiment –> learned items = MK items, not learned items = LK items
- limitation: not such a big sample
- influence of the answering option “I don’t know” on the findings from the previous experiments
- same as 1st experiment with the added option of “I don’t know”
- -> Satisficing model: predicts that PP would rather give a very coarse answer than to say “I don’t know” –they have full control over the grain size of their answers so there is no need to respond don’t know
- -> Dual-criterion model: PP don’t want to violate any of the criterions, so they would rather say that they don’t know the answer (giving a coarse answer is less socially acceptable than simply saying that one doesn’t know
- dual criterion model correct (people used I don’t know option more often for LK items)
- less criterion violations then in experiment 1a
-limitation: not big sample
Butt, M.M., Colloff, M.F., Magner, E., & Flowe, H. D. (2020) Eyewitness memory in the news can affect the strategic regulation of memory reporting.
Aim
Method
Results
Limitations
(Weber, & Brewer, 2008) did basically the same study
Brewer et al. 2018 also similar
- examine the effect of news about the inaccuracy of eyewitnesses on the regulation of reporting
- A 3 (eyewitness information condition; accurate, inaccurate, control) X 2 (grain size; fine or coarse) X 2(phase; one or two) mixed design
- 226 pp watched a mock crime video
1st phase - forced decision/closed questions about the crime (either fine or coarse grained)
2nd phase - were given the answers (fine and coarse) they gave in phase 1 and were ask which option they would like to report or if no option
- pps in the “eyewitnesses are inaccurate” condition were less confident about their memory and reported less details (more conservative criterion)
- they did not made their answers coarser
- in a 2nd experiment they repeated that with a large sample and line-up identification –> again less confident but, same performance as other groups
- limitations?
- in general, when the given the choice people are more informative then coarse!!! (Brewer & Weber, 2008)
- when trying to get people to get to report mostly accurate but coarse info (might be helpful) –> they were successful in the cued recall forced reporting of coarse-grain condition
Evans, J.R., & Fisher, R.P. (2011). Eyewitness memory: Balancing the accuracy, precision and quantity of information through metacognitive monitoring and control.
- examine 2 mechanisms of metacognitive control: Exercising a report option (withholding uncertain responses) and adjusting response precision (providing imprecise, but likely accurate, responses)
- pps witnessed a mock crime
- interviewed 10 minutes or 1 week later
- -> 3 formats: free narrative, 15 cued recall (open), yes/no(closed) –> different level of control over their answer (grain size)
- trade-offs between accuracy, quantity and precision of information
- depending on the format: people maintained their accuracy by being more imprecise (free) or opting not to answer (yes/no)
• Main effect: delay significantly less information and fewer details reported (all interview formats)
• Marginal effect: delay slightly lower accuracy in comparison to no delay
• Main effect: free narrative condition yields significantly higher accuracy rates, but less details
➔More confidence = more accurate
➔But overconfidence can give less precise answers
➔So, can’t rely on confidence
==> if the minimum-informative criteria is satisfied people do tailor their answers to be more accurate through metacognitive control - precision doesn’t have a standardised definition
- delay is here a week, whereas in the real world it might imply a year
Important terms
Accuracy
Consistency
Completeness
Omission errors
Commission errors
Reminiscence
= n of correct answers given / n of answers given
= degree of how much the two or more recounts correlate with each other
= how much information they give of the entirety of information presented (need ground truth to determine that, or at least close to that)
➔All independent factors!!!
= leaving out one of the elements (might be forgetting)
= introduction of a totally new element which are not true (might be false memories)
= details previously unrecalled (details mostly highly accurate)
Granularity
= levels of precision(more accurate) or coarseness(more general) of a response
•Fine grain, coarse grain
•Confidence criteria, informativeness criteria
> In a situation where both can’t be met, people tend to sacrifice the confidence criteria
–> control of grain size in memory is guided by correctness and informativeness
Social communication approach
= focuses on cooperative pragmatic principles involved in the explicit and implicit communication when question is asked
- take into account pragmatic considerations and tactic assumptions relating to the background and existing knowledge of the questioner (personal goals, purpose of question)
• adjust level of detail of information they convey according to their perception of how much the listener needs to know!
Metacognitive approach
= memory reporting is guided by personal and social goals and the monitoring and control processes that underlie strategic memory performance –> forms a memory theory
• previous findings show that memory performance depends on an interaction btw memory content and metacognitive processes that guide memory search and retrieval, determine whether answers are reported etc
