Campus Units
Psychology
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
2-21-2019
Journal or Book Title
PLOS ONE
Volume
14
Issue
2
First Page
e0212592
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0212592
Abstract
Witnesses are likely to describe a crime many times before testifying or encountering misinformation about that crime. Research examining the effect of retrieval on later suggestibility has yielded mixed results. LaPaglia and Chan manipulated whether misinformation was presented in a narrative or misleading questions, and they found that retrieval increased suggestibility when misinformation was presented in a narrative, but reduced suggestibility when the same misinformation was presented in questions. In the current study, we aimed to address why these differences occurred. Specifically, we examined whether contextual detail and narrative coherence during misinformation exposure influenced the relation between retrieval and suggestibility. Participants watched a robbery video and some were questioned about the event afterwards. They were then exposed to misinformation presented in a narrative (Experiment 1) or questions (Experiment 2) before taking a final memory test. Testing enhanced suggestibility when the misinformation phase reinstated contextual information of the event, but not when the misinformation phase included few contextual details–regardless of whether the misinformation was in a narrative or questions. In Experiment 3, disrupting narrative coherence by randomizing the order of contextual information eliminated retrieval-enhanced suggestibility. Therefore, context processing during the post-event information phase influences whether retrieval enhances or reduces eyewitness suggestibility.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Copyright Owner
The Author(s)
Copyright Date
2019
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
LaPaglia, Jessica A. and Chan, Jason C.K., "Telling a good story: The effects of memory retrieval and context processing on eyewitness suggestibility" (2019). Psychology Publications. 77.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/psychology_pubs/77
Included in
Cognition and Perception Commons, Criminology Commons, Demography, Population, and Ecology Commons, Experimental Analysis of Behavior Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Investigative Techniques Commons
Comments
This article is published as LaPaglia JA, Chan JCK (2019) Telling a good story: The effects of memory retrieval and context processing on eyewitness suggestibility. PLoS ONE 14(2): e0212592. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0212592. Posted with permission.