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Initial Testing Does Not Necessarily Affect Eyewitness Recall Assessed by Specific Questioning
Author(s) -
Migueles Malen,
GarcíaBajos Elvira,
Aizpurua Alaitz
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.3205
Subject(s) - recall , psychology , affect (linguistics) , event (particle physics) , eyewitness testimony , test (biology) , cognitive psychology , social psychology , recall test , eyewitness memory , free recall , developmental psychology , communication , paleontology , physics , quantum mechanics , biology
Summary In eyewitness situations, open recall is followed by specific questioning about the witnessed event. We examined whether initial testing affects later recall of actions and specific details. After watching a video of a bank robbery, participants completed an initial testing phase that involved free recall, specific questions about the actions or details of the event or a control condition with no initial testing. In the final test, correct and incorrect answers, accuracy and response confidence for actions and details were analysed. Initial testing affected neither recall nor confidence. The participants were more accurate for actions than details. Response confidence was higher for correct than incorrect answers and higher for details than actions in correct answers. The results showed that specific questioning affects differently the recall of event actions and details and that remembering details increased confidence. Investigative interviewers can use this evidence when questioning information not reported in initial testing.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.