Are witnesses able to avoid highly accessible misinformation? Examining the efficacy of different warnings for high and low accessibility postevent misinformation.

Abstract

The reliability of eyewitness memory continues to be an area of concern, particularly in situations that involve conflicting sources of information (e.g., the misinformation effect; Loftus et al., 1978, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 4[1], 19-31). To mitigate the negative effects of misinformation, researchers have examined the efficacy of warnings that highlight the unreliability of postevent information. However, warnings have proven less effective for highly accessible misinformation (Eakin et al., 2003, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29[5], 813-825). In the present study, we examined the effects of different types of warnings for low accessibility misinformation in a standard single test misinformation paradigm, and highly accessible misinformation in a repeated testing misinformation paradigm (Chan et al., 2009, Psychological Science, 20[1], 66-73). We modeled these warnings after Eakin et al. (2003) to include both general warnings and specific question-by-question warnings. We found that warnings were effective in both types of misinformation paradigms. Additionally, memory accuracy in situations where participants were exposed to misleading information was improved when specific and general warnings were combined. We argue that both retrieval blocking of low accessibility items and enhanced contextual discrimination account for these findings.